i7 - 990x or 980?

[Reaper 392]

FYI, I have and am keeping my Coolermaster CM 690 II case. (As a spacial reference.)

in that case you've saved yourself £130 if you go for either of the i7 2600k builds. i just chose the silverstone case because its got pretty much the best cooling your going to get, but the CM-690 is still really good, and will fit everythig except the EVGA SR-2 dual xeon motherboard. if you go for that then the cubitech case is the only resonably priced case where the motherboard will fit

 

[YiuKorochko]

in that case you've saved yourself £130 if you go for either of the i7 2600k builds. i just chose the silverstone case because its got pretty much the best cooling your going to get, but the CM-690 is still really good, and will fit everythig except the EVGA SR-2 dual xeon motherboard. if you go for that then the cubitech case is the only resonably priced case where the motherboard will fit

I've asked on this thread about the H100 fitting in the top of my case or on the side. I'm confident I can fit the H100 on the top and have the Vengeance RAM as well, as I'd rather go with Corsair. I can go to Kingston as a last resort but if the Vengeance will fit, I'm going for it.

 

[Reaper 392]

I've asked on this thread about the H100 fitting in the top of my case or on the side. I'm confident I can fit the H100 on the top and have the Vengeance RAM as well, as I'd rather go with Corsair. I can go to Kingston as a last resort but if the Vengeance will fit, I'm going for it.

save yourself some money and do this instead:

YOUR BASKET
2 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £67.99 (£135.98)
1 x Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3) £50.99
Total : £198.37 (includes shipping : £9.50).

not quite as good temp wise, but saves a bundle of money and still gets corsair stuff:
H100
silver arrow

also, no worry of a leak several years down the line

 

[Surveyor]

Why not 2 of these for £107.98:

Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit

Or 2 of these with slightly looser timings for £79.96:

Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit

 

[Jordan97]

Surveyor, your link for the Kingston leads to Z68 motherboards.

 

[Surveyor]

Surveyor, your link for the Kingston leads to Z68 motherboards.

Cheers.

Fixed now.

 

[Reaper 392]

Or 2 of these with slightly looser timings for £79.96:

Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit

wow, i didnt realise the crucial was still at £40. go for that

(ther reason i was suggesting the XMS3 is because the OP said he wanted corsair stuff even when i had recommended the kingston stuff earlier)

 

[WingZero30]

8GB DDR3 for £40!!

That is impressive price

 

[YiuKorochko]

Can someone tell me what timings are? I'm under the assumtion that the smaller the timings the better, but how does it relate to MHz? Channels? Etc?

 

[Surveyor]

Can someone tell me what timings are? I'm under the assumtion that the smaller the timings the better, but how does it relate to MHz? Channels? Etc?

It's got nothing to do with channels or speed (MHz).

The best way I can put it is that lower timings make the RAM more responsive, they reduce the latency.

The reads or writes to memory can be carried one after the other slighly quicker.

Memory timings for Sandy Bridge seem make very little difference to real world performance.

The Best Memory for Sandy Bridge

Though to balance it up I was pointed to another artice which suggested a small difference but not much:

DDR3 SDRAM for Sandy Bridge: Choosing the Best Memory for LGA1155 Platform

 

[Surveyor]

Why not 2 of these for £107.98:

Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit

Or 2 of these with slightly looser timings for £79.96:

Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit

The price on the Crucial has gone up now to the same as the Kingston.

 

[YiuKorochko]

The price on the Crucial has gone up now to the same as the Kingston.

Yeah the prices are going to fluctuate quite a lot for me between now and time of purchase. I'm not getting it until end of August/early September. >.<

 

[Reaper 392]

Yeah the prices are going to fluctuate quite a lot for me between now and time of purchase. I'm not getting it until end of August/early September. >.<

if your not getting it till august/september then waiting to see what bulldozer brings could be very beneficial for you because bulldozer is an 8 core processor. it really depends on how good those 8 cores are, and what price it is though

 

[YiuKorochko]

if your not getting it till august/september then waiting to see what bulldozer brings could be very beneficial for you because bulldozer is an 8 core processor. it really depends on how good those 8 cores are, and what price it is though

SB2 has been out a while, and I don't trust new tech anymore haha! I got the Corsair F60 SATA-II SSD when it was in it's early stages and half of the time the Windows installation discs don't detect it as a valid drive and if it does install, putting it to sleep causes a BSOD. Hibernation works but going through power settings every time I format just to change everything from Sleep to Hibernate is quite a nuisance.

Shortly after, the SandBridges were first released. A few weeks in, people and blogs everywhere are saying all sorts of stuff regarding it not handling the SATA controller properly and degrading HDD life and performance. I'd like to wait until the bugs have been worked out from now on.

Plus, I can sell my Intel stuff for a higher price than the AMD stuff so I can get Ivy Bridge once it's out.