How much more does it cost to get an overclockable IB system?

[JonJ678]

I thought it would be a simple task to work out - spec a cheap system that would only run at stock, and a more expensive one that can run faster. It turns out I don't know enough these days, so would like a hand.

All I'm hoping for is suggestions on cpu/motherboard/ram selection for each case. I'm strongly biased in favour of intel/gigabyte/corsair from previous experience. The psu, case, cooling etc I can still work out for myself. Looking for gflops/£ really, which is probably quad cores at this point.

H77 is a cheaper chipset than Z77 so I'm going to guess Z77 allows overclocking and H77 doesn't. Similarly some cpu's have a K on the end, I think these are overclockable and the others aren't.

So for a simple, no frills bundle I've got:
i5-3330 (£150) or i7-3770 (£250)
Gigabyte H77 board (£80)
Corsair 2x4gb 1333MHz (£50)
Total £280, or £380 with hyperthreading and a small frequency increase

The overclocking one is more difficult.
i7-3770k (£270)
Gigabyte Z77 board (from £80 to £300 ??)
Corsair 2x4gb (£50 upwards ??)
Total somewhere over £400

I can't work out how expensive the motherboard and ram need to be to (probably) get a respectable overclock out of the chip, so I can't really do a meaningful comparison. For what difference it makes, the chip would be under water in either case - I think that makes 4.5ghz an achievable target for the 3770k case.

So - how much does one need to spend on motherboard and ram to get the 3770k up to significantly over stock frequency?

Thanks

 

[wazza300]

You can buy a cheap gigabyte z77 board for around £80

Pair it with a 3770k for multithreaded support and an unlocked CPU multi

 

[setter]

A good budget Z77 board that gets highly reccomended is this.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-391-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2261

Anything more expensive will have various extras such as dual lan ports, few more sata connectors, flashy chipset cooling, support for sli/xfire in tri or quad etc. k cpu's are the clockable ones, 3570k and hyperthreaded 3770k being the most popular. 4.5ghz is pretty straightforward on either of theese cpu's. But they run hot due to intel skimping out with cheap paste instead of solder between the cores and the ihs. Ram wise, the samsung green is an extremely popular kit as it easily overclocks to 2133mhz.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-017-SA

 

[JonJ678]

Cheers guys. That puts the bundle at £400 in total, give or take a tenner. For four hyperthreaded cores at 4.5GHz that strikes me as very good value indeed. - it's barely more than the stock speed option.

I'll keep the thermal paste vs solder issue in mind. Thanks

 

[setter]

Regarding the temp issue, if your not too worried about loosing the warranty on the cpu. You could delid it and repaste the die with liquid pro/ultra thermal paste. With theese chips watercooling doesnt offer a major benefit over air cooling like how it did on earlier core i series chips.

 

[JonJ678]

I should look into that. Presumably the heat spreader is optional at that point, die - waterblock. Cheers

I've noticed they're much lower wattage than the previous generation - 77W TDP rather than 130W. That would be a good reason for water making less difference. Still, I prefer water to air regardless. I remain sure it's easier

 

[setter]

It is optional, from the few results ive seen it doesnt make an awful difference. Temp wise, my non ht 3570k on air with 1.3100 vcore maxes at 79c under ibt. Tomorrow ill be redoing the thermal paste and using liquid ultra. Even without de lidding, it can provide quite substantial temp drops. Still though, it's not an awful lot hotter running than my old i7 920 @4.2ghz was. Have a read at the last 3-4 pages of the official ivybridge oc thread in cpu's, youll see what sort of clocks theyre currently hitting with the latest batches, includes comparisons between stock and de lidded chips.