@PredatorRules: Like i said before why bother with SLI 970's when i have a single 780ti and only run games at 1080p? Im not a huge fan of dual gpu setupus anyways as it depends too much on drivers and games supporting it.

@Coseniath: Thats what i figured, thanks

@PredatorRules: Its not just for Total War, i'll see benifits in other games as well and i dont disagree its overkill and overpriced but i also like messing with new hardware and i get the itch to upgrade every few years. I wasen't planning on going 6 core but i talked mysself into it because im in the mood to build a kickass pc and i enjoy it.

Also looking for recommendations on a psu, may get a new one while im at it.

Yea, The Witcher looks like it will push hardware.

Im still able to change my order so im wondering if i should go with a cheaper ram looking around it seems it is sorta pointless to go with a higher speed ram. Anyone recommend me a decent set of 16gig DDR4? I really know jack about ram timings and frequency.

I already have a 780ti so i dont really want to think about buying a new card right now haha, i plan to keep a eye out for a deal on a second one here as there beiing phased out though at 1080p im not too worried about it as a single 780ti is already overkill on most things.

@evildead6789: Hmm i actually got ram that was even more expensive then that on the thought that faster would be better atleaset down the road.... I linked it in the post before yours, i may have messed up there. And as far as the PSU goes i kinda want to change it but dont know if i can afford a good PSU on top of all of this, out of curiously what would you recommend, though im considering using the one i have for a few months then swapping it out.

So all said and done i spent way more then i planned to, actually went with a Gigabyte motherboard and Corsair ram as i liked the look of the board more and i figure if i get a little faster ram now down the road atleast i can reuse it, plus the bundle discount was nice. I suppose thats the one positive thing about going with DDR4 is that it will be around for quite awhile.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1870850

Then i had to get a cpu cooler cus i hate stock coolers so i went with this...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608045

And i also decided to get new case fans as some of mine are getting rough... Got 6 of these to throw in my Antec 1200. Will be neat to see it red instead of blue.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F6S0XJO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And the 5820k on top of all that obviously, looking forward to messing with this stuff, thanks for the help and i'll try and post some pictures when i get it put together later this week. One nice thing is i'll be good for quite awhile now, dont see me having to upgrade again until towards the end of the generation or if i just get the itch again in a few years. Its still overkill but i like messing with new hardware.

Yea, i know i have the 8 pin connector, my current board uses it. Thanks, think im going to take the plunge.

Its not just about performance, i like to upgrade ever few years, its a hobby like anything else.

Thinking about the 5820k, i guess its only around 150 bucks more or so... Would i be ok going with this and this for the ram and Mobo? Im stretching my budget a bit as it is so its about as much as i want to spend. Also dumb question here but i'v been using the same PSU since 2008, it was a good one, a Antec SG-850 and its still truckin fine, will it be compatible? Thanks for the help.

Ram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231791

Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130796

@evildead6789 said:

@dudy80 said:

@evildead6789 said:

@dudy80 said:

Been considering this for awhile and it seems like the 2500k is still doing ok but its starting to show its age a bit, is it worth it at this time to upgrade being that broadwell wont make any big leaps and skylake wont be out for another year or more? If i do this im going to buy some new ram and just swap my 780ti in to the new board.

Mainly looking at this for Rome 2 and other strategy games as thats were i'll see the benefit the most but i imagine id see a decent leap in other games too. Any advice welcome, thanks guys

what age?

when overclocked it easily matches all the rest of the cpu because it runs so cool. You can overclock a i5-2500k to 5 ghz on air. Why the ivy's and haswells are a bit better clock for clock they'll never go that high because they're hot potatoes (especially haswell)

The only problem you have is pci 3.0 but you need 4 gtx 680 to really see a difference (like 5 percent)

If you want more performance you have to go to the extreme boards. You won't find it with mainstream cpu's or it is you don't want to overclock at all. Even an 4.5 ghz overclock will give you some more performance and even maxed out overclocks with haswell or ivy won't give you much more.

You want more performance, get an 6 or 8-core cpu from intel. The i7-5820 is only about 400$ right now, the motherboards are at least 200$ though.

I'v been reading as far as games go the 4790k is still better right now, most games dont take advantage of those extra 2 cores yet and benefit more from the extra speed of the 4790k. Also i get what most of you are saying in terms of waiting because of there being little difference in GPU bound games but for CPU bound games like Civ 5, the upcoming beyond earth, Gal Civ 3, and Total War the difference will be much more noticeable. So from that point of view is it still not worth the upgrade?

The only speed difference can come from the hyperthreading on the i7 (or it is you can have a very nice overclock on that haswell). But that won't be much since pc games will always benefit from extra cpu speed instead of extra threads. Once the core is maxed out , the hyperthreading won't do much. More cores however will give you more performance, if the game supports it. This benchmark only shows sandy bridges but it shows you the difference between i7 and i5. As you can see the stock i7-2600 is the same as the stock i5-2500.

While the i7 3970x does show some extra performance on stock settings, when overclocked the gap becomes really significant. So there are games that really use those extra cores.

As for difference in speed. The i5-2500k overclocked comes very close to the i5-4690k and i7-4790k in the following benchmark. However the i5-4690k and i7-4790k have one of the best overclocks here, while the 5 ghz on the i5-2500k is not the best. They tested a couple of cpu's and 4.7 was more normal than 4.8 on the haswell cpu. A 5.2 ghz overclock on the i5-2500k would have give a better comparison and the performance would be , like i said, almost the same.

You can also see here that there's hardly any difference between i7 and i5 and while the 6 core i7-3960x falls a bit behind. Do know that this is a sandy bridge that doesn't have such a high overclock. Shogun 2 is an older game than rome II and probably doesn't support more than 4 cores.

So, there's a chance the upcoming games will support more than 4 cores, you can wait out the benchmarks and then see if you upgrade to an i7-5820k but an upgrade from the i5-2500k to the i7-4790k seems pretty much useless to me, or it is you don't want to overclock at all.

Do know that the i7-5820k is the same architecture as the haswell (devil) series. So it will have the same clock for clock advantage but it will have the same thermals too (they're hot potatoes) but at 400$ that cpu is a steal.

Thing is id have to sped about 200 bucks more because of the crazy DDR4 prices, and from my point of view by the time most games do start making use of 6 cores (most dont make use of 4 yet) DDR4 will be cheaper and there will be other options out there.