Bored, to buy or not to buy

[Dice144]

Recently bought a new video card the GTX 970. Sold the 290x air cooled card to my roommate and have a second 290x water-cooled paired to a under powered G3258 over clocked to 4 Ghz. (using stock cooler still). Might swap it my 4770k into that case this week.

I am debating moving the G3258 to just Plex house server duty for all our computers. Under clock/volt etc and use onboard for the once a month time I wanna use it for surfing.

So I would have an empty R4 case, 290x or 970 video card to use and a 900 watt spare PSU. Also a 240mm rad, newish water pump and a universal GPU block. I cannot move back the 290x to air because I lost the screws moving to my new house.

Rant over..
Current system is Intel i7 4770k running at 4.4 Ghz with a Corsair h75. I can use either video card with it. All in a somewhat small Corsair Air 240 (love smaller cases)

I always wanted to get an X99/X58 when that was a new system. Logic tells me this is stupid and a waste of money but would be fun. Buying computer parts is my only "bad" habit.

Eyeing up a 5820k and pairing it with the 970 for a month or two then getting a second GPU/faster one down the road.

 

[Hulk]

If you don't have a need I'd wait a bit and see if Broadwell for the desktop materializes or even Skylake.

But I know what you mean about being bored. I upgraded my 2500k, which was really fine, to a 4770k but because "I had to."

BTW you have a pretty decent 4770k there. I can barely get 4GHz out of mine on air. I'm tempted to get a 4790k just to definitely hit 4.4GHz! I have a Microcenter nearby so if a good deal comes up and I'm sufficiently bored...

 

[RaistlinZ]

 

[crashtech]

If you have the money and think it will be fun, I can't see why not.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

What are you using your PC for? A 4770k should be solid for a long, long time.

 

[Yuriman]

I can think of worse ways to lose it if your money is burning a hole in your pocket.

 

[frozentundra123456]

yea, people spend money on cars, vacations, or whatever, so if you have the money, go for it. Personally though, if you dont specifically need it, I would wait and see what skylake brings.

 

[crashtech]

Well, advice to wait for the next greatest thing can always be counted on. But when is the successor to Haswell-E due? not fot a good long while.

 

[jhu]

BTW, I have similar issues.

 

[Dice144]

I don't smoke, drink etc. This is my only expensive hobby. My friends think I am insane but they all spend more on smokes, sports cares etc. Whereas I invest in stock market and sometimes over spend on PC toys.

Anyhow, thinking 5820k, on sale at micro center for $299. Which is a 3 hours drive from my house. Hopefully some hiking places around it. I like road trips so the drive will be fun.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I don't smoke, drink etc. This is my only expensive hobby. My friends think I am insane but they all spend more on smokes, sports cares etc. Whereas I invest in stock market and sometimes over spend on PC toys.

Anyhow, thinking 5820k, on sale at micro center for $299. Which is a 3 hours drive from my house. Hopefully some hiking places around it. I like road trips so the drive will be fun.

The 5820k is the CPU that I'd want most TBH but the budget doesn't permit it at this time. Frys had it and a MOBO in store (Wilsonville OR) daily special back in August for $299 right after I built my current PC in sig. It was an insane deal and I'm kicking myself still for not making it a part of the budget.

I don't give one crap about peak power consumption on an overclocked system like the 5820K would be. I'm on it only about an hour a night since I work and spend a lot of time with the wife. 6 fast cores, 12 threads of responsiveness, cache... CPU heaven!

That said, I hope AMD pulls the rabbit out of the hat with Zen so we can have ultra-high-end competition again in the coming year.

 

[Dice144]

Yes! Would be good to have an AMD option again.

 

[escrow4]

Go for it. Unity in particular can scale on a hexa core and games in 2016 are only going to want more threads. I run a 5930K myself @ 3.7GHz all cores for my gaming box.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Go for it. Unity in particular can scale on a hexa core and games in 2016 are only going to want more threads. I run a 5930K myself @ 3.7GHz all cores for my gaming box.

It's a beast but man it's pricey. $579? That's how much I pay for my wife and I in our house (master bedroom/bath/garage) after factoring in roommates portion of rent in a month.

 

[AtenRa]

I would wait for skylake(September) and then decide. If you really want to buy today and since you like small cases have a look at this Mini-iTX x99 motherboard

 

[CHADBOGA]

At least wait till you find out if Skylake is any good or not and with what you already have, I would find some other hobbies to spend money on, like cycling or photography.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I don't smoke, drink etc. This is my only expensive hobby. My friends think I am insane but they all spend more on smokes, sports cares etc. Whereas I invest in stock market and sometimes over spend on PC toys.

