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Intel Core i7-3930K, worth the asking price?

Worth is always a subjective thing :) depends how much you're willing to shell out and how long you expect to keep it for as well as what you will be using it for :p
 
Hahaha yea, true enough, OK, well I'll give you guys some background :p

I currently have an AMD Phenom II X4 965 CPU @ 3.42Ghz on an ASUS M3N72-T Deluxe motherboard with 8 Gigs of RAM (can't remember which type), nVidia GTX 580 and I'm using Windows Vista 64 bit.

I built this computer a while ago as sort of a stop gap as part of the motherboard on my previous computer melted! heheheh

Anyway, I decided to wait until the Ivybridge CPUs came out so I'd have a bit more info to work with before building my next PC.

Realistically I probably won't use any software that would really makes use of all the power that the 3930K has to offer and I'll probably just be using it to play games and use the internet :p

I think the 580 is the best component of my PC at the moment, and my PC as a whole struggles to play games at the settings I want.

I really want a very powerful but also very quiet PC and it doesn't really seem like a very clear cut decision on whether to go Ivy or Sandybridge.

Based on what I've read I should notice a massive increase in performance whether I go for IB or SB. However, it seems that heat is an issue for IB and there's a massive thread in this forum about IB's TIM. I have no intention of opening up my CPU and replacing the thermal paste however! :p

So I thought I'd go with the really powerful SB-E :)

With regards to budget, well I'm very lucky at the moment and it's not really an issue, I don't plan to build a NASA supercomputer though :p

I see this build as a long term investment and even when Haswell arrives, I may not upgrade, unless it's so amazing that it eclipses my current build in every way.
 
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IB only has heat issues over 4.5Ghz in all honesty. The 3770k's come clocked at 3.5Ghz which makes it an increase of about 30% and about 35%~ of an increase on the 3550k. A 4.5Ghz on an IB chip is 4.72Ghz~ on a sandy. You would probably be better off going IB over SB-E since you don't seem to be an enthausist and wouldn't really use the processors power at all. Upgrading now makes upgrading at Haswell have little to no point. I for one won't be upgrading until the next tock after broadwell.
 
Thanks for the reply :)

Do you think the IB build quality is as good as SB? I really only have second and third hand information to go on and from what people are saying Intel 'cut corners' on the IB chips. I've even read that some people have sent their IBs back.

Whichever chip I get I plan on overclocking it as far as it will safely go and from what you're saying about IB, it looks like that's going to be 4.5 Ghz.

I cant remember what the temps are at this clock, I saw it in a graph somewhere, anyway will they be low enough that a really good fan will be able to get rid of all the heat generated and stay really quiet? One of the advantages I've read about the IB chips is that they use less power and are cooler at stock, so the majority of customers i.e. those that don't overclock, won't encounter any heat issues.

So based on how I use my PC, do you think that I won't notice any difference between the 3770 K @ 4.5 Ghz and 3930 K @ whatever Ghz?
 
The Tourist said:
So based on how I use my PC, do you think that I won't notice any difference between the 3770 K @ 4.5 Ghz and 3930 K @ whatever Ghz?
Click to expand...

No, unless of course games and applications you may use now take advatnage of more than 4 cores.

That said, IvyBridge-E is due next year for X79/LGA2011 so there is an upgrade path unlike an LGA1155 IvyBridge build.
 
You definately wouldn't notice any difference really. The IB processors can go higher than 4.5Ghz but your looking for watercooling to keep the temps decent. a lot of people DSR'ed their IB's purely because they expected too much. The TIM issue isn't that big in all honesty. My 3770k is yet to go past 50C at idle in this extreme weather it usually sits comfortably under 40C. If you went sandy I doubt you would be overclocking beyond 4.6/4.7Ghz anyway and IB is now more future proof than SB is.

Also Rossi~ don't be silly no games use all 4 cores :)
 
Thanks for the info, chances are once I do this build I won't upgrade again for a very long time. As you can see my current CPU is not exactly cutting edge :p

If I bought the SB-E I probably wouldn't upgrade it to the new IB-E, I'd probably just wait and see how long the SB-E build lasted for. So I really just want to build the best PC I can now with what's currently available.

Edit

Haha ollie ninja posted me :p

I probably won't do water cooling. Thanks for the advice guys, I'll see if the 3770 K goes on offer and look into buying it. Do you think it's worth the current price listed on OCUK?

Actually on the topic of games using all cores, I know that a lot of the AAA tittles are console ports but do you guys know any games that make use of 2 or more cores? I think BF3 does, but I don't know if it uses all 4 cores.
 
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Well if we go off what current CPU's are lasting till we still have people using Q6600 setups and are going strong with them. Q6600's are what 5 years old now? Take into account that we probably won't be see'ing die shrinks past 12nm due to some quantum physicsy stuff.
 
I think I need to post faster, I tried to edit my other post as it was ninja'd only to be ninja'd again while trying to edit! :p

Well I've never had an amazing PC before, so I'm hoping the one I build now will be like the one the guys using the Q6600 setups have and last me just as long :)
 
Well I plan to keep my 3770k for at least 5 years (next tock after broadwell) You really won't need more speed than 4.5Ghz and it's quite achieveable on £30 coolers. My 3770k is by far the hottest 3770k kicking around on these forums I have temps at 4.5Ghz that compare to some peoples 4.7/4.8Ghz temps even if I turn HT off. but oh well xD

Also the only real CPU intensive games are RTS' like Starcraft II. BF3 is more graphically intensive than CPU intensive.
 
I'm using an Alpenfohn K2 it is quite silent in all honesty it runs at max RPM 24/7. Underload I approach about 90C with HT on and just on the 80s with it off. I know a few people that are only in the 80s at max with 4.5Ghz.
 
So whether idle or under load your fan is at its fastest and still pretty quiet? Sounds like a good fan, I'll check it out in the store.

I'm going to head to the motherboard section now and ask for motherboard recommendations there.

Thanks for the info :)
 
Also ivy bridge outperforms sand bridge-E in a few consumer things, ie not professional/server stuff, because it has better performance per core. So since you are just going to use it for consumer stuff you'll probably actually get worse performance out of the sandy bridge-E (not that this would be noticeable really). And there is of course the much lower power consumption of ivy bridge and lower cost of motherboards etc.
 
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