Upgrade spec check

Cyanide

Cyanide

Cyanide

Soldato
Joined
5 Mar 2006
Posts
3,975
Location
Nottingham
With the announcement that even with the Windows 7 patch Bulldozer is still pants I've settled on another Intel system to satisfy my upgrade itch.

I've already got HDD's (including a SSD), monitor, PSU (HX620) and keyboard/mouse so just need the rest replacing.

I do a lot of RTS gaming, along with stuff like Skyrim & Crysis and I also do a fair bit of Photoshop work on large images. And yes, I will be clocking it to within an inch of its life :)

What's the opinion on this -


HIS ATI Radeon HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £209.99 (£174.99)

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99(£149.99)

Corsair Hydro H100 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/LGA2011/AM2/AM3) £99.98 (£83.32)

Corsair Carbide 500R Midi Tower Case - Black/White £93.98 (£78.32)

Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98 (£70.82)

Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B) £39.98

Sub Total : £590.76
Shipping : FREE
VAT : £118.15

Total : £708.91
 
Just a thought - how does the 6950 compare to the 560TI? From what I've seen they're pretty evenly matched but the 560 looks cheaper?
 
Just had a quick look at some reviews, the 6950 is marginally better.

Would link to Andantech bench but there website seems to be down.
 
Well I've grabbed 8Gb of Kingston HyperX in the sale so I'm sorted for memory :)

I do feel rather disgusted with myself though - I'm considering an FX6100 @ £104.99 with the cashback, clocking it up and putting the extra £ towards a better GPU (6970 maybe?). I've noticed that at my res with AA on the CPU makes pretty much naff all difference...
 
beejjacobs said:
Lol. I knew you'd say that :P
Click to expand...

It is a valid point though, they're about the same price, I doubt I'd notice any difference whilst gaming at a higher res with the details up and once you start clocking the FX would start running rings round the i3 in most things.

[edit] I realise I'm starting to sound like an AMD fanboy here - I'm not (see my sig :p), I'm just looking for the best value :D
 
Cyanide said:
It is a valid point though, they're about the same price, I doubt I'd notice any difference whilst gaming at a higher res with the details up and once you start clocking the FX would start running rings round the i3 in most things.

[edit] I realise I'm starting to sound like an AMD fanboy here - I'm not (see my sig :p), I'm just looking for the best value :D
Click to expand...

No I agree completely. Was just throwing it out there. You sound like someone who like's playing around, in which case get what you like :p most games are not limited by the CPU anyway like you say :)
 
I'm genuinely torn here... I've decided to go for a Gigabyte UD3 Board, partly to give better multi-gpu options in the future, partly for the smaller extra features and partly because it'll look sexeh with my plan for the internal design.

If I go with the UD3, an XFX 6950 and a 2500k it comes to £513.96.
If I go with the FX6100 this drops to £450.96.
If I go with the FX4100 it drops even more to £425.96.

I'm banging my head on the desk here as I know the i5 is the better processor but I can't find consistent reviews for the FX to definitively show how much better. They all show it worse than intel's offering in most things but some says it's 100000% worse across the board and others put it within 10-15% in some things (ie, high res games & multi-threaded apps).

Logic says spend the extra £90 and go with the i5 but my wallet says otherwise and something's tugging away inside telling me to go FX, overclock the hell out of it under water and have a play around to put some benches out there.

AAAARGH!

[edit] and I know spending an extra £40 on a MB just because it's a pretty colour defeats the purpose of the above price war going on in my head but, as I've explained before, I belong in an asylum so I can justify it :p
 
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Well if you like tinkering around surely you would get the i5 2500k for the ability to clock the living hell outa it and then update the bios on the 6950 to match that of the 6970 read a lot of people seem to have done it.
 
systemerror said:
Well if you like tinkering around surely you would get the i5 2500k for the ability to clock the living hell outa it and then update the bios on the 6950 to match that of the 6970 read a lot of people seem to have done it.
Click to expand...

