I have a Gigabyte D2HB3 board which I hate.
I'm gonna go the single GPU route when a single card is better than both of my 2x290x's. And I don't want to spend a ton of money on a E CPU. If I sell my 2500k, mobo, and RAM, I can get the 6600k and 16GB DDR4 RAM for 320$ out of pocket.
Is this it? - http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3855#ov
Being mATX and PCI 2.0, that's a pretty bad board to use with 290X Crossfire. An upgrade will do you good.
No. Just get a 2600k or 3770k.Would it be a worthy upgrade? My 2500k sits around 4.2-4.4 right now. I run all my games at 4k. Got 2x290x and a 1000W PSU.
Yeah I am kinda tired of having to deal with crossfire.
2x290X is a fast setup, there is absolutely zero point in selling 2 of them
Why? PCIe 2.0 x8/x8 is not even a bottleneck for Fury X, so how in the world would it be a bottleneck for the 290X?
I have a Gigabyte D2HB3 board which I hate.
The second card (x8) looks like it covers his usb slots.
I would say not worth it at all. If you are going to upgrade and spend > $300 to do so, go to an i7. Also, with your current setup, I would upgrade the CPU when you get a new single GPU. By that point there may be Kabe-Lake or a very good value X99 + i7 6800K combo. This is my opinion but I would never upgrade from an i5 2500K to an i5 6600K because the biggest anchor of 2500K's performance - lack of HT - is still missing in the 6600K.
Why? PCIe 2.0 x8/x8 is not even a bottleneck for Fury X, so how in the world would it be a bottleneck for the 290X?
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I know people on AT love love love defending i5s but lack of HT on i5 6600K ensures it is well behind an i7 6700K in some key AAA games and it can even get outperformed by the 2600K or is barely faster. 2600K is almost 5 years old.
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I cannot recommend $320 out of pocket to go to an i5 6600K. Might as well spend $100 extra and get a 6700K and keep that for 5 years, having a peace of mind that HT will help in some AAA games.
I also don't see the point of rushing the upgrade to Z170 for the OP. DDR4 continues to drop in price which means it'll be cheaper to buy 16GB DDR4 3200 in 6-9 months than right now. OTOH, the 2500K platform has bottomed out in price which means it'll be easy to sell it in 6-9 months from now for almost the same price as today. Unless the OP's motherboard is buggy/unstable, it might even be better to sell the 2500K and get a 2600K swap in as a temporary stop-gap between now and Cannonlake or SKL-E platform upgrade.
For consistency of gaming performance, I would consider selling 290Xs for $200 a piece and just buying a single 980Ti.
Just move up to 4.7, your lose will be lesser than 20%... at least against the 6600k on stock.Would it be a worthy upgrade? My 2500k sits around 4.2-4.4 right now. I run all my games at 4k. Got 2x290x and a 1000W PSU.
Pascal is in less than 6 months. Now the 980 Ti is a very bad desicion.A Fury is not a upgrade, its a side grade at best.
Why not just buy a $600 gtx980ti and overclock it, that would be faster than what you have, 25% faster than a fury and use less power and be cooler. The best bag for the buck by far.
Now that some games are taking advantage of 8 cores, I'd get a 2600 or if you want a motherboard with more features a 6700k.
Just move up to 4.7, your lose will be lesser than 20%... at least against the 6600k on stock.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37834900&postcount=365
as you can see in that scene 6700k is 42% faster than 2600k.
Yeah because it has a 670 while the 6700k has a 970.
also maybe 2600K will overclock better than the existing 2500K.