Time to upgrade- [email protected], should I even bother with a 6950k, Xeon, or just invest in a totally new mobo/cpu?

Wag

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 29, 2006
Messages
1,352
Mostly for 4k/144Hz gaming (2080Ti to be upgraded eventually as well). I will retire the old setup as an Unraid server (provided I upgrade whole-hog, case, cooler, etc).

Looking for thoughts on this, most of the higher-end X99 Xeons can be had for dirt cheap now, even the 6950x can be found well <$200 (but I don't think it's worth it in that case).
 
What is it not doing for you? You just maxing it out or?
I wasn't really maintaining a consistent 60fps on my old 4k monitor on most of the newer games, now I have the FV43U which is Freesync 4k/144.
 
I had a 5960X on x99 that ran at 4.7Ghz solid... upgrading to a new platform (5950X AM4) made a noticeable difference in the min FPS and overall smoothness of everything. It was night and day, and I felt that old 5960X flew... but it was still holding my 3090 back (even at 4K, which I game with).

Do yourself a favor and go for a brand-new setup, x99 does not really have any life left for new games or productivity. It still does a decent job, but it will not be the smoothest experiance you can get and will hold almost every modern video card back. I turned my old x99 into a streaming PC for my TV.

Plus, with a new platform you get all the befits of new standards, features, etc.
 
I had a 5960X on x99 that ran at 4.7Ghz solid... upgrading to a new platform (5950X AM4) made a noticeable difference in the min FPS and overall smoothness of everything. It was night and day, and I felt that old 5960X flew... but it was still holding my 3090 back (even at 4K, which I game with).

Do yourself a favor and go for a brand-new setup, x99 does not really have any life left for new games or productivity. It still does a decent job, but it will not be the smoothest experiance you can get and will hold almost every modern video card back. I turned my old x99 into a streaming PC for my TV.

Plus, with a new platform you get all the befits of new standards, features, etc.
Figured as much. I will wait for the new Intel CPUs to decide what route to go in. I was going to take advantage of the Microcenter free DDR5 deal with the new AMD CPUs but the new B650 boards should be out by then as well.
 
Figured as much. I will wait for the new Intel CPUs to decide what route to go in. I was going to take advantage of the Microcenter free DDR5 deal with the new AMD CPUs but the new B650 boards should be out by then as well.
Yeah, it's one of those things that average FPS is not going to find and helps to talk to others or look at benches with 1% lows shown. Not many people (if anyone?) compares x99 on modern games anymore. Some will claim it performs great, but most just look at average frames, not min FPS or max FPS. It's one of those things that everything just felt snappier for me moving on, and games are absolutely butter smooth now with 0 hiccups. On the 5960X, some online games that were CPU intensive seemed to stutter on occasion when a lot was going on.

You will likely still have a hard time driving 4K (on max graphics) with a 2080Ti if you plan to keep that in your new setup for a short time (was what I had before my 3090 and also is in my old x99 box now... lol). But I did have my 3090 as I said on my x99 system for a short time before upgrading and noticed the performance difference right away when upgrading.
 
I had a 5960X on x99 that ran at 4.7Ghz solid... upgrading to a new platform (5950X AM4) made a noticeable difference in the min FPS and overall smoothness of everything. It was night and day, and I felt that old 5960X flew... but it was still holding my 3090 back (even at 4K, which I game with).

Do yourself a favor and go for a brand-new setup, x99 does not really have any life left for new games or productivity. It still does a decent job, but it will not be the smoothest experiance you can get and will hold almost every modern video card back. I turned my old x99 into a streaming PC for my TV.

Plus, with a new platform you get all the befits of new standards, features, etc.
This. I upgraded from an X99 based i7 6900K to a R9 5900X and it is indeed night and day difference. I do not regret spending the money to upgrade. Nor will OP.
 
I moved my father from a 5960X to a 12600k and he was amazed at how much faster his computer ran. Don't get me wrong, X99 was a great platform back in the day, but a modern CPU will run circles around a Haswell era CPU both in computational power and efficiency.

I would definitely upgrade everything.
 
I moved my father from a 5960X to a 12600k and he was amazed at how much faster his computer ran. Don't get me wrong, X99 was a great platform back in the day, but a modern CPU will run circles around a Haswell era CPU both in computational power and efficiency.

I would definitely upgrade everything.
Agreed. For me even moving from a 7960x to 3950x a few years ago was a night and day difference in what I use my computer for. X99 was a great platform, but at this point it's also seven years old. That's a decent time to make an upgrade. OP, you might also be shocked to look at 6950x prices and find you can get a 5800x for $10-$20 more. Honestly, I'd sell the X99 setup, grab a nice used AM4 setup, and if you're looking for a server setup find a used Supermicro X10SDV-4C-TLN2F that can be had for around $220, comes with IPMI, and onboard 10 GbE.
 
Agreed. For me even moving from a 7960x to 3950x a few years ago was a night and day difference in what I use my computer for. X99 was a great platform, but at this point it's also seven years old. That's a decent time to make an upgrade. OP, you might also be shocked to look at 6950x prices and find you can get a 5800x for $10-$20 more. Honestly, I'd sell the X99 setup, grab a nice used AM4 setup, and if you're looking for a server setup find a used Supermicro X10SDV-4C-TLN2F that can be had for around $220, comes with IPMI, and onboard 10 GbE.
Unfortunately my case is too beat to hell to sell. I have some quality components (like the EVGA 1300PSU which I was using for an SLI setup at one point) so it would be better just to buy everything separately. Nothing wrong with the 2080Ti, should last me for a while.

Then there's the 2133 DDR4 which I currently have installed. I have some 2400 DDR4 sitting around here as well, so as you can see at this point I might as well go DDR5 as well.

Might as well wait for Raptor Lake to see how everything pans out.
 
Back
Top