Is intel i7 5960x still good for gaming?

ashus86 · Apr 17, 2017

Hi. I'm kinda stuck on making a decision here.

my current (2015) build is:
Asus x99 deluxe mobo
CPU: intel core i7 5960x (stock clock)
GPU: 2x EVGA GTX 980 SC (SLi)
32gb Ram 2666 mhz

using the Asus rog swift 144hz 1440p gaming monitor.

I used to use this build for 2 primary reasons.
1) Encoding all my movies (got a plex server running)
2) Gaming.

Now I want to upgrade to the EVGA GTX 1080 Ti FTW 3 (for that VR experience). And never going to go with SLI route again (personal reasons due to some game bugs).

Right now i already got an intel Nuc for my dedicated plex server. And my gaming rig is now 70% gaming and 30% encoding movies (usually leave it overnight to encode them).

Will I hinder myself with my gaming experience with that CPU or should I sell my CPU (and perhaps even my mobo) to get a 7700k intel or maybe the new Ryzen?

or will it still be optimum in gaming? Was thinking of selling my whole rig and get a new one if the CPU isnt recommended for modern games.

Thanks!

Gunderman456 · Apr 17, 2017

Still great!

dihartnell · Apr 17, 2017

I wouldn't swap out your rig. for your stated purpose. I would get a good aftermarket cooler and overclock your 5960.

Whats your monitor refresh rate? Is it 60Hz?. If so 60 fps is all you need. Im presuming if you have that kind of CPU you wont be gaming at 1080 and will be 1440/4k in which case you would be into more GPU limited situations and wouldn't gain a lot from upgrading the CPU.

7700K would likely be less capable in the encoding.

octiny · Apr 17, 2017

It's still a beast!

Overclock it, you got tons of head room and it's free

JedixJarf · Apr 17, 2017

Nah man it's horrible.

JK, it's a beast dude.

bmgjet · Apr 17, 2017

7700K owners be like. "Its complete rubbish since amd trash beats it."
But in reality. Just throw a bit of a overclock on it and its a lot quicker then stock clocks.

chessmyantidrug · Apr 17, 2017

Quote:

Originally Posted by dihartnell

I wouldn't swap out your rig. for your stated purpose. I would get a good aftermarket cooler and overclock your 5960.

Whats your monitor refresh rate? Is it 60Hz?. If so 60 fps is all you need. Im presuming if you have that kind of CPU you wont be gaming at 1080 and will be 1440/4k in which case you would be into more GPU limited situations and wouldn't gain a lot from upgrading the CPU.

7700K would likely be less capable in the encoding.

In the original post, they state they're gaming on a 144hz 1440p monitor.

The i7-5690X is perfectly fine for gaming. No idea why would think it isn't. As long as you are getting the desired frame rates in the games you play, every single component in your system is good enough. At 1440p, the graphics card is more important than the processor. You probably won't have a reason to upgrade your CPU for another two or three generations of processors unless you just feel like upgrading.

HeadlessKnight · Apr 17, 2017

I don't even think that is a valid question, lol. I mean are you serious?

It trade blows with Ryzen 8 cores in productivity/gaming applications at stock. And beats Ryzen slightly in productivity applications at max OC, but for the most part it becomes much closer to the 7700K in gaming than Ryzen.

So the 5960X is still overall the faster chip.

For someone who is new to the market does it worth it to drop a grand on this or 6900K vs Ryzen? Hell no. But your case is totally different.

AlphaC · Apr 17, 2017

Ryzen would be a downgrade for you provided your i7-5960X stays turboed (3.3GHz all core and 3.5GHz two cores).

You could probably pump your clock past 3.9 / 4.0GHz with any decent cooling. Per hwbot.org the average air & water overclock is 4.4-4.5GHz.

chessmyantidrug · Apr 17, 2017

Any CPU on the market would more or less be a sidegrade. Any performance gains that may or may not be there would not be worth the investment.

ashus86 · Apr 17, 2017

Wow thanks guys! Really what I needed to hear.

Only reason I asked is because there were several people claiming they changed their 5960x to 7700k and gained a slight boost in fps in gaming.