All 3 of them 'clock like monsters under water though :p
 
Cyanide said:
I'm genuinely torn here... I've decided to go for a Gigabyte UD3 Board, partly to give better multi-gpu options in the future, partly for the smaller extra features and partly because it'll look sexeh with my plan for the internal design.

If I go with the UD3, an XFX 6950 and a 2500k it comes to £513.96.
If I go with the FX6100 this drops to £450.96.
If I go with the FX4100 it drops even more to £425.96.

I'm banging my head on the desk here as I know the i5 is the better processor but I can't find consistent reviews for the FX to definitively show how much better. They all show it worse than intel's offering in most things but some says it's 100000% worse across the board and others put it within 10-15% in some things (ie, high res games & multi-threaded apps).

Logic says spend the extra £90 and go with the i5 but my wallet says otherwise and something's tugging away inside telling me to go FX, overclock the hell out of it under water and have a play around to put some benches out there.

AAAARGH!

[edit] and I know spending an extra £40 on a MB just because it's a pretty colour defeats the purpose of the above price war going on in my head but, as I've explained before, I belong in an asylum so I can justify it :p
Click to expand...

The Core i5 2500K will be the fastest of the CPUs and the Core i3 2100 is also worth considering too.

Now if we look at the AMD options for between £80 to £100 you have the choice of the Phenom II X4 960T,FX4100 and FX6100. The 95W Phenom II X4 960T is based on the Phenom II X6 meaning it has a chance of being unlocked to a six core. As a quad core it runs cooler than normal Phenom II X4 CPUs and overclocks reasonably well too and has the improved memory controller of the Phenom II X6.

Remember that there is £10 cashback on the FX4100 and £15 cashback on the FX6100. However,OcUK have the FX6100 on offer at around £108 and with the cashback will be around £93. Most places have the FX4100 for around £90 meaning it will be around £80.

Without the schedular hotfix the FX4100 is generally around 5% to 10% behind a Phenom II X4 955BE in games:

http://ht4u.net/reviews/2011/amd_fx_6100_4100_review/index24.php

Uses ASUS Crosshair V Formula motherboard and HD6950

http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-fx-8150--8120-6100-and-4100-performance-review/10

Uses ASUS Crosshair V Formula motherboard and GTX580

http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/238...ulldozer-review-benchmarks-tom-clancys-hawx-2

Uses ASUS Crosshair V Formula motherboard and HD5870

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1766/12/

Uses ASUS Crosshair V Formula motherboard and HD6950

In certain games it is closer to a Core i3 2100 or Phenom II X4 980BE.

It does seem to do badly in DiRT3 for some reason and with the hotfix is probably comparable to a Phenom II X4 955BE overall. I suspect it has very similar performance to a Phenom II X4 960T without the hotfix.

However,it has a much lower 95W TDP than the Phenom II X4 955BE. It overclocks quite well and speeds of between 4.2GHZ to 4.6GHZ can be achieved with the stock cooler. You can get up closer to 5GHZ but with a decent aftermarket cooler.

It seems the FX4100 does run cooler than FX6100,FX8120 and FX8150 and consumes far less power when overclocked too.
 
Well the offer on the FX6100 was too tempting...

I know its not the fastest cpu on the market but it'll be fun to play with and it'll do everything I need it to. Look out for my project log coming soon :D
 
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Don't forget the £15 cashback! BTW,the hotfix does help with a few games:

http://ht4u.net/news/24987_neue_pat...dlich_beschleunigen_-_ergebnisse_sind_durchw/

http://www.tweakpc.de/hardware/tests/cpu/amd_bulldozer_fx_patch/s02.php
Click to expand...

Ive got the form ready at work to send off as soon as it's delivered tomorrow. For £93 even if it is shockingly bad it won't be the end of the world.

It may be the worst computing decision I've ever made but at least I'll have a new toy to play with... I might even get some decent clocks under water :p
 
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