2500k or a newer chip? SB -v- IB

[~Divine~Wind~]

Been umming and arring over this for ages
With people still asking silly amouns for 2nd hand 2500k's Im leading towars newer.

The board is a Z77X-UD3H and would like to overclock a little, nothing crazy lol.
I'm moving from a P5Q Pro and a E8400 so will be a decent upgrade either way lol

Any help appreciated

 

[vonex]

might as well go for IB, its not as bad as people would have you believe.

 

[mauserk98]

might as well go for IB, its not as bad as people would have you believe.

Plus 1 .

I waited for it over SB .It runs up to 4.6 in auto on my MB (ASUS) and a H80 cooler .

 

[AllBodies]

IVY's 24/7 operation safe temp is 75 degrees (source; from intel technical support, so the horse's mouth), and it can be 80-85 if not 24/7 operation. Again these temps are 100% safe mandated by intel, so 90 is probably also perfectly safe, just intel wouldn't condone it.

And you get future proofing in the form of pci express 3, plus 5-15% faster clock for clock depending on the application.

And to give you an idea of clock speeds possible, from looking around it seems that 4.4 GHz is achievable with a moderately decent air cooler, while keeping below 80 degrees, and in theory this is equivalent to 4.8 GHz sandy bridge.

 

[Surveyor]

IVY's 24/7 operation safe temp is 75 degrees (source; from intel technical support, so the horse's mouth), and it can be 80-85 if not 24/7 operation. Again these temps are 100% safe mandated by intel, so 90 is probably also perfectly safe, just intel wouldn't condone it.

May we have a link to the source of that information please?

 

[Raumarik]

Been umming and arring over this for ages
With people still asking silly amouns for 2nd hand 2500k's Im leading towars newer.

The board is a Z77X-UD3H and would like to overclock a little, nothing crazy lol.
I'm moving from a P5Q Pro and a E8400 so will be a decent upgrade either way lol

Any help appreciated

Oddly enough I'm in the process of coming up with a spec and moving from my P5Q Pro/Q9450 to something newer too!

2500Ks still seem to be very good bang for buck, personally I'm more interested in getting the right motherboard at the moment to ensure I can upgrade later on if I need to and getting 16x pci-e 3 on as many slots as possible. You can get motherboards which give PCI-e 3 with Sandybridge, I'm not sure why I keep reading on OCUK that you can't get that unless you move to Ivybridge. As with everything it's about weighing it up on the day, if I can get an Ivybridge CPU when I go to order that's better than the i5-2500k I'll probably go for it, but I'm planning around the mobo/ram more than the CPU itself just now.

 

[Surveyor]

You can get motherboards which give PCI-e 3 with Sandybridge

Can you?

Which ones?

I assume you're not referring to Sandybridge-E.

Bare in mind that the Gen 3 boards only work as Gen 2 with a Sandy Bridge CPU.

I'm not sure why I keep reading on OCUK that you can't get that unless you move to Ivybridge.

Probably because it's true.

 

[Raumarik]

Bare in mind that the Gen 3 boards only work as Gen 2 with a Sandy Bridge CPU.

That's good to know, cheers Surveyor!

 

[AllBodies]

May we have a link to the source of that information please?

I meant I was told this in a live-chat, and I don't have a screen-shot or anything, but here is a link to the same department I spoke to if you want to confirm for yourself:

http://www.intel.com/support/feedback.htm?group=processor#processor

Live support button is just above bottom-right of page.

 

[Buckster]

IVY's 24/7 operation safe temp is 75 degrees (source; from intel technical support, so the horse's mouth), and it can be 80-85 if not 24/7 operation. Again these temps are 100% safe mandated by intel, so 90 is probably also perfectly safe, just intel wouldn't condone it.

And you get future proofing in the form of pci express 3, plus 5-15% faster clock for clock depending on the application.

And to give you an idea of clock speeds possible, from looking around it seems that 4.4 GHz is achievable with a moderately decent air cooler, while keeping below 80 degrees, and in theory this is equivalent to 4.8 GHz sandy bridge.

if true going to be a lot of failed Ivys soon ....

most wold struggle to get under 80C if video encoding etc - mine gets to low 80s during video encoding - even at low volts, 4.5 and a decent cooler

 

[ussff]

2500Ks still seem to be very good bang for buck, personally I'm more interested in getting the right motherboard at the moment to ensure I can upgrade later on if I need to and getting 16x pci-e 3 on as many slots as possible. You can get motherboards which give PCI-e 3 with Sandybridge, I'm not sure why I keep reading on OCUK that you can't get that unless you move to Ivybridge.

From what I understand, having bought a Z77 Extreme 4, that does have PCIe 3.0 support and can run either a SB or an IB LGA1155 CPU, only the IB CPU supports PCIe 3.0. If you install a SB CPU in a motherboard that has PCIe 3.0, you will only achieve PCIe 2.0 specification.

