New MoBo after old one died: 1150 or upgrade 1151 ?

[Anshur]

Hi everybody !

My Gigabyte Z87N (itx) died a few weeks ago (a mere 3 month after the end of warranty sadly), and I've been mulling the idea opportunistically upgrading to Skylake.

So, given that reselling my i7 4770k would net me around 300 €, it would cost me around 350€ to upgrade (including 380€ for CPU + 150€ mobo + 120€ DDR4 kit) instead of just 150- 200 for the mobo alone. That is an extra 200€.

What do you think? Is it worth it to upgrade or should I just go for a new mobo and wait another 2-3 years ? (I usually only upgrade when something major beaks with the exception of GPU).

I'm not starved for cash and I wouldn't mind shelling out 200€ if it was a smart upgrade, but I could use those elsewhere too (especially with the iPad/iPhone refresh coming up).

Thanks for any advice you can send my way

 

[zaniix]

I would just replace the motherboard and keep on trucking

 

[GotNoRice]

So, given that reselling my i7 4770k would net me around 300 €

That seems a bit optimistic to me. If you actually know someone who is willing to buy your used 4770k for essentially retail price, I'd say go for it.

 

[Impulse]

Just trying to follow your math, if you actually manage to sell the old CPU for 300€ (or is that for both it and your RAM?) and you spend 650€ on the upgrade then that's 350€, vs 150€ for a mobo replacement? Doesn't sound too bad.

If you think you'll wanna take advantage of some of the other platform upgrades then go for it (things like USB 3.1/Type C or having more lanes available for PCI-E/M.2 SSD), that's one of the big reasons I finally upgraded from my 2500K/P67 build.

If you just wanna save yourself the money you aren't missing any big immediate gains obviously. DDR4 prices are finally decent and nearly on par with DDR3, your DDR3 will start to lose value quick, but who knows how the memory market will behave in the future.

 

[Anshur]

That seems a bit optimistic to me. If you actually know someone who is willing to buy your used 4770k for essentially retail price, I'd say go for it.

In France an i7-4770k goes for 350 to 370€ new, and between 270 - 300 when used. Since it is still under warranty, still functioning and never overclocked, I'm fairly confident I can get around 300 if I sell my DDR3 kit with it.

To be honest, the USB 3.1 might be useful, and the M.2 an interesting option (but as I'm already on full SSD I don't plan on upgrading any time soon).

It's more that Skylake seems to be an interesting investment as future proofing goes (even though it's debatable if anything can be called future proof). It would allow me to make the jump to DDR4 and Type C and not have to worry about compatibility in the near to mid future.

Plus I read Skylake does offer some improvement for data crunching (I work with fairly big data-sets under SAS and Stata), although it would be more of a quality of life improvement than a necessary upgrade.

Arf ..... I'm still on the fence

 

[schmuckley]

I'd say go 1151 just because of higher IPC and no FIVR.
PS: Low-end Giga boards suck and are crappy quality.
If you have to have a low-end board..Biostar is about the best..then Asus.
Anything ud3-up from Giga is very good quality though.
Typed from a Giga Mobo.

 

[meatling]

Since it is still under warranty,

It isn't, not for the one who buys yours. Intel's warranty covers only the original buyer, or, in France, l'acheteur original.

still functioning and never overclocked, I'm fairly confident I can get around 300 if I sell my DDR3 kit with it.

Depending on the amount of RAM included in the kit, that might just work

If you feel you can reasonably expect that upgrading to Skylake/DDR4 would improve your quality of life, then you should probably do it.

 

[alex.rizea]

First of all hey guys! This is my first post on this forum but i'm really glad to be part of this community!

I was in a somewhat identical situation as yours:

My hardware was: Maximus VI Gene + i3 4130 + 2x4 Gb Geil Evo Veloce 2133 Mhz and i had 2 options:

1. Upgrade the cpu with ~100eur (my cpu + 100 eur) for a 4670k/4690k OR
2. Change the whole platform for an added 250 eur (sold mine for 250€ and got a Maximus VIII Ranger + 6600k + 8gb Adata XPG Z1 2400 Mhz).

So i wil recommend go for the new platform, as for the RAM amount, really more that 8gb will not bring you any benefits in gaming (assuming that's what you use the pc for).

I also managed to achieve 5.0 Ghz with 1,48v and 3200Mhz with the memory, wich for me, is a really good result and am happy with it.

Another thing: if you will decide to upgrade to skylake, be careful that the newest bioses DO NOT accept win7 installation any more. So you will need to get your OS drive to another computer in wich to install win7 (assuming you're not upgrading to 10).

Good luck deciding!