I'm actually using a corsair hydro H100i for my CPU. I replaced the stock fans with the quiet edition (AF120), because the stock fans were very noisy! I hate using their program because it feels buggy. (Also the quiet edition is a 3 pin, so I can't actually increase their rpm from corsair program unless I get a 4 pin connector fans).

When encoding my vids, my CPU's temperature would reach a max of 77°C (but a constant around 70 to 75). And that's on the stock clocks. That's why I never considered to overclock it due to high temp

.

Is this normal? Also is there a better water cooler than what i'm using or perhaps change my quiet edition fans. Need something less noisy.

Thanks again guys!

acpoop · Apr 17, 2017

5960x is still good, although any Haswell CPU at 3.3ghz is no match for a 7700k at 5ghz+ in dx11 singlethread.

AlphaC · Apr 18, 2017

Quote:

Originally Posted by ashus86

Wow thanks guys! Really what I needed to hear.

Only reason I asked is because there were several people claiming they changed their 5960x to 7700k and gained a slight boost in fps in gaming.

I'm actually using a corsair hydro H100i for my CPU. I replaced the stock fans with the quiet edition (AF120), because the stock fans were very noisy! I hate using their program because it feels buggy. (Also the quiet edition is a 3 pin, so I can't actually increase their rpm from corsair program unless I get a 4 pin connector fans).

When encoding my vids, my CPU's temperature would reach a max of 77°C (but a constant around 70 to 75). And that's on the stock clocks. That's why I never considered to overclock it due to high temp

.

Is this normal? Also is there a better water cooler than what i'm using or perhaps change my quiet edition fans. Need something less noisy.

Thanks again guys!

Get a CPU cooler with copper block and copper radiator.

Something like EK Predator / Swiftech H220X , X2 , and X2 Prestige / Alphacool Eisbaer / Be Quiet Silent Loop / Fractal Design Kelvin.

Because your cooler uses a copper block and aluminum radiator it is not better than a high end air cooler & you expose yourself to risk of galvanic corrosion.

http://thermalbench.com/2016/06/27/alphacool-eisbaer-240-cpu-cooler/6/

also

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10524/the-alphacool-eisbaer-240-cpu-aio-liquid-cooler-review/5

As far as i7-6950X to i7-7700K I wouldn't do it unless you run a 120+FPS monitor without Gsync or aren't hitting minimum frame rates that are decent for you.

Bal3Wolf · Apr 18, 2017

I had a 2600k@4.8-5Ghz and upgraded to a 6800k with 32gigs of ddr 3200 and i will say i love it my games seem to run much smoother now higher max fps and min fps then what i got with my 2600k@5ghz.

ashus86 · Apr 18, 2017

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlphaC

Get a CPU cooler with copper block and copper radiator.

Something like EK Predator / Swiftech H220X , X2 , and X2 Prestige / Alphacool Eisbaer / Be Quiet Silent Loop / Fractal Design Kelvin.

Because your cooler uses a copper block and aluminum radiator it is not better than a high end air cooler & you expose yourself to risk of galvanic corrosion.

http://thermalbench.com/2016/06/27/alphacool-eisbaer-240-cpu-cooler/6/

also

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10524/the-alphacool-eisbaer-240-cpu-aio-liquid-cooler-review/5

As far as i7-6950X to i7-7700K I wouldn't do it unless you run a 120+FPS monitor without Gsync or aren't hitting minimum frame rates that are decent for you.

Wow, thanks! I did not know about those coolers and how mine would be less useful. I honestly bought it because at that time, most of the youtubers doing build advice were using it. But I always suspected there was something wrong with mine is its temperature would reach higher than the rest (although in gaming, it hovers around 55°C)

I'm actually using 5960x not 6950x. But I get your point. Thank you!

chessmyantidrug · Apr 18, 2017

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bal3Wolf

I had a 2600k@4.8-5Ghz and upgraded to a 6800k with 32gigs of ddr 3200 and i will say i love it my games seem to run much smoother now higher max fps and min fps then what i got with my 2600k@5ghz.

None of this is actually pertinent to the discussion.

I personally would ditch lazy liquid cooling. If you want to go liquid, go with a custom loop. If you think a custom loop is too expensive, stop spending $1000 on a CPU. I suggest getting a dual tower air cooler like the Noctua NH-D15s or Phanteks PH-TC14PE if you don't want to put in the effort of constructing a custom loop.

