Intel Noobie Needs Help

Scooby_WR1 · 12 Oct 2011 at 17:02

Hi,
I have been waiting for bulldozer for my new build, but since it's no good for a gamer I have decided to build my first Intel system and would like some help since Intel seem to do everything differently.
I assume the top Intel CPU is the 2600k sandybridge, but don't know which motherboard chipset is the best or what memory to get.
Any help will be appreciated because I'm confused at the moment.

R088ieS86 · 12 Oct 2011 at 17:36

Massive shame about the bulldozer cpu's.

Best idea is to set out your budget and all the parts you need.

Gaming wise the i7-2600k and the i5-2500k are almost the same.
The time where you see the difference is when you get applications which take advantage of hyperthreading. which isn't games atm.

Orcvader · 12 Oct 2011 at 19:24

As mentioned the 2500K is the best gaming chip on the market (Hyperthreading does nought in gaming making the 2600K perform the same as the 2500K). The best chipset to go for is the Z68 chipset as it contains both P67 and H67 features as well as Intel SRT (SSD caching).

What's your budget and what will you be doing on the PC?

Scooby_WR1 · 12 Oct 2011 at 19:42

Ive been looking at some gaming benchmarks and there is a difference between the 2 but its not really worth the extra price. However i want to future proof the system as much as poss so will still be going for the 2600.

I don't really have a budget and i will be mainly using it for gaming so want high frame rates at 1920x1280 with max detail settings and high aa/af.
This is what ive come up with so far, is there anything to improve on.
Thanks for your help.

Orcvader · 12 Oct 2011 at 20:00

Games usually only use dual cores, and quad core support is still pretty poor. Recent games seems to use at most three cores efficiently. So the 2500K is pretty much future proof enough to last for a good few years.

You also picked a triple channel set, that won't work for Sandy bridge as it's dual channel, and since everything is locked to 100mhz FSB, 1600mhz seems to be the best at the moment. Any higher makes no difference to performance due to the FSB limit.

2500K: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-360-IN

Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3P Intel Z68: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-360-GI

Corsair XMS3 8GB: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-290-CS

Total : £352.36 inc VAT + shipping

You can then use the leftover money for something like a 6950/70 or a 570. Together this will max out any games to come on 1920x1080.

Scooby_WR1 · 12 Oct 2011 at 21:03

I quite like the look of that board its very stealthy. I might wait untill the ati 7series / Nvidia equivalent are released until i upgrade my GPU depending on there release date.