Buy i7 Overclocked or Not? Please help with simple advice for beginner

Max007

Max007

Max007

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17 May 2009
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Hi! I have finally saved up enough pennies in my piggy bank to finish the upgrade of my PC- and I wondered if anyone could please advise me?

Last Upgrades: Nvidia 280 Graphics Card, 900W Tagen Power Supply
Antec 900 Gaming Case (air cooled)

"OLD"/Existing stuff = AMD Athlon Single Core Processor. (I get killed a lot in multiplayer games.)

I think I need an i7 920 Processor, Gigabyte Motherboard and OCZ DDR3 RAM. What do you think?

What about buying an Overclocked i7 ? Is this likely to cause problems with cooling, burning out equipment, huge power use? etc What the hecks that toothpaste tube of "goo" for?

If I upgrade to i7 Will my old games still work do you think? (like Rome Total War etc)

Any advice is much appreciated!

Max (A Real Beginner!!)
 
Hi and welcome to the forums
For ease if you dont know what youre doing then yeah buying one of the OC'd bundles would prob be best, if you want to do it yourself its prob best to practice on your existing set up before upgrading. Have a read of the stickies at the front and they should give you a good idea of the basics
The goo you refer to is thermal paste, its used to improve heat transfer between your CPU and your Heat Sink Fan (HSF), it conducts really well basically
So long as you have a decent aftermarket cooler you shouldnt have any issues with cooling/heat etc
OCing uses marginally more power but certainly nothing for you to worry about with that PSU
Yes your old games will run fine
What sort of budget did you have in mind for your upgrade?
This is the best bundle, if you can afford it
 
I think 'need' is pushing it when it comes to i7, I suspect very few people get enough use out of it to justify the price. But if you 'want' it, then fair enough. Those three will do you well, but be aware there are many gigabyte motherboards, and many sets of ocz ram.

Overclocked processors run hotter. Use an extra 40W or so perhaps. They run a lot faster too. Equipment won't burn out unless you do ridiculous things to it, e.g. don't run two volts through a processor when the default is 1.2 or it will expire. A heavily overclocked processor is generally considered to be good for at least a decade, so may as well ignore shortened lifespan. The thermal compound is important, a thin layer goes between heatsink and processor.

If you are properly a novice, overclocking is not a good shout. I.e. don't get a standard processor and overclock it yourself. The preoverclocked bundles are exactly the same, except someone has spent time on it getting it to run faster. Good value if you cant clock them yourself, takes the fun out if you can.

Are you building this yourself? It's very possible to do so for almost everyone,but if you have reason to believe you will struggle excessively then get ocuk to build it for you. Will save lots of hassle, but deprive you of quite an addictive experience.

Reading the FAQ's is a good idea, as is spending ages lurking around here reading many many posts. Games will run fine on any newer processor than what they were written for. They may not run fine on newer operating systems, games built for 98 are sometimes tricky to run under XP and downright impossible under vista. This doesn't matter, as you can have XP and vista and98 all installed at once and choose between them when you turn the computer on, so no worries there.

What do you want from this system, and what is the budget? I say again that the i7 is really excessive for almost anyone, and suggest the phenom tri core as a better choice.

Good luck, and please don't feel put off from asking questions based on my attempt at assistance :)
 
Wow - Thanks for replying so quickly! That's really helpful. I have about £500 ish and before I noticed the OC bundles I picked out:
1.Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping CPU
2.Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P Motherboard
3.OCZ Blade Series 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 RAM.

BUT to be honest I don't know what I'm doing LOL!! The bundles look a good choice - but one is the Gigabyte UD3 (which only has 3 memory slots) or the other one offered is overclocked to 4 MHZ - which worried me concerning heat. Thanks for your advice - you are being really helpful.

Thanks,
Max
 
Max007 said:
Hi! I have finally saved up enough pennies in my piggy bank to finish the upgrade of my PC- and I wondered if anyone could please advise me?

Last Upgrades: Nvidia 280 Graphics Card, 900W Tagen Power Supply
Antec 900 Gaming Case (air cooled)

"OLD"/Existing stuff = AMD Athlon Single Core Processor. (I get killed a lot in multiplayer games.)

I think I need an i7 920 Processor, Gigabyte Motherboard and OCZ DDR3 RAM. What do you think?

What about buying an Overclocked i7 ? Is this likely to cause problems with cooling, burning out equipment, huge power use? etc What the hecks that toothpaste tube of "goo" for?

If I upgrade to i7 Will my old games still work do you think? (like Rome Total War etc)

Any advice is much appreciated!

