Which One??

N00bbuilder79 · 11 Jan 2011 at 18:09

I am looking at building a new system, please keep reading I have a question you may be able to help with.

I will be using the system for gaming (mostly FPS) and video editing with a bit of photo editing thrown in for good measure. There will also be a fair bit of overclocking too, to this end the system will also be water cooled.
The question is should I go for the 2600k and the ASUS Maximus IV Extreme or should I go i7 950 and the ASUS Rampage III Extreme. I understand that one is triple channel and the other is only dual channel memory but what do you guys think?
I am hoping to order within the next couple of weeks and so any help, advice or pointers would be great.

Thanks in advance.

bro306 · 11 Jan 2011 at 18:13

Had both go for the sandybridge the extra speed will make a difference in video editing and photo!

coldfused · 11 Jan 2011 at 18:14

I would go for the i7-2600K. With respects to gaming, it doesn't make that much of a difference between the two, but with multi threaded applications the i7-2600k does well.
In fact the Sandy Bridge chips make the LGA1366 look obsolete.
With regards to memory you could get a 2x 4GB kit if you need the extra memory. DDR3 memory is becoming a lot cheaper.

cmndr_andi · 11 Jan 2011 at 18:15

I would definitely go for the i7 2600K considering your uses. It is a much faster CPU for those tasks, and even with dual channel memory taken into account - it is still faster.

N00bbuilder79 · 11 Jan 2011 at 18:16

The other advantage of going 2600k is I can use the 8GB of memory I already have. Is the 2600k really that fast it makes the 1366 look obsolete?

coldfused · 11 Jan 2011 at 18:17

Take a look at the benchmarks yourself:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/sandy-bridge-core-i7-2600k-core-i5-2500k,review-32090-16.html

N00bbuilder79 · 11 Jan 2011 at 18:23

coldfused said:
Take a look at the benchmarks yourself:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/sandy-bridge-core-i7-2600k-core-i5-2500k,review-32090-16.html

That might just have swung my decision. My only concern now is that there seems to have been a few Sandys die an early death, just a bad batch??

coldfused · 11 Jan 2011 at 18:25

Nah, probably people dunno how to get their hardware working

I would go for the retail version.... 3 Year Warranty should bring you peace.

N00bbuilder79 · 11 Jan 2011 at 18:49

Can't complain with a 3 year warranty, having read some other threads it seems OcUK are doing what they can to help those with dead chips anyway.

Ch3m1c4L · 11 Jan 2011 at 20:26

Be careful using your current memory, it has to be lower voltage, 1.65v is the absoolute max, and 1.5 is recommended, so if your like me and running early DDR3 and it uses 1.8v your **** outta luck

N00bbuilder79 · 11 Jan 2011 at 21:14

Luckily my current memory is 1.5v