BinaryDemon · Apr 18, 2017

Do a little experimenting with overclocking. See how much your temperatures really change. Who knows you might be able to get to 4.0ghz with the same voltages it's using when it turbo's to 3.5ghz.

HeadlessKnight · Apr 18, 2017

Reaching mid 70s is a bit high at stock clocks with an H100i . My 5820K @ stock reaches around 55C while rendering (running x264 stability test and at least 2 copies in a row) and that with a Seidon 120XL and that cooler has only a 120mm radiator + fans unlike the 280mm Corsair H100i.
@ 4.4 GHz 1.25V I get around 75-80 C while rendering and that in summer. I don't think 2 extra cores will magically add +20 C.

Yukss · Apr 18, 2017

wait what ? are we still in april's fools ? i dont find any logic on this question at all.. my cpu is even OLDER and can keep up with everything at the moment.

ashus86 · Apr 18, 2017

Quote:

Originally Posted by BinaryDemon

Do a little experimenting with overclocking. See how much your temperatures really change. Who knows you might be able to get to 4.0ghz with the same voltages it's using when it turbo's to 3.5ghz.

That's what actually got me thinking. I went into my BIOS system and saw that my CPU was using 1.2v ..

Is there a reliable program to check if my CPU was overclocked or not, and what voltage its using.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chessmyantidrug

None of this is actually pertinent to the discussion.

I personally would ditch lazy liquid cooling. If you want to go liquid, go with a custom loop. If you think a custom loop is too expensive, stop spending $1000 on a CPU. I suggest getting a dual tower air cooler like the Noctua NH-D15s or Phanteks PH-TC14PE if you don't want to put in the effort of constructing a custom loop.

Honestly at that time, only reason I bought that CPU was because I had it as a gaming/server rig. Used it for my Plex server and late night encoding with handbrake / ffmpeg, and that was in 2015. Now I already got an Intel NUC for a dedicated server, and only use this PC for the overnight encoding, while playing modern games in my spare time.

So I used Corsair H100i, which was somewhat popular in that year to cool it down. I'm not experienced enough to go into custom loop and its regular maintenance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeadlessKnight

Reaching mid 70s is a bit high at stock clocks with an H100i . My 5820K @ stock reaches around 55C while rendering (running x264 stability test and at least 2 copies in a row) and that with a Seidon 120XL and that cooler has only a 120mm radiator + fans unlike the 280mm Corsair H100i.
@ 4.4 GHz 1.25V I get around 75-80 C while rendering and that in summer. I don't think 2 extra cores will magically add +20 C.

Forgot to add that my ambient (room) temperature here is usually 23°C to 24°C. It's quite cool tbh.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yukss

wait what ? are we still in april's fools ? i dont find any logic on this question at all.. my cpu is even OLDER and can keep up with everything at the moment.

Lol! Only reason I considered was because people were claiming that 7700k processor was giving them higher FPS with the gtx 1080 ti, and also a friend was offering to buy the CPU from me (ofcourse as a lower price than the market).

But thanks to the guys here (which I really appreciate their help!) I'm thinking of overclocking, However, the temperatures now for my CPU is usually around 55°C while gaming (the division, for honor), and max temperature while doing overnight encoding with handbrake at 77°C (read it off the MSI Afterburner after doing hours of encoding).

So i'm trying to figure out why its so high, and how to cool it down before overclocking it.

PS: for the Corsair H100i, I did replace the stock fans with the Quiet edition, as the noise was too much to handle for me.

So again if anyone knows a good program to tell me what voltage my CPU actually uses at full load and its boost speed. Trying to see if my BIOS was correct in saying it was actually using voltage of 1.2v

Is intel i7 5960x still good for gaming?

ashus86

Gunderman456

dihartnell

octiny

JedixJarf

bmgjet

chessmyantidrug

HeadlessKnight

AlphaC

chessmyantidrug

ashus86

acpoop

AlphaC

Bal3Wolf

ashus86

chessmyantidrug

BinaryDemon

HeadlessKnight

Yukss

ashus86

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