Help! Too many options, not enough knowledge

Castiel said:
So you are saying that the i7 920 is as good as all the current CPUs out there, that haswell will be pointless as well..that USB3, SATA3, and whatever other improvements over my old x58 are also not worth it and I should buy a £600 midrange PC for my boy and £500 on GPUs for myself...so effectively spending £1100 anyway?
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While the i7 920 is certainly "not as good" as the new Intel mid to high-end CPUs, the thing is a high overclock i7 920 would still have no problem pushing 60fps (the higher most standard 60Hz monitors would output) in most games, bar CPU demanding games like mmos, RTS games like Total Wars or Starcraft with ridiculous numbers of dynamic units or players).

Newer Intel CPUs is currently not pointless, but generally speak if your already got a 1st gen i7, you would already have a more than capable CPU for gaming, and where new Intel CPU shine the most is for people with 120Hz monitor (max output of 120fps) and dual high-end GPU set-up for the sake of pushing 120fps instead of the 60fps on the 60Hz monitors.
 
When I first read this I thought it looked silly too:

"Spending £1200 to mostly upgrade a very, very strong system, why would you do that?"

But when you look at it, he's not actually really upgrading his own system - he's replacing his son's, which is a whole different ball game. Think about it, upgrading the OPs to match current would probably really only need a GPU... you would spend £400 or whatever on a 670, job done. Total cost: £400 (or if you sell the old one, knock a bit off that), and you've got a high end PC which is just starting to show it's age.

Then you realise that he has to (or at least, wants to and is going to) buy his son a PC because his is dying. Even if you gave the old GPU to the son's rig, you're still looking at 600 for the rest of a solid mid-range rig. Total cost: £1000 ish. This ends up with the family having one brand new mid-range rig with an older but still good GPU, and one very good used high-end rig, but which is about to start being outclassed (it's just behind current high end, but will be constantly a bit further behind). End result: £1000 spent for a high end mid range and a low end high end with a new GPU. Both will last a while, but are already both behind the very top end.

Or you can do what the OP wants to do, which is spend £200 more and end up with a brand new top of the range PC, and a high end just showing it's age PC.

For £200 more, you end up with one fantastic PC and one very good one, rather than one very good one and one decent mid range, plus the OP spends his money on a new PC for him (with the side effect of a nice one for his son) rather than getting his son a new one. If I was spending my money, even to upgrade someone else's stuff, I'd want to have the new toys myself.

The question is not whether it's worth upgrading a last-gen top of the range PC - it's not. The question is whether it's worth replacing a mid range PC, or buying a new top of the range PC and using the last-gen top of the range PC instead of the mid-range PC. For £200 quid, I'd say it is... they'll have a top of the range and a "close enough to top of the range that it's not worth upgrading" rather than a mid range and a close enough.
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3930K 3.20GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £449.99
1 x HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H795QC3G2M) with FREE FARCRY3, Hitman Absolution, Sleeping Dogs & 20% off MOH Warfighter PC Games £229.99
1 x Gigabyte X79-UD3 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £164.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £89.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £78.98
1 x Enermax Triathlor FC 550w '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply (ETA550AWT-M) £72.98
1 x Avexir MPower Series 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Quad Channel Kit (AVD3U16000904G-4CM) £71.99
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £53.99
1 x BitFenix Shinobi USB3.0 Gaming Case - Black £46.98
1 x Samsung SH-224BB/BEBE 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
Total : £1,292.87 (includes shipping : £12.50).




Throwing 1/2 your budget on CPU + motherboard, hmmm I don't know... The 3770K alternative gives you more options, and better overall quality components.

That's why I say...

I would go with a good 1155 over a cheap 2011.
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It's a balance thing.
 
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I would go for a 3820 over the 3930, I have both CPU's @4.4Ghz and they bench the same in games, just a few less threads/cores but still a good balance then you can get a solid motherboard or even a second 7950 with the change..
 
Ok, bought a couple of 7950s, the Corsair 600T, Corsair 750w PSU and a H80i Cooler.....so all I need now are a CPU, Mobo and the odd and sods. (SSD/HDD/DDR/sound card are all being reused) so that leaves around £500 in my provisional budget.
 
Tbh Castiel, I'd go for the i5 on the Z77 platform, purely and simply because you said it is predominantly for gaming and streaming, you won't need the i7 for just that. :) You will also save yourself a lot of money that way too!
 
Id be inclined to go with a Z77 board and an i5 3570k. Primarily a gamer myself and i recently switched out one of my X58 systems, (4.2ghz i7 920) for the cpu and motherboard in sig. Gaming performance is virtually the same.

Ive thought about going for an i7 3770k, but tbh it would only be beneficial in multi gpu situations at resolutions above 1080 res.
 
setter said:
Id be inclined to go with a Z77 board and an i5 3570k. Primarily a gamer myself and i recently switched out one of my X58 systems, (4.2ghz i7 920) for the cpu and motherboard in sig. Gaming performance is virtually the same.

Ive thought about going for an i7 3770k, but tbh it would only be beneficial in multi gpu situations at resolutions above 1080 res.
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I game at 1440p, occasionally across multiple monitors.
 
I see that youve already opted for x2 7950's. Will theese be used in xfire on one system, (as you already have a gtx 580). Due to it's onboard 3gb ram count, the 7950 copes better at high res than the nvidia equivalents such as the 670. A single 7950 with a bit of an overclock will handle 1440 fine, the gains with a cpu such as the 3770k really tend to show up with multiple gpu's in triple screen monitor setups.
 
setter said:
I see that youve already opted for x2 7950's. Will theese be used in xfire on one system, (as you already have a gtx 580). Due to it's onboard 3gb ram count, the 7950 copes better at high res than the nvidia equivalents such as the 670. A single 7950 with a bit of an overclock will handle 1440 fine, the gains with a cpu such as the 3770k really tend to show up with multiple gpu's in triple screen monitor setups.
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They are for xfire in my new system. I have three 27" Dell monitors.
 
Sabretooth is indeed a cracking looking board, excellent PCIe slot spacing. Which is a must have with xfire/sli. I tend to stick with asus boards myself due to familiarity with their bios setup.

I had looked at s2011, but was put off by the price more than anything.
 
setter said:
Sabretooth is indeed a cracking looking board, excellent PCIe slot spacing. Which is a must have with xfire/sli. I tend to stick with asus boards myself due to familiarity with their bios setup.

I had looked at s2011, but was put off by the price more than anything.
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And the Corsair CX750w PSU will be enough for that, along with a couple of HDDs and a SSD and Bluray writer? Or should I use my older coolermaster real power M850?
 
How old is the coolermaster psu? As a rough guide, my i5 3570k at 4.5ghz and a gtx 670 at 1310mhz core, 7586mhz memory oc, (rather high on this card). Draws 330w from the wall in games, ssd, 1 hdd, audio card and 9 case/cooler fans. My psu is a 4 year old corsair HX850w.

Power draw of theese new cpu's/gpu's is amazing compared to the old i7 900 series setups and earlier gpu's. My 920 with sli gtx 470's was pulling 630w from the wall in game.
 
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