Moving on from the 3930k

[wockawocka]

Hi all,
I've been running a Formula IV and 3930k (@4g) setup for the last four years and I've always been happy with it although the time to move to a faster machine is here.

I'm a photographer so crunching bits and the time it takes is important to me. I've considered where my next logical step should be.

Money isn't so much of an issue, I plan to build something that will last another 4 years but I'm not sure whether I should go ahead with my current plan, a 6950x + Asus Deluxe II or hold tight for the 2066 socket. It's an expensive chip but I'd rather be on the bleeding edge at the point of purchase. I have considered sticking with ROG boards but the Deluxe ii has more usable ports.

The 2011 v3 is mature now vs something new and reliability is my main concern. I've briefly considered a xeon but I've no idea what I'm looking at there. I still see them as chips for servers...which is probably wrong.

I'm open to all ideas from those who've made the jump. The speed of the cpu is the most important thing for me. It's where the bottleneck has always been with my setup as I'm always converting or editing raw files! I don't mind holding fire for new chips either.

TIA

[Nate152]

Hi wockawocka

The Skylake X cpu's which are socket 2066 are still a little ways away yet.

Here is an interesting article.

http://hothardware.com/news/intel-skylake-x-kaby-lake-x-lga-2066-processors-2h-2017

[Arne_Saknussemm]

I do some photography too and have kept my eye on this topic for a while. From what I can gather, core clock speed is still more important than number of cores once you are in the 4 to 10 core range for Adobe products. 6 core with high core clock is the sweet spot. Fast storage is also what you want.

For example https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Lightroom-CC-6-Multi-Core-Performance-649/

I think a high clock Kaby Lake with new 960Pro will be better than 10 cores at lower GHz for many/most scenarios....

[wockawocka]

Arne Saknussemm wrote:
I do some photography too and have kept my eye on this topic for a while. From what I can gather, core clock speed is still more important than number of cores once you are in the 4 to 10 core range for Adobe products. 6 core with high core clock is the sweet spot. Fast storage is also what you want.

For example https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Lightroom-CC-6-Multi-Core-Performance-649/

I think a high clock Kaby Lake with new 960Pro will be better than 10 cores at lower GHz for many/most scenarios....

Yeah I've seen that. Trouble is the 3930k at 6 cores and clocked to 4ghz, if I replace it with a newer chip but the same cores / speed will I see any improvement worth paying out for based on chipset and architecture alone?

[Arne_Saknussemm]

Some improvement for sure...but it's difficult to find good independent info on clock for clock ipc improvement especially between HEDT and mainstream CPUs

Maybe try to OC that CPU to 4.4 or 4.6 and hang on as long as Skylake E? Worth it is difficult to quantify too...if money is no object any newer top end processor and DDR4 will perform better than SB-E and DDR3...throw fast M2 storage into the equation and you will see some improvement for sure in benchmarks or processing...but if you'll "feel" the difference day to day...well, possibly not so much....

[wockawocka]

Ok so in the end I've gone for an Asus Deluxe II, 64gb 3200 DDR4, 5960X (overclocked it's very similar to the 6950x) as well as a Polaris 1TB M2 for the boot and a 512gb Polaris M2 for the cache and Lightroom catalogues.

I do need to upgrade now due to the age of the rig. Havng it fall over halfway through a wedding season isn't a risk I want to take. Should be a screamer 😄