Partial new system!

Sida

Sida

Sida

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Joined
15 Apr 2011
Posts
171
Location
Stafford
Ok so my dad has decided he wants to upgrade his pc and he wants my parts. He said he's willing to pay for slight upgrades for my own pc in the process. There's 3 main things I'm looking for:

Motherboard - Budget: £150-£250 preferably
I'd really like a board that is good for overclocking and SLI/CrossfireX.

CPU - Budget: ~ £200
I have no idea about these "sandybridge" cpus. Are they better than i7? I'll be watercooling soon and plan to try some good overclocking, but when I was researching my i7 I didn't see anything about sandybridge...wasn't around then?

RAM - Budget: As cheap as possible
This is for my dad. I'm looking for some good 6GB triple channel RAM.

If anyone could give me some guidance on the latest products in these ranges that would be good for what I specified I'd be very grateful :)
 
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor with FREE Operation Flashpoint Red River Game £169.99

MSI P67A-GD65 Intel P67 (socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £139.98

You'll need some dual channel RAM for Sandybridge:

Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit £35.99

So give your dad your triple channel or:

GeIL 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz VALUE PLUS Triple Channel £49.99

or

GeIL 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz VALUE PLUS Triple Channel £53.99
 
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What's the main use for the your pc?

If it's mainly gaming then get an i5-2500k with a P67 motherboard and 4GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM.

If you do a lot of video editing or sound editing or anything like that you'll want an i7-2600k with a cheaper P67 board and then 8GB of RAM or something.
 
Gaming, general use and benchmarking. No real video editing or anything. Can sandybridge not use triple channel ram?

The components you listed Surveyor, are they better than the ones I have in my sig? My dad is having those so I'm looking to actually upgrade. What's the actual difference between sandbridge i5/i7 and 1366 i5/i7? Also £139 for the mobo seems like a bit of a low end board. It'll eventually be placed with water cooling and 6970 xfire + 1000w psu.
 
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Sida said:
Gaming, general use and benchmarking. No real video editing or anything. Can sandybridge not use triple channel ram?

The components you listed Surveyor, are they better than the ones I have in my sig? My dad is having those so I'm looking to actually upgrade. What's the actual difference between sandbridge i5/i7 and 1366 i5/i7? Also £139 for the mobo seems like a bit of a low end board. It'll eventually be placed with water cooling and 6970 xfire + 1000w psu.
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Sandybridge is dual channel not triple channel. You can use 2 sticks from a triple channel set but you need quite low voltage RAM for Sandybridge.

It's an upgrade but not masively so from what you have. You'll hardly notice the difference in gaming.

£140-£150 is the going rate for a decent Sandybridge board.
 
Sida said:
That's perfect. Thank you.

Edit: They're running one at 3.3 and one at 3.0 which isn't really fair. How are the sandybridge at overclocking in comparison?
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It is fair because the stock speed of a 2500K is 3.3GHz.

The majority of people can get a 2500K to 4.5GHz without much fuss.

Sandybridge is different to your current setup. Only the unlocked K processors can be overclocked and this is done by increasing the multiplier and not the base clock.
 
Looking at the build in my sig, if you had the option to get a new mobo/cpu/ram for the prices I mentioned above, would you just stick with the same or go for the Sandybridge? If it's defo worth going for sandybridge and losing the tri channel ram, I'll start doing some proper research into them. However if there's really not going to be a difference I may as well stick with what I know.
 
Sida said:
Looking at the build in my sig, if you had the option to get a new mobo/cpu/ram for the prices I mentioned above, would you just stick with the same or go for the Sandybridge? If it's defo worth going for sandybridge and losing the tri channel ram, I'll start doing some proper research into them. However if there's really not going to be a difference I may as well stick with what I know.
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I think you'll find that most people on this forum with your current setup wouldn't upgrade to Sandybridge as the £400 or so cost isn't worth it for the benefit.

Now if you were selling you old stuff for £250 it might be worth it as an upgrade for £150 but the main benefit you would see is in stuff like video encoding.

You're not going to see much benefit in gaming.
 
Surveyor said:
I think you'll find that most people on this forum with your current setup wouldn't upgrade to Sandybridge as the £400 or so cost isn't worth it for the benefit.

Now if you were selling you old stuff for £250 it might be worth it as an upgrade for £150 but the main benefit you would see is in stuff like video encoding.

You're not going to see much benefit in gaming.
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The upgrade is free. My dad is having my old stuff and buying me the new, so I can either get the same again or give him my 6gb RAM and get the sandybridge stuff. Worth it then?

sk82jack said:
There's some overclocking results further down the page in the link I gave before where people have reached a stable overclock @ 5.1GHz.
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That's crazy. From a 3.3GHz stock?
 
Sida said:
My dad is having my old stuff and buying me the new, so I can either get the same again or give him my 6gb RAM and get the sandybridge stuff. Worth it then?
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Well a depends what it would cost you to get the same again? If the price difference is minimal it's worth it.
 
sk82jack said:
Well a depends what it would cost you to get the same again? If the price difference is minimal it's worth it.
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Okay. I'm going to price the two and see what the difference is. I'm impressed by those 5.1GHz ocs on the sandybridge. I'd be thrilled over 4.5.
 
Sida said:
The upgrade is free. My dad is having my old stuff and buying me the new, so I can either get the same again or give him my 6gb RAM and get the sandybridge stuff. Worth it then?

That's crazy. From a 3.3GHz stock?
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The same again would cost you more than Sandybridge so if it's going to happen get Sandybridge.

I think as a good son you should give your dad the Sandybridge setup as he's paying for it ;)

You need to manage your expectations on overclocking.

The majority get to around 4.5GHz quite easily, a reasonable number get to around 4.8GHz and a minority get to 5GHz plus.
 
Surveyor said:
The same again would cost you more than Sandybridge so if it's going to happen get Sandybridge.

I think as a good son you should give your dad the Sandybridge setup as he's paying for it ;)

You need to manage your expectations on overclocking.

The majority get to around 4.5GHz quite easily, a reasonable number get to around 4.8GHz and a minority get to 5GHz plus.
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Yeah as I said above I'd be thrilled with anything over 4.5. My dad wouldn't have anything in his pc if it's better than mine. As far as he's concerned he'll never use his pc anywhere near the extent I do and he wouldn't spend money putting components into his that are better than mine. In fact, the idea that he's getting himself a good computer as well as upgrading mine is a big incentive on him doing it. I've tried to tell him that the parts I have currently are too good for anything he does, but he won't listen lol. And if anything, he's technically getting the more expensive parts that I paid for and I'm swapping them for cheaper parts that he's paying for.

Also, is there any reason this is so cheap? https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-013-OP
 
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Sida said:
Yeah as I said above I'd be thrilled with anything over 4.5. My dad wouldn't have anything in his pc if it's better than mine. As far as he's concerned he'll never use his pc anywhere near the extent I do and he wouldn't spend money putting components into his that are better than mine. In fact, the idea that he's getting himself a good computer as well as upgrading mine is a big incentive on him doing it. I've tried to tell him that the parts I have currently are too good for anything he does, but he won't listen lol. And if anything, he's technically getting the more expensive parts that I paid for and I'm swapping them for cheaper parts that he's paying for.
Click to expand...

I don't know how old your dad's system is but he could probably just buy himself a decent upgrade for £200.
 
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