New gaming PC build help

They're pretty much the same for gaming applications.

Games have no use for the extreme amount of memory bandwidth that Sandy Bridge-E allows, nor do they need the 40 PCI-Express 3.0 lanes in one and two graphics card setups.

You can easily overclock the 3820 to around 4.5GHz despite it not being a "K" processor. The 3770K cannot go much higher under normal cooling conditions due to the inferior thermal solution used for the Ivy Bridge chips.

I was extremely close to finishing a Sandy Bridge-E build with the 3820, but instead went with Z77 and a 3770K built around an ASUS Maximus V Gene motherboard.

I wouldn't consider socket 2011 to be much of an upgrade path while thinking of it as offering cost savings. The 2011 solution should certainly have more longevity if you go with a 6-core, 12-thread chip right now.

If you go with a 3820 now, then there will be affordable and better solutions than socket 2011 when you once again get the upgrade itch. Remember that Intel's chip prices don't change much over the years, and the future Broadwell architecture might easily best what socket 2011 offers and at affordable pricing.

That said, since they cost about the same in the end, there is absolutely no harm in going with a 3820.

just remember the 3820 is not pci-e 3.0 compliant. you need the 3930K to get 3.0 out of the boards. IMO I'd never get a new chip without a new board. By the time you would want to upgrade your cup, there will be better boards out and it would be pointless to use a new chip in a old board that is not optimized for it.

i was in the same boat as you guys but went with SB-E after playing around with a 3770K, I didn't want it. My 3930K is at 4.77hz and running no hotter than 66C at full load. Beauty chip!

I've got to say that does sound good!

It did take me quite a while to get that OC stable though. It was strange that the voltage for the cpu ended up at 1.39 volts. Thats pretty low for that speed. I built a system for a friend using the 3930K and a full water cooling rig and his is running a steady 4.81 with temps never going over 70C (which is kind hot but not to bad). I started out with the noctura D14 but ended up with the WC cpu for the oc. the D14 would let me go to about 4.4ghz with reasonable temps. It was one great air cooler.
If I was going Ivy, I'd REALLY think about WC and not the closed loop corsair ones, a real open loop system.

Since you're running 3-way CrossFire, the third card would be running at x4 PCI-Express 2.0 speed on that board. Based on what I've read from user experiences, this will impact performance a bit (especially in the minimum frame rates).

If you do go with Z77 and stick to a 3-way setup, something like the GIGABYTE G1.Sniper 3 (which uses the PLX 8747 bridge chip) is more fit for that application. On the plus side, the reviews for this particular board are really positive.

I forgot to add that an Ivy Bridge chip with a Z77 board will get you PCI-Express 3.0. A Sandy Bridge chip with the same board will not.

However, this does not really matter as long as you get at least x8 2.0 speeds to your cards. Also, your particular graphics cards do not support PCI-Express 3.0 anyway.

Yeah, at that point you're encroaching on X79 board prices, which coupled with a 3820 will get you 40 PCI-Express 2.0 lanes from the start. However, that Gigabyte Z77 board is a premium quality board. If you do consider that Gigabyte board, keep in mind that it is an E-ATX form factor.

Using the x4 2.0 slot for the third card on a cheaper board like the one you linked might not be too detrimental, but reports like this one show some significant losses in similar setups with certain games. I also read about people experiencing micro-stutter due to extra latency when using a card running off a x4 slot from the PCH in a multi-GPU setup, which won't really show in benchmarks. I cannot attest to the veracity of the micro-stutter claim.

If I was building a Ivy board today. I'd be using the G1 sniper 3. I built one for a customer a few weeks ago and it's a really slick board.

Ivy Bridge chips get extremely hot with even moderate overclocks. You should be able to comfortably overclock a 3770K to between 4.2GHz and 4.4GHz on that air cooler. Honestly, there really is no reason to go higher for gaming. I can't think of a situation where a 3770K CPU bottleneck will take you under 60fps at 4.4GHz. That might be a concern for some future games that are poorly optimized and lack multithreading, but it's not a concern right now and games are increasingly making use of four or more threads at a rather rapid rate.

That's a very good temp considering the circumstances. Using a Noctua cooler, my particular Ivy chip goes well above 70C under full stress with the necessary voltage to achieve 4.5GHz.

You can probably get it stable with some careful voltage adjustments. But, that's where Ivy Bridge starts to get quite hot in temperature.

4.4GHz is an optimal clock speed for this chip.

That sniper is a sweet board eh dave? I wouldn't worry about gettign 4.5 out of the chip. It won't make any difference in any real world situation. I'd say OC to whatever you can on stock voltage and be done. The extra few Mhz are only getting you heat and a shorter chip life cycle.