Upgrading CPU

[stevesideas]

I'm looking to upgrade the CPU (and most likely the motherboard).

I currently have an i7-4770 (3.40Ghz), 32GB 1600mhz ram and a z87 Gigabyte motherboard.

What would you recommend I upgrade to ? I want something that can run 3dsmax and games quicker. I'm really looking to boost performance.

[ior=0]

Well if money is no object then 10 core broadwell has to be it.
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/inte...0-lane-140w-re

I'm not sure of the exact difference between the Broadwell -E and the Haswell-E, but basically select the CPU with the most cores you can afford and choose a good motherboard manufacturer (such as Gigabyte, ASUS, etc)then build you system around that.
However it isn't always worth going for the top end CPU in the range as the price/performance tends to make them very expensive for just a few more Ghz.

I sure you won't... but don't cannibalize your old machine - it'll make an excellent slave.

[werticus]

best bang for buck is the 2011-3 cpu's as above, there is 8 and 6 core versions also, the 10 is a bit expensive. But they all overclock well so, bring some cooling to the party.

[benb32]

Always a difficult one... Broadwell E doesn't overclock very well - the 10 core struggling to find stability above 4GHz, the 8 core being unstable above 4.2GHz. My old 8 core Haswell overclocked to 4.4 GHZ with a closed loop cooler, using 220 watts - so in many ways was better value. There isn't really a pull to upgrade from Haswell to Broadwell as clock for clock GHZ Broadwell only performs 5% better. If you are starting afresh and aren't going for dual socket, Broadwell E is a good choice.

The trade off is against multiple lower clocked cores (knowing that single threaded performance will be worse in Max, but VRAY will perform better), or fewer faster cores (6 being the sweet spot on the non xeon versions, with Max performing slightly better but fewer cores to help VRay). Guessing the ideal option is to have a fast clocked workstation for Max, with a large core xeon based system for DR. Also consider whether your direction will be with GPUs and RT. Some people consider it being much better value for money spending on GPUs and quick nvme SSDs instead of extream high end CPUs. To sum up it all depends on your workflow and the conflict of ideals between what is best for Max and what is best for Vray.

[Moriah]

Always a difficult one... Broadwell E doesn't overclock very well - the 10 core struggling to find stability above 4GHz, the 8 core being unstable above 4.2GHz.

Uhm, what? I have the 6850K, it's 3.5 stock, and it's OC'ed to 4.6GHZ stable... has been rendering 48h straight...

[benb32]

Ahhhhhhh you must have a good one - haven't personally upgraded mine to Broadwell, was repeating the tests done by anandtech.com (the AVX tests being 200 - 300 MHz lower)
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10337/...to-10-cores/10

[benb32]

Uhm, what? I have the 6850K, it's 3.5 stock, and it's OC'ed to 4.6GHZ stable... has been rendering 48h straight...

Your processor is the 6 core variant, so it would be reasonable to think that you could overclock higher than the larger core processors. My note was based on the 8 and 10 core versions. Just searching the other tests on different sites leads to the conclusion - out of the box Broadwell E is more power efficient (so can run slightly faster) but so soon as you overclock the core voltage required is significantly more than Haswell E. Both Broadwell E and Haswell E are still extremely quick processors.