Time to start thinking of a new build

[maniacalpha1-1]

Built a 3570 system in 2012, and beginning to think about a new system. My immediate pain is Planetside 2, I tend to be CPU limited there (according to the in-game tool), but I also just plain have the upgrade itch.

Right now, I have the following components I can re-use:
1. Neo Eco 620C power supply
2. 8 GB DDR3 1600 RAM
3. 2 OCZ Vertex 4 128s and a 64 GB Vertex 3, and a 1 TB samsung HDD
4. XFX 7970 3GB
5. Raidmax Helios case (unused, just waiting for a build)

Right now, I'm in the planning-ahead stage. I don't really have a budget maximum; since I can reuse some parts I can reinvest those savings into a higher CPU/etc.

My questions are the following; I'm not really looking for parts recommendations as much as I am answers to these specific questions:
1. I assume that a 5930k will power me up quite well for Planetside 2, as well as other games coming in the next year or so. Any dissent or comments on that point? Given that I'll likely be willing to pay the $600 that 5930k is going to cost, is there any non-financial compelling reason to wait for 5770k over 5930k? I honestly don't know what other games to tell you that I would play since I haven't really played much else recently. Well, I did play Bioshock Infinite, but as far as I can tell that went smoothly enough. Well, I'm sure Star Citizen will be on my radar...

2. What are the chances of 880Ti or R9 390X (assuming those will be the names) being able to handle currently released games at 4k? What about games released within the next two years? If the answer is "not good", then I'll simply have to make a decision about doing SLI/CF when the time comes and upgrade the PSU. In either case, I'll reuse my 7970 at first.

3. What's the deal with these new M.2 SSDs? Whether they provide much gaming performance or not, I'm foaming at the mouth to get one, and it seems recent MBs are supporting them. But - for example, I see great reviews on a Samsung XP941, but I don't see it on Newegg. In fact, I only see a weak Intel M.2 one on Newegg....

3b. The new boards are going to allow booting from the M.2 slot?

3c. Assuming I only get 1 M.2 SSD, is it going to provide more performance to put the OS/pagefile/etc on it, or put the OS on one of my Vertex4 s and put games on the M.2?

4. Are the X99 boards (I assume that's the name for the ones that will work with 5930k) going to allow DDR 3? If not, fine, I'll get some DDR4...how much benefit is DDR4 going to bring over DDR3 1600? (whether for gaming or anything else)

5. I have a Win 8 laptop, I don't use it much, but it's allowed me to learn to tolerate Win 8. Given that I can still choose Win 7, is Win 8 better for performance? (In games)

6. Probably there's nothing that anyone can say on this one right now, but I will ask it anyway. How does Oculus Rift factor into planning?

 

[Ken g6]

Well, I'm not a psychic, but...

3. I think M.2 is a laptop thing. You want to look at SATAe.

4. Pretty sure you'll need DDR4.

5. Win 8 helps some games. Tried classic shell?



5.

 

[mfenn]

You're asking a bunch of questions about unreleased hardware, and the people who can definitively answer those questions are under NDA.

1. Haswell-E will basically have the same single-threaded performance as the current Haswell. There's no real advantage to having the extra cores, other than the extra L3 cache that gets added to the chip. But that's marginal outside of specific workloads. Who knows how much of an improvement Broadwell will be in terms of IPC, but my bet is not much given Intel's power focus for the chip.

2. No idea

3. M.2 is a alternative SATA Express form factor. The drives can implement either a SATA interface (at which point it's basically mSATA) or PCIe, where it's a smaller form factor PCIe card.

3b. The motherboard really has nothing to do with whether or not you can boot from an M.2 drive. If it's SATA, then you can boot from it just as you always have. If it's PCIe, then you need an OS + driver combination that supports booting.

3c. I haven't seen any boards with multiple M.2 slots, so chances are you'd only be getting one. However, there really isn't any inherent advantage to M.2 in a desktop. A PCIe card or SATA Express drive would be fine too. If you get one that is bootable, then you should make it your OS drive.

4. DDR4 only (read: $$$$$ for the memory)

5. Theoretically yes, it is more efficient in certain ways. But the difference is very minimal.

6. The Rift is basically a pair of 1080p displays. So if you can drive 3840x1080, then you are good.

Overall, I'd say that if you want to be an early adopter on Haswell-E or M.2, you have to accept that you're really doing it for the fun of tinkering with new hardware and not for getting good price/performance.