[PhrantiQ]

Alright, I've got a pretty 'insane' setup for the most part... However I have a faulty motherboard that's under warranty (Maximus V Formula) and have been given the opportunity to return it and my CPU (as it may have damaged it as well) which is a i7-3770K. Now I've never fully stressed out the system, however I will be working more from home now than ever before - So I may like a bit more 'power' behind me. With that being said, I've got a few options and would like your opinions (speaking of those who deal in hardware a lot). Now don't get me wrong here guys, I don't believe I am clueless or having bad sense of hardware - I just focus more on over all computing and haven't kept up (specially as of late) with computer hardware, thanks to Cisco and other certifications (taking up all my time, haha).

Before I list my brief ideas, let me post a picture of the setup so you can understand it all a bit more . . . Please note this is old and a bit messy, but you get the jist.
(Clicking on image takes you to a page that has more pictures and such. This is again old and a bit dated, I've since upgraded quite a few items.)

OPTION ONE: i7-4930K
Due to the 6 cores, this is a very tempting upgrade - As I will be multi-tasking more than ever. I also have a big enough case and water cooling to over clock it, then cool it appropriately. I also run trip-sli cards, so no need for the GPU part of the chip on my end. I also have 1200 W power supply and can easily power this beast.
OPTION TWO: i7-4770K
My i7-3770K to this wouldn't be much of an increase, performance wise. However I would get some benefits for upgrading the Maximus V Formula board to the latest generation of boards.
OPEN OPTION: Open To Other Options / Ideas
Any other reasonable recommendations. The reason I don't have the i7-4960X is due to the price, don't really see a need to drop that much on it when the 4930K gets me relatively close to it as is. I know there are still some reasons behind the difference, but I don't stress the 3770K enough to need that jump (specially with price in mind).
Anyway . . .
Would love your opinion on this, as well as some motherboard recommendations for the LGA2011 and LGA1150's. Please remember that I need tri-sli enabled, 4 slots of RAM that takes 8 GB each of DDR3 RAM, etc. Well that wraps it up, thanks in advance for your opinions and help !

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Hmm... Great advise guys Anyway I believe I will be going with the i7-4930K just need to pick the board for a 2011 set.

[PhrantiQ]

Hmm... Great advise guys Anyway I believe I will be going with the i7-4930K just need to pick the board for a 2011 set.

[iammykyl]

Gday PhrantiQ.
I, for one, did not see you post until 11.00 pm, so not enough time to do any sort of research and it would have been helpful if you had specified the exact use for the rig together with the type of software used. Could be wrong here, but the rig looks pro rather than amateur and you may generate some income from it's use, so many would be reluctant to voice an opinion.

Had thought of a xeon/workstation MB, realized that would be costly as required new RAM. Please post a few more details and I will give my 2 cents worth.

[PhrantiQ]

Well, the use varies greatly and shouldn't change much of the opinions. I am a systems engineer, so a lot of the time I have many windows and tasks open where I am remotely controlling multiple machines, coding in multiple languages, office applications running, chat agent running, and many tabs of Chrome running. I also do game lightly via Steam. All of this could be covered by any of the CPU's I've mentioned.

[iammykyl]

Gday
Thanks for the information.
I would also have gone with the i7-4930K

Asus, my choice, P9X79, the most open board, but only has 6 SATA slots. Rampage IV Formula if sound is important. The Rampage IV Extreme, looked at but think over the top, also EATX.
> http://motherboard.f...page-IV-Extreme
Other boards considered, and second choice would be the Gigabyte. > http://motherboard.f...BYTE-GA-X79-UD5

Will your existing RAM be usable?
Will your liquid cooling be transferable?

[PhrantiQ]

RAM will be, yes. Liquid cooling system, yes. Thank God for most coolers coming with multiple mounting types/brackets! Haha.

All in all for the board, we have relatively the same ideas. I believe I will just get the Rampage IV Extreme though, as it fits my specifications and is basically the upgraded and modern version of the board I have (plus the colors match the scheme). Though it slightly disgusts me that I'll be dropping close to 700 dollars once again on my system, though that's only a drop in the bucket in comparison to the over all system.

Though before finalizing on the board, I'll be doing some final reading up on it. So we'll see if it changes, if it does I will post here.

[iammykyl]

Yes that Extreme is rather tasty, is that the BF3? or the much cheaper one Just had another look, > http://motherboard.f...-IV-Extreme-LGA
Your CPU, but MB not listed, > http://pcpartpicker....-bx80633i74930k

Please do keep updating, very interested in result.

[PhrantiQ]

The store that I'd be dealing with (as I am a business class reseller/partner) is Tiger Direct. I had not seen the BF3 version, so would have to see what the difference in that really is before answering but I am at work now, so I don't have the time needed to dig into it.

I'll keep you updated, will get this rolling out soon though.

[iammykyl]