Did you see the smiley dude, Mike?  I was foolin around with you.
 
My apologies for trying to bring a smile.
 
 

Here's the thing - have a look at the top cpus on tomshardware.co.uk
http://www.tomshardware.c...ck,review-32901-5.html

There is nothing that's got any better specs - unless maybe your clock speed is a little slower (I'm on my phone and can't see your specs)
New chipsets won't give you anything more than marginal improvements as will moving to DDR4.

You have to do a little looking up too ;-)

You might notice I put answered in the title.

I always end up doing my own looking up. I don't ask many questions here and often I even research material so I can give an answer.

I just had this idea that out of the many people on this forum someone might just say " oh this CPU and this MOBO is about the best value at the moment"

It never happened so I got the answer for myself. Hence the title addition of Answered.

Mike... would you mind sharing your answer?  I for one would be interested...along with John.  I tagged this thread as I'm always open to improvements I might not know about.

If it helps someone, the best CPU/mobo bang for the buck for my last build was an i7-5820K on an ASUS X99-A mobo. Least amount of "extras" for a dedicated DAW. SSDs made a big difference as well. No issues with the build, no problems over the last few months, Sonar running very well indeed. 

jackson white
If it helps someone, the best CPU/mobo bang for the buck for my last build was an i7-5820K on an ASUS X99-A mobo. Least amount of "extras" for a dedicated DAW. SSDs made a big difference as well. No issues with the build, no problems over the last few months, Sonar running very well indeed. 

This combination  depending on mobo generation seems to be holding up well in a many setups. 

my entire current album ("Stay"),
recorded with a Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz running Win XP,
2 gig ram,
and sonar 6 PE.
 
just sayin'.

 
 

Yep, and they landed on the moon with way less computer power than  the average smart phone has.
 
We probably can't buy that computer Bat, unless we want it used. You know planned obsolescence :) and we would need tons of guitars and outboard gear :) and be able to play like you.

batsbrew
my entire current album ("Stay"),
recorded with a Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz running Win XP,
2 gig ram,
and sonar 6 PE.

And it is one fine album too!
 

heheh, thanks starise....and patm300e
 
i want to upgrade my system too,
so i'm really just poking fun..
 
but also making the point that it's not about your rig,
it's about your craft.
so folks that cannot afford a 'rig', can still do what they need to do.
that's all.