Which is why I'm pretty , cos I'm not confident that a OC IB will give quality of service over 5 years, as a SB CPU. I was a big AMD builder and Bulldozer was a spectacular flop... So I've lashed out a bigger pile of cash than usual on an Intel upgrade Motherboard, Ram combo waiting for IB to arrive, only to learn that to max my Motherboard potential to PCIe 3.0, I'll have to buy an IB with rubbish TIM and heat problems - cos the next CPU release will be on a new socket!

 

[~Divine~Wind~]

Oddly enough I'm in the process of coming up with a spec and moving from my P5Q Pro/Q9450 to something newer too!

2500Ks still seem to be very good bang for buck, personally I'm more interested in getting the right motherboard at the moment to ensure I can upgrade later on if I need to and getting 16x pci-e 3 on as many slots as possible. You can get motherboards which give PCI-e 3 with Sandybridge, I'm not sure why I keep reading on OCUK that you can't get that unless you move to Ivybridge. As with everything it's about weighing it up on the day, if I can get an Ivybridge CPU when I go to order that's better than the i5-2500k I'll probably go for it, but I'm planning around the mobo/ram more than the CPU itself just now.

the 2500K's are still decent value but people are still asking far too much (imho) for them 2nd hand, around 130 seems to be usual, problem being retails have been available new recently for <150 on multiple ocassions

Tempted with a 3570 tbh, decent cooler should still clock well.

I originally ordered the UD5H but have settled on the Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H
Seems like a good board, I had to look into the differences a few times before I could finally decide.

Now I just need to decide on the CPU

 

[Ollie1132]

I would definately suggest IB. The heat isn't really that big of an issue so long as you stay below 4.5Ghz really even then thats still a clock increase of about 30% and will give the same performance as SB 4.7Ghz. Plus you would get the PCI3 (though not yet needed more futureproof than PCI2)

 

[~Divine~Wind~]

For the PCIe3.0 side of things if I xFire
How does 2xPCIe 3.0@8x compare to 2c PCIE2.0@8x ?

 

[ussff]

No experience yet - as my motherboard is still waiting a CPU choice, but I've done a lot of looking so far!

I would have liked dual PCIe x16 capable motherboard but they are at the pricey end of the market! So I opted for the Asrock Z77 Extreme 4, which is capable of dual PCIe 3.0 at x8.

After further research, the reason I wanted to achieve PCIe 3.0 is that (from what I have read) PCIe 3.0 x8 CF bandwidth = PCIe 2.0 x16 CF bandwidth, which can only be achieved by using an Ivybridge CPU on the Z77 Motherboard.

Don't get me wrong, if you go single GPU, there is very little in the FPS to be gained by switching from PCIe 2.0 to 3.0, there are plenty of reviews that prove that - but multi GPU (IF that is your intent) does potentially have some gains from the research I have conducted so far, but there are not many examples/reviews out on the web atm... I'll have another look and link tomoz if I can re-find them!

 

[ussff]

...which is why I should buy the Ivybridge - but just can't pull the trigger yet! I'm so sceptical about the heat and cheap TIM; that isn't time tested...

I don't have the cash to replace the system I'm buying into, if it all goes wrong down the line. I suppose I could go IB and not OC... but that would break with my 'enthusiast' approach to PC's ...times are much harder these days to take a risk. I just wanted a future proof PC, to load GPU's into!

 

[Ollie1132]

For the PCIe3.0 side of things if I xFire
How does 2xPCIe 3.0@8x compare to 2c PCIE2.0@8x ?

PCI3 8x is essntially PCI2 16x. The bandwidth of PCI2 isn't yet used fully but I'd say being future proof is always good.

 

[Justintime]

IVY's 24/7 operation safe temp is 75 degrees (source; from intel technical support, so the horse's mouth), and it can be 80-85 if not 24/7 operation. .

Hookum, baloney etc.. Intel web chat support likely have no knowledge of design and operation of the chips etc.. and are just following scripted guidelines.

 

[Ollie1132]

Hookum, baloney etc.. Intel web chat support likely have no knowledge of design and operation of the chips etc.. and are just following scripted guidelines.

Lol. I think it's safe to run IB at 80-85 daily use. Your never going to hit that EVER EVER EVER and I'd love to see someone try to prove me wrong.

 

[AllBodies]

if true going to be a lot of failed Ivys soon ....

most wold struggle to get under 80C if video encoding etc - mine gets to low 80s during video encoding - even at low volts, 4.5 and a decent cooler

I guess just try not to let it get that high for many hours at a time, and maybe get better thermal paste? Like Arctic Cooling Mx-4. Best of luck with your chip lasting as long as you wish.