CPU Advice

[KHAN]

Seems to be so many different opinions and choices that i'm feeling a bit about upgrading my CPU.

I've got the money to spend, building a water-cooled setup so was thinking of an i7 980 and a Gigabyte Guerilla X58 Mobo.

I mainly do gaming, the occasional video converting and such. Gulftown or Sandybridge? i5 or i7? I also heard there's a new range of Intel coming out soon which I would have to assume to be the i7 Sandybridge varient?

Want to stick with Intel just not sure what the best option is. I dont want to be paying huge amounts for small gains but I want the very best I can get without being foolish.

 

[KHAN]

With what you've said above, for me, it would have to be the 2500K as you will get very little gain for the money spent on the other chips.

Spend what you save on a better gfx/Sli, more memory, SSD...

Thanks, yeah I have all the rest in my basket which is almost at 3k that's why I need to make sure I get my core right.

 

[KHAN]

Work in progress but this is what I have so far.

OcUK V12 Watercooled Case - Coolermaster HAF X **2011 Compatible**

(X2 SLI) EVGA GeForce GTX 580 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Supplied with FREE Batman: Arkham City PC game**

Gigabyte X58 G1 Guerilla Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard - Gaming Series

OCZ Vertex 3 120GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive


Corsair Vengeance 12GB (3x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Triple Channel Kit


Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM

Asus Xonar D2X 7.1 PCI-E Sound Card

Logitech Z506 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers

Asus 24x DVD±RW DRW-24B3ST

x2 EK FC580 GTX Full Cover Waterblock


Razer Lycosa Gaming Keyboard


Creative Fatal1ty HS-980 Professional Gaming Headset MkII


Corsair Vengeance M60 5700dpi Laser Gaming Mouse

 

[KHAN]

Ok, think i'll swap my Gigabyte Guerilla for the Gigabyte G1 Sniper 2 Intel Z68

and will get

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor

instead of the i7 980.

 

[KHAN]

Thanks, I appreciate the advice. Decided on the Corsair Dominator GT 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-17200C9 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit with DHX Airflow Fan - as i've heard good things. Gives me room to upgrade to 8gb in the future too.

Almost forgot the power supply, Lepa G-Series 900W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply should be enough to cut it.

Not to concerned with colours, will get green cooling liquid maybe. Decided on the OcUK V12 Watercooled Case - Corsair 800D **2011 Compatible** instead of the Coolermaster. It has the water kit included so all I need are the GPU Waterblocks I believe.