New build advice

[dfarrall]

So im looking to upgrade my current old pc, however all the compenents are massivley outdated so a full rebuild is pretty much needed.
Im fairly upto date on whats hot at the moment apart from mobo's really.

i know i5's are better than i7's in gaming terms but after an i7 anyway.

Whats peoples opinions on this build, im not sure if the ram is compatible as mobo takes upto 1866, but will it just down-grade itself? took this one as its same price as the downgraded.

Im looking for futureproofing too, if theres things i could change to help with it im open to suggestions.
Also open to buying certain things in a few months time such as SLI.

This will be going into my existing case, an antec 900.

Thanks in advance,
Dan.

Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail Intel Core £244.99
(£208.50)

Corsair Dominator GT 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-16000C8 2000MHz Triple Channel Kit (CMT6GX3M3A2000C8) £199.99

EVGA GeForce GTX 470 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards with MAFIA 2 £194.99

Asus X58 Sabertooth TUF Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard £159.99

Corsair Professional Series™ Gold AX850 High Performance 850W Power Supply (CMPSU-850AXUK) £154.99

Pioneer DVR-S18L 22x DVD±RW SATA Labelflash ReWriter - Black (Retail) £18.99

 

[cmndr_andi]

Looks good, however I would definably drop the RAM down to this and add a CPU cooler like this for overclocking.

However, please bear in mind that Intel "Sandy Bridge" - the next generation Intel Micro-architecture is being released in early January and will be faster clock-for-clock than current i7 chips and be clocked higher @stock (it is also expected to overclock higher when using a multiplier unlocked - K series chip). This article has more info on these upcoming CPUs.

 

[dfarrall]

I was aware sandy bridge was coming, but didnt realise that it was starting out at this level.
Is the cost/performance ratio not going to be extremely poor to start with or is it likely to be around the same price as a current i7 build?
Even if the price is going to be expensive i presume its going to drop the price of i7 builds.

 

[cmndr_andi]

They are actually starting out at the "mainstream" level - so they will be replacing the existing LGA 1156 lines with new i3, i5 and i7 CPUs and motherboards.

This means that the price of a multiplier-unlocked 3.33GHz i5 quad core sandy bridge chip will cost a fair bit less than what the i7 950 currently costs. Hence in terms of price/performance for gaming it will be a fair bit better than getting an i7 950 now, so long as you are in a position to wait.

 

[dfarrall]

Oh i see, i expected the prices to go through the roof for a while.
Thanks for the advice, definatly waiting.

 

[Liampope]

Yeah wait and see. The new 1155 i5 and i7 K models will likely be the best bang-for-buck gaming CPUs of the next gen anyway, or of course AMD Bulldozer. Even if, as you say, they dont turn out to be the best choice for one reason or another, they may push down prices of current stuff slightly.