Worth getting Skylake CPUs over the current range?

So one advantage of taking forever to build a PC is that new parts keep coming out! The skylake CPUs are out from Intel and I...have no idea how to judge them. The i5 6600k costs 1 dollar more than the older i5 4690k so I thought it'd be a no brainer to buy the new one until I looked at the stats and well, they seem to be almost exactly the same. See here. I readily admit that I don't understand the numbers and am operating mostly on the "more numbers = more good" line of thought. It seems to do better in the cinebenchmark software but I don't know if that really applies to games.

I've heard the new ones support DDR4 ram, which I wouldn't be buying at this point anyway and works better with Windows 10, which I don't use but might use in the future.

So what's the big difference here? I fully admit I lack the data to come to a conclusion here.

Edit: Oh and of course I'd need a slightly different (and by the looks of it, more expensive) motherboard for the i5 6600k, so there's also the question of whether the little bit of extra performance is worth the extra cost on the mobo

@hayt: I'm in the same boat, not really sure, trying to read what I find. I probably won't wait for the more advanced chipsets to be released, just need something sooner than later.

I'm afraid I can't help you with your overall question as I haven't looked at the benchmarks for the new chips. That said the initial impression I'm getting is the main benefit is reduced power consumption. Which unless you're a penny scrimper or a laptop user I can't see being of much interest to you. Maybe it'll help keep the temps lower for higher overclocking overhead, but I have no idea.

When you say the new ones support DDR4, are you sure you don't mean they require DDR4 RAM? I thought with the 5xxx range DDR4 was not optional, and unless the new mobos for the 6xxx range have DDR4 and DDR3 slots (there were rumours about something called UniDIMM coming out with Skylake) then you will not only need a new mobo if you opt for the 6xxx, but new RAM too.

That said, DDR4 looks awesome:

The only current downside with DDR4 is the CAS latencies are much higher. The higher default clock speed for the RAM will alleviate this but maybe waiting until DDR4 is a bit more mainstream (and the costs come down) could be of benefit.

@bollard: oh that's interesting and very likely accurate. That makes the 6600k less desirable as I was hoping to carry over my DDR3 ram to save some money there.

Simply put new skylake chips support both ddr3 and ddr4 sticks and it's basically up to your choice of motherboard but it will limit you as there are far fewer z170 boards with ddr3 sorry.

As for main question yeah it's another underwhelming cpu from intel but if price is the same just go Broadwell z97 to use ddr3 unless you find a ddr3 skylake board you like.

@junkboy0: Cheers. I'm not terribly picky about motherboards so long as it's ATX with 4 ram slots to be honest so maybe there is a ddr3 skylake for me. If I found one with DDR3 and DDR4 support I could swap the ram a few paycheques from now if I so desire too.

There is little reason to not buy one outside of wanting to re-use older memory since it's primarily going to be DDR4 focused. You aren't going to see any intel fire sales on old gear, they just don't do that.

- Don't upgrade for one unless you're running a 2500-series intel or older.

- If you're buying anyway (new build) then go for it.

@korwin:the point of contention for me is that the price of needing to buy new ram, and a slightly more expensive motherboard doesn't seem to be worth the very small performance increase I'd be getting(unless I'm wrong and it is much better than the older i5s)

@corvak: I have the i5 2500K so I feel I'm due for a new one, I just need to decide whether it's worth the extra few hundred (in ram and mobo costs) to go with the Skylake or not. I've found some motherboards that are socket 1151 and have DDR3 to support so I could buy that and use my current ram with the new CPU but wouldn't be able to upgrade to DDR4 later. The perfect one would be one that has socket 1151 and DDR3 and DDR4 support, but I'm not sure they exist.

I'm going for a totally new build (coming from a q9300). Seems like there's a big debate over whether a 6-core Haswell cpu is better than Skylake (in my case, i7-5820k vs i7-6700k). I was going to go straight for Skylake, but actually the 5820k is $50 cheaper right now at Microcenter, and I hear gaming performance for both is almost identical overclocked, so why not the extra cores? It's a lot to take in for someone who hasn't built a new PC since the aforementioned q9300. Anyone have any quick thoughts on the matter?

In terms of noticeable performance I don't think you'd find much difference between Haswell and Skylake. Personally, I tend to just read Anandtech's reviews and architecture articles. Their conclusion was that Skylake's gaming performance was equal to or very very slightly worse than Haswell. Most of the software benchmarks are in favor of Skylake, but that doesn't seem to transfer over to games. If they are the same price though, there is no reason to go with the old tech.

No. You won't see much of a performance bump, even with DDR4. If anything, I would get the i7-5820k which is a hexacore proc.

If you're already thinking in terms of performance per dollar and not what you can get for a set budget, get the older generation and avoid the buyer's remorse. I bought an i7-4770k when Haswell came out and I'm really wondering why I didn't go lower range for what I'm actually doing.

These days unless you are doing a lot of transcoding/compiling, the extra CPU won't be to your benefit enough to justify the cost.

Edit: Horseman's cheaper/more cores bid is a good one, especially with Windows 8.1/10

@churrific: You came to the right conclusion based on your current rig . Like others have said very few programs actually see any gains with ddr4 and those are not consumer programs. Going with X99 and getting hexa gives you a far bigger upgrade so spending more on ram in your case is fine.

Thanks guys. After some further reading I'm going to go with the i5-4690K as I don't think I'll be seeing huge gains from DDR4 or the 6600k and the Hexacore is a bit rich for my blood. Might use the savings to upgrade SSD instead.

If anyone thinks I'm making a mistake speak now or forever hold your peace haha

Ooo, yes, that SSD will make you super happy.

@hayt: nope at some point you gotta buy something and you'll likely just enjoy the fast boot time on an ssd way more.

Ssd is the single biggest upgrade you can do to a pc still using a mechanical drive for boot. 4690k is a great chip, enjoy your new pc and don't forget to play agar.io on it as your first thing to really use that power!