I'm getting sorted to build myself a new PC soon, and I've been a bit stumped over motherboard chip-sets. I'm probably just going to go for a standard Intel 1150 like the ASRock Z97 Pro4 or the ASUS Z97-A, but does anyone here with a bit more knowledge than me know if X99 (Intel 2011-3) boards are worthwhile yet? I'm of the impression that the i7 4790K is way more than enough for most modern videogames, but is there any tangible benefit to DDR4 at the moment? (Or in the near future?)

This will be my first rig in about 6 years because I've been using a MacBook for the last few years and I haven't been particularly big on PC gaming. Because I'm building from scratch I was just wondering if it would be worth spending the extra few hundred bucks, and making sure this mobo will last me a decent 5 years? (probably more than a 'few hundred' considering how expensive 2011-3 CPUs are)

Do you already own the 4790K? If not then wait a month or two for skylake cpu and the 170 chipset boards which are supposed to be on their way sometime in August. Save up some extra dough if that's a issue then go with DDR 4 at that time. No need to worry about if there are tangible benefits since you will be able to take advantage of them right from jump. That's what I would do. Good website for questions like these is tomshardware.com

@mr402: Nah, I don't own a 4790K, I was just using it as an example of an LGA 1150 processor that's (at least from everyone I've heard) more than enough for any modern games.

I heard about the Skylake CPU's and the 170/1151's, but I wasn't sure if it was worth it at all. I know they're refreshes of the 14nm broadwell chips, so is it likely they'll be any more reasonably priced than the original broadwells? I've been looking into this casually over the last few months while I was finishing off some of my uni exams (I'm done as of Friday), and it seems like shit just comes out so regularly that it's pointless waiting forever. I can't tell if I just picked a really bad time to get into this, or if it's always this awkward.

Living in Australia, I'm not exactly thrilled about the idea of paying $550-800 for a mid-to-low-end 2011-3 processor as it is, even a 980Ti is about $1050 over here at the moment. So I'm thinking I might just suck it up and go with a 970 and an i5 if there isn't any serious prospect of these new chipsets being decent value for money right off the bat.

@ohnooh: I5 and 970 will serve you well 1080p single monitor. Its the core of my current rig and at 1080p which is the max my television supports I have had nothing but great performance. Too bad the price difference there is so extreme though. Another bummer is your timeing. Your doing a build during a transisition phase which not always the best time to spend that kind of dough.

There is not way to really future proof for chipsets as they change fairly often. By the time you need to do a CPU upgrade, a new chipset will most likely be required. I would recommend going for a 5820k with a 2011-v3. It's a hexacore processor and yes, it's not clocked as high as the 4790k but benchmarks are roughly equal and as games use more cores in the future, it might be the way to go.

I would recommend against i5's. I have one for my gaming rig but I regret it as any other task is going to be much slower than with an i7. Yes, they are both quad core, but i7's use hyper threading which means you effectively get 8 cores.

Within the next 2 to 3 years, 4k monitors are going to get really good and will come drastically down in price. A 970 is fine though because when that time rolls around, GFX cards will be much much better and you'll want to upgrade it anyways. Now, if you want to buy an Occulus when it comes out, I would get a 980ti.

@ohnooh: Skylake uses the same 14nm manufacturing process as Broadwell, but it's a new microarchitecture, not a refresh. Broadwell was a "tick" in intels cycle, so it wasn't mych different to Haswell apart from the shrinking of the die.

Yes, it's always this awkward. The next best thing is constantly around the corner, you just need to decide if it's actually worth waiting for. There is very little reason to suggest that DDR4 will be of an immediate tangible benefit to you. An i5 and 970 is a very capable machine in its own right.

Oh, and just to give you some perspective on the whole "future proofing motherboards" thing, I haven't once upgraded my CPU without also upgrading my motherboard.

@mr402:I'm currently running a 1440p external (a single 1080p monitor is just not enough for comfortable Pro-Tools work) so I'm a little concerned the 970 won't totally cut it. I suppose there is always room to easily upgrade my videocard in a few years though.

@horseman6: I was actually considering buying something like the 5820K (The 4970K is an i7, but I'm pretty sure the 5820K is a hexacore anyway), but I've heard they have gimped PCI-e lanes which could be an issue in the future if I ever decide to SLI 970's, etc., because I already need to use a few expansion cards for audio interface stuff. I don't think I'd be able to run an NVMe/M.2 SDD at all?

@pcorb: I knew I would have to just suck it up and pick something when I felt like it was worthwhile, and I wasn't really expecting any particular chipset to be good for upgrading, but the big thing that was bothering me is that when I do eventually upgrade I'll have to change out all my RAM too. I guess an extra $200 on my next rebuild however many years in the future won't be such a big deal though.

I appreciate the input from everyone by the way, but right now I'm doing a fresh install of Yosemite, and possibly W10 preview and I'm going to try and get my laptop back in decent working order. I think I've made up my mind to wait until the Skylake CPU's come out and see if they're worthwhile or not. That'll give me some time save up a little extra and if the Skylakes are w/e on value for money, I'll go with a Haswell.

Don't exist?

I got a new video card over the weekend and it turns out my MB really doesn't like it. It works, but hangs on bios for ages and bleeps at me for a while. It's a PoS Foxxconn MB, upgrading the bios is an incredibly archaic process that involves actually making bootable DOS USB sticks and moving jumpers on the board. So, upgrading the MB tomorrow to something not half as crap. And here I was just exalting how easy PC stuff is nowadays in some other thread.

Both of those sockets are likely to be changed when Skylake launches, neither is a safe bet.

However

CPU IPC increases have slowed to snails pace over the past 4-5 years. A 2600K from January 2011 with a very easy 4.4 ghz over clock is still more than enough for most tasks, even at stock clocks it steam rolls what's running in the current consoles. There is little cause to change CPU outside of your motherboard cycle anymore unless you're buying at the very bottom.