Supersonic PC: Ivy or Sandy, confused?

Housey

Housey

Housey

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Looking at rebuilding my main PC that is used for gaming, ripping my DVD/Blue Ray discs to NAS and general day to day stuff. I am currently trying to understand which route to take and which option is best as I know Ivy Bridge is the latest greatest platform on a Z77 chipset, but I still see some sites suggesting for ultimate power and overclocking certain Sandy Bridge and X79 platforms might offer more. I'm a simple sort, could someone give me some general plusses and minuses of both platforms, assuming I want the best most powerful box that will push my gaming and encoding capabilities to the max.

Cheers in advanace and please, no big words :D
 
For gaming/mainstream a Z77 board and an i5 3570K is best.
i7 3770K for more threads without changing platform.

For maximum threads/raw power (and more PCIe lanes for 3/4 way SLI/CF), a X79 and i7 39xx CPU is what you want :)

Sandybridge is still good, but with the IB CPUs being similarly priced (even cheaper some places) it makes more sense to get the newer stuff.
From what I understand, with IB you can get ~4.5Ghz overclock, and this is roughly equivalent to SB at ~4.8Ghz.
 
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Thanks for the quick reply and lack of big words n stuff but now some more questions if I may..

1) You say the X79 and i7 works best for all out umph and thready stuff, which is what I have now, but will this also be the best for gaming and better than the Z77 and i5?

2) Why do people suggest the i5 rather than i7 for gaming, is it down to cost or actual FPS benefits?

3) And one of the issues I have with my current Gigabyte UD7 is I cant fit my sound card in with 2 cards in crossfire, if I got with 2 cards on say a Z77 is this likely to be a problem too?
 
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Housey said:
Thanks for the quick reply and lack of big words n stuff but now some more questions if I may..

1) You say the X79 and i7 works best for all out umph and thready stuff, which is what I have now, but will this also be the best for gaming and better than the Z77 and i5?

2) Why do people suggest the i5 rather than i7 for gaming, is it down to cost or actual FPS benefits?
Click to expand...

It's because the main difference between a 3570K and 3770K is hyperthreading. Games often use a few cores, so don't make use of the extra threads. So games perform the same roughly on an i5 compared with an i7. Considering the i7 is more expensive, and that you can overclock an i5 nicely, for gaming an i7 is wasted.

2500K vs 2700K - gaming benchmarks at the bottom.

The X79 will be better than Z77+i5 for encoding, editing etc... that uses more threads. For gaming they will both be very good!
 
beejjacobs said:
It's because the main difference between a 3570K and 3770K is hyperthreading. Games often use a few cores, so don't make use of the extra threads. So games perform the same roughly on an i5 compared with an i7. Considering the i7 is more expensive, and that you can overclock an i5 nicely, for gaming an i7 is wasted.

2500K vs 2700K - gaming benchmarks at the bottom.

The X79 will be better than Z77+i5 for encoding, editing etc... that uses more threads. For gaming they will both be very good!
Click to expand...

Cool, my learning is coming together, I do get confused in my old age :D
 
At the moment I am favouring the following 3 main bits combo

- Asus P8Z77 WS Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
- Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA11551
- Antec Kúhler H2O 920 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler

Is this a sensible structure assuming I want ultimate gaming and quick ripping? I am thinking a GTX690 or 2 x 680's and if Gibbo is reading this he will be rubbing his hands with glee. Last time I did this I spent £3600 after some selling up :D
 
rotters said:
Ripping bluerays takes such little effort for modern rigs, an i5 will easily be good enough.
Click to expand...

So going maximum cores i7 will be 1% 2% better or close to 20% - 30% do you think...or not at all?

Thanks for the time, this is all useful learning for me, I appreciate it.
 
 
Housey said:
Ah just spotted you spec, now tell me why its better than mine if you dont mind, I am intrigued and not trying to catch you out here, just welcome your thoughts.
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The motherboard is gigabyte, so UK rma base and 3 year warranty. Also i have heard that asus's customer support is quite bad.

I personally prefer air heatsinks as there are less parts to fail and if the fans do fail you will not be in a massive problem unlike if the pump fails on a pre built unit.
 
jamesfreddie said:
The motherboard is gigabyte, so UK rma base and 3 year warranty. Also i have heard that asus's customer support is quite bad.

I personally prefer air heatsinks as there are less parts to fail and if the fans do fail you will not be in a massive problem unlike if the pump fails on a pre built unit.
Click to expand...

Ive got a Gigbyte X79 UD7 board at the moment and it has been somewhat temperamental, not registering network points, losing USB devices, losing hard drives, nothing major but often requires a reboot so thought I'd look elsewhere but I take your point. Personal preference and I also have a Coolermanst H50 (I think) on my current rig and its been faultless hence going with another watery thingy this time.
 
Housey said:
Ive got a Gigbyte X79 UD7 board at the moment and it has been somewhat temperamental, not registering network points, losing USB devices, losing hard drives, nothing major but often requires a reboot so thought I'd look elsewhere but I take your point. Personal preference and I also have a Coolermanst H50 (I think) on my current rig and its been faultless hence going with another watery thingy this time.
Click to expand...

Stulid did a review of that Gigabyte motherboard, might be worth a look:
***Gigabyte GA-Z77-UD5H-WiFi review***
 
Housey said:
Ive got a Gigbyte X79 UD7 board at the moment and it has been somewhat temperamental, not registering network points, losing USB devices, losing hard drives, nothing major but often requires a reboot so thought I'd look elsewhere but I take your point. Personal preference and I also have a Coolermanst H50 (I think) on my current rig and its been faultless hence going with another watery thingy this time.
Click to expand...

So why are you doing another build if you already have a X79 build?
 
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