Max (A Real Beginner!!)
Click to expand...
 
hi mate got an i7 920 and there great, my mate bought the gigabyte board but i would recommend the gigabyte extreme mobo also corsair dominators are domn by £50 now worth a look , still find vista slow though so if you if can find a 64 bit xp
 
i have never made a computer before and so took the plunge, i bought all the bits including i7 920 and put it together and then the same day overlocked it so it was really good with no experience, no i feel like a pro lol. I would defiantly buy an i7 over a quad core they rule and it doesn't matter if you are a beginner because u will learn.
 
Thanks for your advice - it sounds like a bundle would be the best option then? Hope Overclockers change the Gigabyte UD3 Motherboard for a UD 4 or 5 (more memory slots for the future). I just need to check your opinion about going for the i7 2.6 OC to 3.33 OR the 2.6 OC to a massive 4 GHZ???
Thanks for finding the time to help me and please add any new thoughts if you think of anything.
Thanks,
Max007
 
johnwill said:
still find vista slow though so if you if can find a 64 bit xp
Click to expand...

This is poor advice. Xp 64 bit is buggy even relative to the other attempts by microsoft. Either vista or windows 7 is the answer, with an increasing majority saying windows 7. As that's free at present, no contest really.

"defiantly buy an i7 over a quad core they rule" isn't that reliable either. In a market where absolutely everything is benchmarked to death, opinion isn't worth that much.
I7 is quicker, hotter, and more expensive. It's built to multitask very very well. Consequently it's very good if you need it, or a waste of money and electricity if you don't.

The phenom 2 processor range and the core two duo range remain very quick, and more than capable of anything you could reasonably ask of it. no one who spent 900 quid on an i7 system when a 300 quid core two duo one performs exactly the same under their use pattern is going to recommend the sensible choice, as it makes them look a fool.

It would be helpful to tell us what use you have in mind for the computer, and what budget. If you're in the financial position where the difference between 500 quid and 3 grand is completely negligible, then by all means get the best system out. The majority of us are not in that position.
 
Hi Again!
It took about a year to save up £500 to be honest so that's around my limit to spend. My PC is 5 years old - but rather than buy a new one I upgraded the case, Power Supply (900w TAGEN) and found an Nvidia 280 on Overclockers site at a bargain/sale price at Christmas. So... this is why I need to take the next steps in upgrading (CPU, Motherboard etc). I use my PC mainly as a STRESS RELIEVING Games machine but I also use Powerpoint and DeskTop Publishing quite a lot for work. The games I tend to play are First Person Shooters and the Total War 3d Battlefield games (but there's another story! "Empire Total War" is almost impossible to play using my existing Athlon Single Core PC. The graphics card is great but obviously the CPU bottlenecks everything). I really enjoy Online First Person Shooters but I get killed a lot due to my poor PC!! LOL. Hope this helps with any other advice please?
Cheers,
Max007
 
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I still vote phenom tri core. It'll be cheaper, and easily quick enough to keep you very happy. I suspect you'd get change from your 500.

Unfortunately my background is intel, so while I know lots about e8400 and q9550s, I'm not so hot on AMD. I know this processor http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-238-AM is the answer, and a steal at 120 quid. However I don't know enough to pick out a motherboard for you. I suspect ddr3 is a waste of time with the phenom 2, but I'm not confident enough to pull out a ddr2 board and say 'this is the answer'

I used to have a 280gtx, they're good cards :)

Here's a thread where the core two build I was recommending was soundly beaten by phenom: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18010309
Heres the picture siumatfung produced
uaqe1.jpg


The processor, motherboard, and ram come in at 290 quid. The cheapest i7 bundles are around 500, and I would love for anyone to demonstrate i7 being almost twice as quick. Not sure what I'd suggesting spending the remaining 200 on if you've got power supply, case, and graphics card sorted. Which power supply is it? 900W is a lot of watts for a power supply, hope you got a decent brand.

Looks like they clock well too http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17979561
 
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Id 2nd Jons opinion, if youre after gaming theres no real need for i7, the phenom tri core will more than suffice, if you really want you can get the newer 955BE quad core for improved performance, though imo the tri core will suffice. Yeah theres not really much more for you to spend your cash on, maybe a nice new fast HDD, depending on what your old one is, alternatively just save the cash

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £199.99 (£173.90)
Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £112.99 (£98.25)
Corsair XMS3 DHX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600C9DHX Twin3X (TW3X4G1600C9DHX) £68.99 (£59.99)
Sub Total : £332.14
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £51.25
Total : £392.89
 
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