Best CPU/Mobo combo for £400

Fatal Impurity

Fatal Impurity

Fatal Impurity

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Joined
9 May 2012
Posts
4
Hi all,

I've currently got an old 790FX build with the following specs:

Phenom II 945 AM3 OC'd @ 3.6Ghz
Thermal Right Ultra Extreme 120 Black Edition Cooler
MSI 790FX-GD70 Crossfire Motherboard
4x4GB Gskill Low Voltage (1.35v) DDR3 1600 Mhz
VTX HD6950 2GB (Not unlocked unfortunately)
750W Modular PSU
Antec 900 Version 1 Case

As you can imagine I'm looking to upgrade to a i7 Ivybridge/Z77 setup pretty soonish.

I've been looking at boards and CPU's and I think these would be a good combo:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-417-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=567

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-516-AS

What are your thoughts? Could I save abit of money and still get simaler gaming performance? Would I be better off throwing a second HD6950 into my rig rather than laying out for a new mobo/CPU?
 
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Are you just using the computer for gaming? If so an i5 3570k will be enough as most games do not use the hyperthreading on the i7.

What make and model of PSU do you have?
 
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Hi and welcome to the forums.

Regarding the cpu choice, if primarily a gaming rig you could save money by opting for the i5 3570k. The i7 3770k will benefit more for video encoding work, or multiple gpu setups at high resolution.
 
I'll be using the rig mainly for gaming, but I also want to use it as media centre on my network, with on the fly HD transcoding. The current CPU seems to handle it ok but has a few hiccups here and there.

What differences does hyperthreading make? Also what would the price/performance difference be between the i5 and i7?

Cheers
 
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