While your advice is sound for the general gaming population, your assumptions are in fact incorrect. A 6700K will not beat a 6900K in high-resolution gaming, especially for people who might move up to SLI. 5-10% more IPC means little in such situations, but running out of cores can make a significant difference, as can having 16 vs. 40 PCIe lanes.
For more information, check out the
in-depth benchmark analysis I published looking at 4K gaming using GTX 1070 SLI on a 6700K and 6900K.
Your own testing shows that 6900K is a $600 waste of money:
"Now, looking just at the numbers above, we might conclude the X99 platform used by the
Core i7-6900K really isn't worth it, because even with dual cards, it's only 1% ahead."
The second part of your conclusion has no relevance since by the time what you predict may come true for most AAA games, the X99 platform will be old/superceded by 6-12 core Skylake-X and even faster mainstream 2018 Ice Lake:
"But going with Intel's HEDT platform also means you're going to be able to harness the power of six-, eight-, and ten-core processors, which matter a whole lot in productivity and professional apps, and can also make a difference in a handful of cutting-edge game engines."
For pure gaming, the best PC is a 6700K. You also tested games at high MSAA at 4K which is something many are unlikely to use at 4K.
Your testing also missed out a huge chunk of target market that may want to buy Pascal SLI for 1440p 144-165Hz.
Even though you claim that 5-10% increase in IPC won't make a huge difference, how is it logical to spend $600-1500 extra on the 6900/6950 in "hopes" that in some distant future they will start beating the 6700K?
I already clarified in my post that a good case can be made for 6700K or 6800K but unless using 6900/6950 for heavy productivity, they are a waste of $ for gaming. I am not sure why you are disagreeing with my post when all of your testing and professional shows the same.
Your analysis also seems to be missing many strategy games which is some of the most CPU intensive gaming genre.
From the review above, 6700K demolishes all BW-E processors in Company of Heroes 2, Total War Rome 2 and Anno 2070.
Perhaps Titan XP SLI at 4K on X99 shows PCIe 3.0 8x/8x bottlenecks on Z170. Looking forward to your results should you get a pair
I have a hard time endorsing anything above 6800K when in some popular games not tested by TPU and other NA sites, even a $220 i5 6600 beats an $1000 8-core 5960X. That's embarrassing.
There are also less known games that people play worldwide where IPC/latest architecture matters a great deal. $300 6700 non-K beating the $1000 5960X. So much for 8-core "future proofness."
I literally recommended that Annisman wait for Skylake-X to drop.
OK fair enough but your post was confusing because you referenced 6950X @ 4.3Ghz in the reply implying that was one of his options.
Hmm, I wonder how much good a new platform would do you. 6950X @ 4.3GHz would be about 20% faster per-core. I think you're best waiting for Skylake-X to drop in 2017, FWIW.
There is nothing wrong with buying a Z170 board and a 6700K and using it for 12 months and upgrading to the SK-X. OTOH, the minute SK-X drops, the 6950X will lose a lot of $ in resale value while providing no tangible benefits in gaming over the 6700K from now until SK-X. Either way, I have no idea where you referenced the 6950X and not the 6800K or even 6900K.