Thinking of Complete Upgrade

[Nishom]

Folks,

I would love some advice it's been a while since I last built my computer and I was just randomly upgrading parts in order to not upgrade the whole thing.

Till my SSD and video card both started having issues. Now I can't decide if its better to put in more money to get them replaced or would it better to just upgrade the whole system.

My current specs as follows:
i7 920 Bloomfield 2.67 (Oc to 3.2)
8GB Kingston RAM (Generic)
Gigabyte X58 UD3r Rev 1.0
115GB Corsair Force SSD (Dead)
2TB WD Black (Alive)
GTX 680 (Displaying Artifacts while playing games) Tried another card no issues just this one
Thermal Take 1200W PS
Noctua Cpu Cooler
Generic Case

Now comes the fun part, I've saved up for a GTX 980TI and I'm not sure if my cpu and the rest of my components will be a bottleneck or not. I really would iike USB 3.0 since I use it quite often to move my pictures, and videos across.

The PC is mainly used for gaming like Wow, HOTS, Diablo 3 and SC 2. Occasionally some other game which friends recommend.

I was thinking of upgrading to an i7 4790k Devils Canyon with an Asus z97a motherboard and corsair ram, along with a Samsung EVO 256GB as my boot drive and using the 2TB WD as my spare drive.

Then Skylake got announced and it has put me in two minds. Would it be better to jump on skylake and a decent board and make it last for the next 4 years or should I stick with my existing setup, getting an EVO SSD and GTX 980 TI only.

I've seen the benchmarks and skylake doesn't offer that much difference over the 4790k but considering I'm coming from further behind would it make sense to skip and go straight to skylake.

Any thoughts or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Ketchup]

Going Skylake won't give give you more performance ATM, but it will give you lower temps, move overclocking headroom, and less power consumption. You will also get DDR 4, which will make memory more expensive now, less expensive later.

If you have GPU-intensive games, your CPU still isn't giving you too much of a bottleneck. The new CPU's are faster in certain tasks for sure, but much of the time you won't notice a big speed difference. So it just depends on the game you play.

What are you going to do with the old hardware? If you are going to sell it, it would be better to do that now sooner than later.

I am still very happy with my 4790k. The only thing that I could possibly complain about is that it doesn't overclock much at all (compared to the 2500k and Q6600 that preceded it, doing 1 GHz plus easily) and it gets pretty hot under load. But actual performance I can't complain about one bit. But if I was in your shoes right now, it would be a hard decision for me as well.

 

[Nishom]

Thanks Ketchup. The lower temperatures will help and that is something I'm looking for including the idle temperatures. I was perfectly fine till the Skylake announcement but if I keep waiting for prices to drop something else comes along and ruins it for me.


My current hardware wouldn't get me much but I could try selling it now as you said rather than later when I wouldn't get squat for it.

 

[ArisVer]

Well, there are other options to consider.

First, since your SSD is dead you do need another one. Get it now and use it, and if you decide on a full upgrade you can move it in your next system.

Second, the same thing can be said for your graphics card.

Third. Read this thread and decide if dropping in a Xeon in your current motherboard is worth it.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2335636&highlight=x58

 

[Ketchup]

Thanks Ketchup. The lower temperatures will help and that is something I'm looking for including the idle temperatures. I was perfectly fine till the Skylake announcement but if I keep waiting for prices to drop something else comes along and ruins it for me.


My current hardware wouldn't get me much but I could try selling it now as you said rather than later when I wouldn't get squat for it.

Intel prices don't come down. They stay the same, even when new products hit the market, then the old material disappears.

Can you give us a budget, what country you are buying from, and a general idea of what you use the computer for (gaming, programming, VMs, encoding, etc)?