Haha so I used to be into PC gaming but then really enjoyed being in the living room so ended up on consoles. Being dissatisfied with the next gen consoles power Ive decided to turn my HTPC into a gaming PC. Ive been with AMD CPUs for the last decade so im a bit unfamiliar with Intel CPU's I was looking at the new 1150 CPUs(Haswell).
Ive narrowed it down to either an i7 (4770) or i5 (4690,4670,4590). Ive read GPU bottlenecking isn't a problem with any of these, but want to be sure that even with SLI even with the next 800 series NVidia cards. Also as this will be in a ATX sized HTPC case, would the S series CPUs be worthwhile or are those too weak. I know how to overclock but don't really ever bother to do it so not sure if the K series would benefit me all that much.
OK ive narrowed it down further to the i5-4670 or the i5-4690S. would get the lower TDP CPU help keep cool without losing performance compared to the non S model or will its performance for gaming be just fine? Im more worried about performance but if I can help keep things cooler at the same time all the better.
Two way SLI with 780tis will be pefrectly fine with an i5-4690. Don't bother with the S series of CPU.
Also, if you're not going to overclock, look into the Xeon E3-1231 V3. The E3 line of Xeons on the 1150 platform are locked i7s with no integrated graphics, and are also much cheaper than the i7s. Since you're going to have a dedicated gpu, there's no real need for integrated graphics.
LOL damn I literally just ordered the i5-4590S. Is there something bad about the S? The i5-4570 was the same horsepower should I cancel the order and get that one instead?
No such thing as bottle necking really. I would stick with building a AMD if your going for budget...If I was to build an HTPC this is what I would build..FX 6300, 8GB RAM, 256 SSD for boot, 1 or 2 TB WD Blue, maybe a 750ti or a simliar card.