New build to replace i7 860

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brennok

[H]ard|Gawd
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Nov 30, 2006
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I originally built my i7-860 when Win 7 launched and it is getting long in the tooth. I am also tired of leaving on the PC 24/7 in my bedroom, but for a while it was my main PC. My goal is to get this new PC up and running so I can then wipe this PC and do a fresh install of Win 10. I will also finally install a SSD in that PC.

Since I won't be gaming, I just don't know if it is worth waiting for Skylake.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

Its primary function will serve as a Plex machine running 24/7 streaming multiple streams locally and away from home at the same time. I will also be encoding Mpeg2 recordings with handbrake or ffmpeg. It will essentially sit in a spare bedroom as a workhorse which I may occasionally remote into or hop on if I need to tweak something.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$1500 with tax and shipping. I pay tax with Amazon, but I prefer them for easy returns and I have prime. Probably overkill so if I can get it done around $1000 it would be even better

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
US - Florida so no Microcenter and no local PC stores so Newegg or Amazon only really.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU - Not sure if I should wait for Skylake to be easy to pick up or just grab a Haswell
Ram - 16GB min - My i7 hovers around 70% mem usage with 16gbs now when not under heavy load, but I haven't done a clean install since the original build
Case - mid to full tower with aircooling and plenty of space for HDDs
Mobo - been happy with Gigabyte and Asus so far
PSU
SSD - looking at Crucial MX200 500GB
GPU - if it might help since not sure how much iGPU affects CPU.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
I have a spare keyboard and monitor and speakers. I also have a 1TB Black I plan to use as a landing drive

6) Will you be overclocking?
No I never end up doing so.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
I think it is a 21" 16x10 1080p. It is some old Dell freebie that isn't hooked up currently

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Next 30 days

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
Onboard video if going with iGPU. I usually end up filling the tower with HDDs so 6+ SATA ports. Of course drives keep increasing in size, but I still have some spare 1TBs laying around.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes 64 bit, probably going Win 10 though I have both a 7 ultimate and 8.1 pro key not used
 
Wait for Skylake then. If you're going to be encoding a lot, that 10% decrease in time spent encoding over Haswell is going to add up and save you more time in the long-run.
 
Dangman said:
Wait for Skylake then. If you're going to be encoding a lot, that 10% decrease in time spent encoding over Haswell is going to add up and save you more time in the long-run.
Click to expand...

I disagree!

If he's going to be encoding, Haswell-E is the better purchase. 50% more cores is never a bad thing when encoding video. And Skylake's higher overclock headroom won't come into play at all here.

Check out this 4k encoding test here, where despite a massive clock speed advantage in the 4790k, the 5820k's 2 extra cores produce 30% higher performance!

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8426/...view-core-i7-5960x-i7-5930k-i7-5820k-tested/5

Skylake closes the gap, but not by that much. Plus, any advantages Skylake sees due to the improved I/O of DDR4 will also be seen on the Haswelll-E system.

And the prices are about the same (there will likely be a premium on 6700k processors for a little while). He will pay a premium on the motherboard, but not much else. You can easily build either system with 32GB ram for around $1200.
 
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Anandtech really should bench all their cpus at the same clock. or at least add that additionally.
 
diizzy said:
Exactly where are you getting these numbers from?
//Danne
Click to expand...
Officially, from HardOCP:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015...76700k_ipc_overclocking_review/5#.Vc6YQvlViko

HardOCP's Handbrake test, the same program the OP wants to use, shows a 10% difference between Skylake and Haswell.

Unofficially , I've been playing around with this for the past three weeks courtesy of my work. Unofficial because I didn't do proper testing methodologies and work restrictions:
iigR0nO.jpg


defaultluser said:
I disagree!

If he's going to be encoding, Haswell-E is the better purchase. 50% more cores is never a bad thing when encoding video. And Skylake's higher overclock headroom won't come into play at all here.

