So what's the word on upgrading to Haswell???

The i7-3930K is a true 6-core 12-thread CPU.......IF you need that much horsepower, I'd go with that and build me a good Socket 2011 rig.

Yeah that's the CPU I'm going after. I just need to at least look at Haswell before making the final choice, even though I have till Aug/Sept.

BTW you might check out the first post of this thread where I listed the proposed system. It is a Socket 2011 rig

Well, you were going back and forth on socket 2011 and Haswell, but they are definitely two different types of platforms. Haswell, or any mainstream platform is more than enough for 90% of people and Socket 2011 is for the group of people who need the extra features such as people who do video/photo editing or run scientific programs.

Thanks Steve,

It's been a while since I've been in the market and looked at CPU's or any other "performance" hardware.

Anyway I asked your opinion because I've seen you here a lot so I know you, and others, are pretty up to date on this stuff. The last time I looked at CPU's, even GPU's, was near the end of the first gen i7-900 CPU's

As for overclocking, I know I won't be doing that as heavily as I used to so overclocking is not much of an important issue at this time. I just want to get a high performance system for gaming, photo editing/processing, and somewhere down the line, some music mixing.

Anyway thanks for looking, your opinion is well valued :)

@ kbrady1979, if you look through this thread I started, I said I wanted a X79 system, but wanted to know if I should consider Haswell. Seems X79 may be the way to go.

BTW the Z-87 boards are quite appealing though.

Over on Overclock.net, a lot of them are already delidding the Haswells, shaving as much as 18°C from the CPU temps.

Again, I'm glad I decided to go with the P9X79 WS board instead of waiting for Haswell. While the ASUS Z87 Deluxe/Dual was tempting, I would have had trouble keeping the temps down and wouldn't have really gained anything overall. The extra PCIe slot I would have gained would have been offset by the loss of a couple of SATA ports; Wi-Fi (which I may not need someday if I go ethernet to a router) and Bluetooth (which I don't see needing anytime soon, if ever) can come from adapters so no gain there either. It's going to be a long time before I would ever need Thunderbolt, again if ever. Having the onboard video in addition to a GPU card would have been nice, though.

I just wanted you to realize there was a fundamental difference between those two platforms. The Haswell platform is "mainstream" and works well for normal tasks, and the Sandy Bridge-Extreme is Intel's extreme line for more demanding tasks. If you need the horsepower, there is no substitute for the X79 platform. I really would wait and see what Ivy Bridge-Extreme has to offer before I made a decision though. After all, Sandy Bridge-Extreme will still be available if IB-E doesn't suit you.

I was on the fence with my build as to whether or not to go with an X79 platform. I decided I didn't need the extra features and computing power the X79 platform has to offer, so I went with the Z77 platform. It would have been fun to build a balls out X79 rig though