Anyhow, thinking 5820k, on sale at micro center for $299. Which is a 3 hours drive from my house. Hopefully some hiking places around it. I like road trips so the drive will be fun.

My advice doesn't exactly put you on the "bleeding edge," but we have similar attentions and similar addictions. [See also my thread in "General Hardware" about "Hoarding."]

Early last year, I was planning on building an X79 system later in the summer or fall. Then, I started tapping my annual hardware budget for other things, and Haswell-E came along. So I planned building one late last year or early this year. As I began to look at "requirements," I decided I must use water-cooling.

So I'm going to start buying parts for the cooling system later THIS year, and perhaps the system essentials. Maybe I'll wait for Broadwell, maybe I won't. I might equally decide to stick with the Haswell-E plan. It won't need to be "bleeding edge" latest and greatest.

But I also have to admit one thing: I'm a hardware addict. I've been known to buy "stuff" on impulse, merely out of curiosity.

So as I said, I give myself an annual hardware budget. I try to stick to the budget, but since everything else is budgeted, there is "wiggle room." It's not a useless discipline.

Again, the bottom line may also be this: A 4770K in a well-tuned system could have a long life. That's what I also remind myself about my Sandy Bridgers. For the Sandy cores, one fellow member PM'd me just weeks ago to say he expects to squeeze another 4 years out of his 2700K.

 

[RaistlinZ]

Once Skylake comes out people will be saying "You should wait for ___ and see what it offers."

There's always something else coming around the corner. At some point, you just have to upgrade and enjoy yourself. At $299 the 5820K is a beast, and a very good investment. If Skylake is phenomenal you can always sell your 5820K.

We don't even know if Skylake will be released on time or not.

 

[jihe]

Recently bought a new video card the GTX 970. Sold the 290x air cooled card to my roommate and have a second 290x water-cooled paired to a under powered G3258 over clocked to 4 Ghz. (using stock cooler still). Might swap it my 4770k into that case this week.

I am debating moving the G3258 to just Plex house server duty for all our computers. Under clock/volt etc and use onboard for the once a month time I wanna use it for surfing.

So I would have an empty R4 case, 290x or 970 video card to use and a 900 watt spare PSU. Also a 240mm rad, newish water pump and a universal GPU block. I cannot move back the 290x to air because I lost the screws moving to my new house.

Rant over..
Current system is Intel i7 4770k running at 4.4 Ghz with a Corsair h75. I can use either video card with it. All in a somewhat small Corsair Air 240 (love smaller cases)

I always wanted to get an X99/X58 when that was a new system. Logic tells me this is stupid and a waste of money but would be fun. Buying computer parts is my only "bad" habit.

Eyeing up a 5820k and pairing it with the 970 for a month or two then getting a second GPU/faster one down the road.

It's my bad habit too. Then I realized I should be buying secondhand older gears and overclock/fiddle with them. Saves a ton of money and just as fun

 

[VirtualLarry]

But I also have to admit one thing: I'm a hardware addict. I've been known to buy "stuff" on impulse, merely out of curiosity.

Me too. Only, I have a bad tendency to buy in bulk. Alternator-sized bulk...

 

[crashtech]

Once Skylake comes out people will be saying "You should wait for ___ and see what it offers."

There's always something else coming around the corner. At some point, you just have to upgrade and enjoy yourself. At $299 the 5820K is a beast, and a very good investment. If Skylake is phenomenal you can always sell your 5820K.

We don't even know if Skylake will be released on time or not.

Strongly agree.

 

[escrow4]

It's a beast but man it's pricey. $579? That's how much I pay for my wife and I in our house (master bedroom/bath/garage) after factoring in roommates portion of rent in a month.

A 5820K is $299 at Microcentre, bit more at Newegg. Half decent mobo is Asrock's Extreme 4 (or 6) X99. Only the DDR4 is pricey.

 

[nyker96]

I personally don't find upgrading CPUs any more rewarding nowadays, the K models pretty close to max already, any OC don't seem that exciting any more, unlike the old days, OC can give 50-100% more performance etc etc. plus with all the new toys in tablets etc.

 

[Dice144]

Well better sense kicked in. Going to just upgrade to SLI/Cross fire next week. Had my 970 less than a week from best buy. They never included the Witcher 3 key that was suppose to come with it and found out it is the crappy first gen EVGA card (locked voltage too).

So going to either just return the card or EVGA trade up to a better card. Thank you all for the feedback.

 

[BD231]

Only thing worth having is one of them fancy 5960k's but supporting the industry trend of 1k parts is really up to you. Unlike NVidia GPU's you actually get twice what you pay for here so its not a terrible investment.