Check out this 4k encoding test here, where despite a massive clock speed advantage in the 4790k, the 5820k's 2 extra cores produce 30% higher performance!

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8426/...view-core-i7-5960x-i7-5930k-i7-5820k-tested/5

Skylake closes the gap, but not by that much. Plus, any advantages Skylake sees due to the improved I/O of DDR4 will also be seen on the Haswelll-E system.

And the prices are about the same (there will likely be a premium on 6700k processors for a little while). He will pay a premium on the motherboard, but not much else. You can easily build either system with 32GB ram for around $1200.
Click to expand...
You are absolutely right. I initially rejected Haswell-E mainly due to the power generation and the fact that it's a tad overkill but you are right that it would be better than Skylake for video encoding.
 
Given the extra cost / performance and the fact that Plex doesn't use the complex ending settings I'd say it's not worth it. You can do Plex just fine on a T-series CPU by Intel...

Skylake GPUs will probably be a bit faster, Quicksync performance will probably be the same so that's makes Handbreak even less interesting.

As brennok himself said, this can be accomplished with a good 1000 build without issues and even lower than that.
//Danne
 
diizzy said:
Given the extra cost / performance and the fact that Plex doesn't use the complex ending settings I'd say it's not worth it. You can do Plex just fine on a T-series CPU by Intel...

Skylake GPUs will probably be a bit faster, Quicksync performance will probably be the same so that's makes Handbreak even less interesting.

As brennok himself said, this can be accomplished with a good 1000 build without issues and even lower than that.
//Danne
Click to expand...

1. Do you know for sure that Plex supports QuickSync? The OP might be using the real-time transcoding of PLEX, in which case he's need a beefy CPU.

2. Do you think the quality loss is low enough with QuickSync?

I think it was tested and came out much better after the Sandy Bridge iteration but it's still a judgement call.

But I will agree that a Core i3 (don't bother with a T series) would be more than enough if you used QuickSync. That would drop the price (still with 32GB ram) to 800-900.
 
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I use the real time transcoding since lately I am sending more stuff outside of my local network both to mobile and other connected devices when I am visiting family. It isn't uncommon these days for me to have multiple streams going at the same time which is usually a combination of local, mobile, and remote.

I have not knowingly used QuickSync. I looked into it briefly early on, but it didn't seem like it was quite ready yet last I looked compared to what was already out there software wise.

I use a program called KMTTG which transfers the raw Mpeg2 recordings off my TiVo and then lets me add or choose one of the default handbrake or ffmpeg settings to encode the file. I don't believe any of the profiles are setup to use QuickSync, and I am not at home to check what profile I use since I set it up a long time ago. It is similar to the various Media Center programs like MCE buddy the only difference is I have to use KMTTG to download the recording off the TiVo first.

Truthfully I am not that knowledgeable with encoding. I just got tired of the raw Mpeg2s taking up so much space and once I discovered KMTTG I switched from TiVo's version, TiVo Desktop, which required a paid upgrade to encode. I found a profile that seemed to work best for my needs and just let it run.

I haven't really looked into power consumption between the two, but isn't Skylake supposed to be a bit more efficient than Haswell? In the end this is just TV and just for personal use so that 10% probably won't make a difference. Sure having it as fast as possible lets me encode even more, but if I can cut back on energy consumption I would take the longer encode since regardless it is faster than what I have now.
 
brennok said:
I haven't really looked into power consumption between the two, but isn't Skylake supposed to be a bit more efficient than Haswell? In the end this is just TV and just for personal use so that 10% probably won't make a difference. Sure having it as fast as possible lets me encode even more, but if I can cut back on energy consumption I would take the longer encode since regardless it is faster than what I have now.
Click to expand...
Actually no. The 6700K uses a tiny bit more power than the 4790K at most:
http://techreport.com/review/28751/intel-core-i7-6700k-skylake-processor-reviewed/5

Or roughly equivalent:
http://anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation/6
 
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