gibborim wrote:If you were doing truly serious rendering, wouldn't you be using the 980x anyway?
Actually not at all.
If you're doing "serious" cpu rendering you don't rely on one machine, but rather a small farm where each CPU renders parts of the final image that get recompiled.
Then you need to look at performance to value, since 4 2600k cost about as much as 1 980x but WAY outperform the single CPU. But then you also have to figure the other components needed, power requirements, etc. overall though you're still doing better with multiple cheaper cpus than the top of the line enthusiast cpu.
That's where there sandy bridge chips are really nice. they are 90% of the 980 at like 25% of the cost (numbers out of my ass, but it's extremely disproportionate for cost to value ). Plus they OC like a charm, I'm running this 3.4ghz 2600k at 4.9ghz extremely stable for the last 2 months, and doing considerable rendering stuff with it too.