Theoretical System Build, your thoughts?

[dark4yoyo]

you won't need pci-e 3.0 bandwidth, not until a couple years at least. Plus the i7 3960X has 40 pci-e 2.0 lanes, which is equivalent in bandwidth to 20 pci-e 3.0 lanes. the i7 3770K only supports 16 pci-e 3.0 lanes, so the i7 3960X, is not only faster than the i7 3770K, but also has more total pci-e bandwidth.

Edited August 12, 2012 by dark4yoyo

[RikuoAmero]

you won't need pci-e 3.0 bandwidth, not until a couple years at least. Plus the i7 3960X has 40 pci-e 2.0 lanes, which is equivalent in bandwidth to 20 pci-e 3.0 lanes. the i7 3770K only supports 16 pci-e 3.0 lanes, so the i7 3960X, is not only faster than the i7 3770K, but also has more total pci-e bandwidth.

So, basically, just so I understand, if I was to throw in a 3960X, it wouldn't refuse to run a 3.0 slot at full 3.0 speeds, even though its not listed as being 3.0 compatible on the Intel website? So in the future, when looking at CPUs, I should ignore that part of the specs and just read the number of lanes?

[dark4yoyo]

So, basically, just so I understand, if I was to throw in a 3960X, it wouldn't refuse to run a 3.0 slot at full 3.0 speeds, even though its not listed as being 3.0 compatible on the Intel website? So in the future, when looking at CPUs, I should ignore that part of the specs and just read the number of lanes?

No, not at all... I just mean that you won't need pci-e 3.0 speed, as graphic cards won't be limited by pci-e 2.0 x16 any time soon. And the i7 3960x has more total bandwidth than the i7 3770k. pci-e 3.0 has double the bandwidth of pci-e 2.0, but the i7 3960x has 40 lanes of pci-e 2.0 ( 20GB/s total) and the i7 3770k only has 16 lanes of pci-e 3.0 (16GB/s total), thus the i7 3960x is not only faster than the i7 3770k, but also has more total bandwidth. I thought I had made myself clear in the previous post.

And with the six cores of the i7 3960x you will encode noticably faster.

Edit: Ah and with the right mobo, I think the i7 3960x is actually compatible with pci-e 3.0.

And a couple benchmarks about various pci-e speeds, as well as the compatibility of the i7 3960x with pci-e 3.0 (X79 chipset), sorry it's in french just use google traduction : http://www.hardware.fr/articles/850-1/pci-express-3-0-impact-performances.html

Edited August 13, 2012 by dark4yoyo