New Sandybridge build, any thoughts?

melmac

melmac

melmac

Soldato
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19 Dec 2010
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Ok, been thinking about this for ages, and have decided that it's time to upgrade from my Q6600 setup.

It's going to be mainly used for games, but, I hope to get into some video encoding and that sort of thing. Also, I work from home, so this is going to be my work computer as well. I leave my computer on all the time so one of the things that really impressed me about sandybridge is how much less power it uses than the Q6600.

I am thinking of going crossfire too, so I needed a board with two PCIE lanes.

Here is what I am thinking of getting:-

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz
G.Skill RipJawX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz
Foxconn P67A-S Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard

Lastly, does anyone know where I can get a long crossfire bridge? Had a quick look through overclockers but couldn't see anything.
 
Ok, thanks!!! will check fleabay for the crossfire bridges.

I just think that the 2600k is a much better performer than the 2500k. It's just the impression I get from reading review sites, that while the 2500k is a steal at the price and offers really good performance and amazing overclocking ability, that the 2600k is a really special cpu and most reviewers would pick the 2600k over the 2500k everytime.
 
I am still undecided between the two to be honest, looking here

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/01/03/intel_sandy_bridge_2600k_2500k_processors_review/4

And reading other reviews there seems to be a lot of praise for the 2600k. Like the Guru3d review which says,

"But yeah, we stated it already, we fell a little in love with the Core i7 2600K, it's fast, snappy, snazzy and jazzy, so much so that we can't get it out of our heads."

Now I may go with the 2500k anyway, but, I am very,very tempted to get the 2600k.
 
800X600 and 1024X768?

if thats the resolutions needed to see any benefit, then you will have the graphics card as the more important item at decent resolutions.
 
If you use a lot of programs that use hyper threading then get the 2600k you won't be disappointed.

Me personally I went for the 2600k as I do a lot of video encoding so knew the extra £££ for the 2600k would be worth it over a 2500k but like said by others at the end of the day it's down to you if you feel the hyper threading is worth the extra £££ to you. For your average Joe it's not.
 
Thanks again for the replies, sorry for slow reply, was busy thinking :-)

Stulid, they only benchmark at those resolutions to take the GPU out of the equation as much as possible so you get a better idea of the performance of the CPU. I understand that at higher resolutions the graphics card is the much more important factor in games, and at higher resolutions in games there is very little between them, but still, the 2600k is better.

And I am hoping that new games that come out will start using more of the CPU power that is now available. I won't be upgrading for the next three years and I just think the extra power the 2600k has will be more future proof. Maybe I am looking at it all wrong and the way I am thinking is all wrong, but, if I was planning to upgrade in a year I would get the 2500k without a thought.

I have a 6950 that I bought myself and another one that I got as a christmas present, lol, completely by surprise, so, that's something that is making me think about upgrading to sandybridge. Or to sell one of the 6950's.

Another thing that started to worry me was the overclocking ability of the Foxconn motherboard. It only has 4 phase power. I couldn't find out if it has a digital PWM. But after reading up more, it seems 4 phase is plenty if done right.
 
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