Thinking about upgrading to one of the Haswell-E CPUs from Intel.
If anybody here running one of these what MB would you recommend?
@ Architect - You planning to go desktop?
I’ve been thinking about replacing my desktop PC…but not with another desktop PC. The thing is, I stopped using it as my main machine a while ago, in favor of a 17" 16GB i7 laptop, which is cooler and quieter, and has the advantage of being portable.
The only role my desktop really continues to play is as my Windows Media Center recorder, so I was thinking about getting one of the Intel NUC boxes, a USB tuner, and an external hard drive, and getting this noisy thing out from under my desk. 
I’m pretty much over building my own PCs these days, but back in the day, I’d usually scout Tom’s Hardware for recent Mobo reviews if I was feeling the itch.
I have a Haswell, not a Haswell-E. You can’t go wrong either way.
If your looking to spend $1k for a processor then you can go with i7-5960X Haswell-E 8-Core 3.0GHz with 8 x 256KB L2 Cache and 20MB L3 Cache.
But I would go with the i7-5820K Haswell-E 6-Core 3.3GHz with 6 x 256KB L2 Cache and 15 MB L3 Cache for $389.99. It will be plenty fast enough.
@ devhammer -
I am actually going back to a desktop. Haven’t had one at home for few years. I’ll take a look at Tom’s, thanks!
@ Josh - Yes, 5820K is what I have in my shopping cart. I figured the key is 2011-v3 socket. I can always go higher later when the price drops. For the MoBo I am thinking about ASUS X99-DELUXE. Need to research a little bit more.
That is a good motherboard choice. Great performance and looks beautiful at the same time lol
I recently bought a new Desktop (in parts)
Its an Haswell refresh, not sure if that’s the same as Haswell-E
I’m very happy with it (very quiet, but still powerfull).
here is my shopping list:
- WD Red WD20EFRX 2TB
- Intel Core i7-4790 Boxed
- PowerColor R9 280X OC TurboDuo 3GB DDR5
- Kingston HyperX blu KHX1600C9D3B1K2/8GX 8GB DDR3 Kit
- Samsung SSD 840 Pro Series 256GB
- Gigabyte GA-H9-D3H Sockel 1150 ATX
- LiteOn IHAS12414 Schwarz
- Fractal Design Arc Midi R2
- be quiet! Pure Power CM BQT L8-CM-430W
- Cooler Master Hyper T4
The only downside is that the cooler collides with the power regulator heat spreader, if you mount it in forward to backward direction as you normally do.
I had to mount it to blow up, which is not a problem with my case, because it has a fan on the top side and the power supply at the bottom.
I’d go with a closed loop cooling system. I have one and it isn’t a huge tower over the processor. I already switched CPUs once with it and it was easy.
It’s called a corsair H100.
EDIT: This is not a whole system solution it’s just for the processor.
My PC (as described above) makes nearly no sound at all.
The 1st couple of nights in the office were kinda nightmarish, as I was used to hear the fans of my old PC.
By this I don’t think it makes sense to go for special cooling systems as long as you do no overclocking or way more powerful components.
If I needed behemoth-level power, I’d consider another desktop system. But for most of what I do, my laptop is sufficient, portable, and much quieter.
I’m curious…what are you and @ Architect doing that requires so much power? High-end gaming? Massive C++ compiles?
@ devhammer - Most of the time I use it for gaming (and programming of course).
But I would not say it’s high end gaming. That would require a 4K display and way more GFX power.
But I can play most of the actual games in Full HD at maximum detail.
The most power hungry Game at the moment I “play” is Star Citizen.
Also Bioshock Infinite requires most of it.
And never underestimate Minecraft in required resources.
The 2nd hardware hungry thing I (would) do (if I had time for this) is video transcoding.
I have a Full HD Camcorder, and for cutting the videos more easily it is good to transcode them to MPEG2.
If you want to see all your cores and GFX sweat, watch MediaShow Espresso transcoding 8 videos in parallel.
For work (day time job) I have a laptop as well, since I need to be mobile, visit customers, …
I also can do home office by this.
It’s an i5 with 6GByte RAM (Dell Vostro 3560).
But compared to my desktop, it’s really noisy.
I like my ASUS Zenbook i7, but it just not as convenient to work with hardware projects as a desktop would be. That and video editing. Haven’t played PC games or any other games for some time. Would like to try something though on the new PC.
@ Reinhard Ostermeier - Never heard of Star Citizen until now. How do you like it? Sounds like an interesting game.
I’m also a backer of Star Citizen. We’ve all spoke of it before…
https://www.ghielectronics.com/community/forum/topic?id=14734
Search came in handy ;D
Looking back on my post, both Elder Scrolls Online and Wildstar were let downs and I do not play them. F2P (Free to Play) Marvel Heroes is fun but they release more heroes when I feel they should release more story content to play through. But they are definitely always updating that game. F2P DOTA 2 is also getting lots of updates. Slightly steep learning curve but they’ve added things to help with that, very skilled game. If you’re into D&D check out F2P Neverwinter.
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@ Josh - Now I remember! We did discuss that game.
There is not that much to play so far.
Only Arena Commander, which is all about dog fighting and a racing so far.
It has a very accurate physics simulation, with drag, thrusters, mass, …
So it’s not that easy to fly, even with the flight computer on.
But Chris Roberts promises a lot of stuff:
- A persistent universe
- A full single player campaign
- First person action, when boarding other space ships
- Dog fighting (of course)
- A fully simulated economy (for trading)
- Resource salvaging
- …
Long story short:
The game that Chris Roberts, creator of Wing Commander, Privateer, Strike Commander, … ever wanted to make.
And everything founded by the community via crowd funding. More than 54 million $ so far.
To get started now, you need to pledge for a starter package ship (starts at 20$ I guess) and a Arena Commander Pass for 5$ (which was included for early backers with the starter Package).
And here is the link:
Nobody mentioned octa-core AMD FX8350 :whistle:
Doesn’t it take 16 actual AMD cores to compete to an Pentium 3 :whistle:
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@ Reinhard Ostermeier - I might try it, although I like more adventure games.
Any Syberia fans? Syberia 3 is due in 2015.
@ Simon from Vilnius - I don’t know. Never had an AMD based machine.