sandybridge E worth it?

The Slayer_UK

The Slayer_UK

The Slayer_UK

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ok so i wrote this in another thread but wondered what other people thought

quite a few people think sandybridge E is a waste of money well my way of thinking is diffrent for a gaming rig

i7 3930K curently on OCUK for £515 but they will come back down around £470ish soon

vs

i7 2600K £254


but then motherboard prices arent that bad for x79 either

cheapest x79 motherboard

Gigabyte x79 £170


and if your building a good gaming rig 2bh i would spend roughly around £200 on a mobo anyway

ram ok its a bit more expensive again but you can pick up 16GB of ram for £71

G.skil 16Gb

so for the cpu your paying an extra £216 (asuming 3930k comes down to £470 which ive seen it at)

motherboard you might pay an extra 60-£70 (asuming for a z58 you go for more or less the cheapest board)

and ram you might pay an extra £30

so you are paying an extra of £316 and the benefit of that is you allready have PCI 3 to take advantage of the next gen gfx cards you have the extra two cores ok nothing needs it now but if you keep if for a 5 years then software may have caught up plus you have quad channel ram

and if your like me and you keep your gaming rig for about 5 years then this will last that long your not constantly upgrading all the time

to me its worth it when you think of it like this what do you think?
 
Law of diminishing returns. Depends if you need the power, or not, and if you can afford it. Z68/P67 also supports Gen3 and IvyBridge.

As for 'future-proofing' and 'extreme' CPUs, I don't think it's that relevant. I've tried to rationalise my purchase the same way, and it never really worked out. I always end up buying new stuff for the sake of it. Besides, for that purpose, IMO you are better off with a 2500K, and the upgrading to a i7 IvyBridge later. It will cost you less anyway. Certainly what I'd do given my usage, general productivity, procrastinating, and gaming.

So really, there is no rationale for a extreme CPU, unless you need the mad performance. Or just showing off :) Which is fair enough.
 
To play games and eek out every last drop of performance out of each component then in my humble opinion the following is a cracking gaming rig:

i5 2500k
SSD
A Motherboard from £80+
8GB of memory ~£40
Either gtx 580 or SLI 570 or an AMD equivalent

Effectively you're building a games console, plus all the other wicked things PC's do

That leaves you money to spend on ladies, cars, beer, life, hifi, a screen, car insurance, you know life.

Most games use 2 cores because it is the common denominator.

Alternatively you can give all your money away to Intel in one go, less to spend on life.

For me it is economy of scale, why spend £1,000's over and above a budget, or hot rod gaming rig to play Call of Duty?
 
but im not thinking of just wanting the raw power im thinking of when in 3 years time games are more demanding ive still got the grunt from the cpu and i only upgrade every 5 years the only thing i upgrade more often is the graphics card.

and IMO if im buying a sandy bridge then im upgrading to Ivybridge im spending more money i jnow i could sell the sandybridge on and get some money back but say i bought the 2600k for £254 now and replace it with Ivy Bridge when it comes out (for argument sake we will say the Ivy bridge is £254 as well) i sell my sandybridge for say £150 (not sure if thats an acurate price as ive never sold on a cpu before) then im needing an extra £100 for the Ivybridge so in total ive spent

2600k = £254

sell that for = £150

than with the 150 i get back from selling the sandybridge i put another 100 to it to buy

IvyBridge = £254

i would rather pay £450 for sandybridge E now and make it last 5 years that way im getting my moneys worth out of it
 
But then, the motherboard is cheaper, the ram is cheaper, the CPU is cheaper (and I would still go for 2500K, as it's all that's needed right now, and for quite a while), not just the CPU.

Personally, for normal usage and gaming, I would just get a 2500K rig, overclock to 4.4GHz, save £400, and get a IvyBridge 'if' and 'when'.

It's your money. I say, from my personal experience, it's not worth the price tag. You may disagree anyway. I don't buy into that 'future-proofing' and extreme hardware, if it's only for that reason. These are best left to enthusiasts. That's just my opinion.
 
yes i get what you are saying and for the most part agree but i just dont like to bring myself to buy somthing only to upgrade it a year or 2 later lol i prefer to spend a decent amount and make it last.

my current gaming rig has lasted me 4years i think a qx9650 they wernt cheap when they were brand new out and i could still use it for another year if i wanted to but sinse ive got abit of cash i thought i might as well upgrade this year as in the next year or two i want to move out of parents house lol and i just find if i upgrade every 5 years or so then you dont actually spend that much money
 
there's no need to get the ivybridge as soon as it comes out, the i2500k/i2600k/i2700k will last you a good few years. when they feel under powered pop in an ivybridge to eek out another year or so then you can do a full upgrade, or when you want to get a pci-e 3.0 graphics card also upgrade to ivybridge so you can make use of pci-e 3.0(sandybridge doesn't have the pci-e 3.0 controller).
 
yes i do see all your of points are valid ill still be going sandybridge E but its nice to know what others think and get other peoples perspective on things hence why i made this thread. i like to see things from other peoples point of view even if i dont agree lol
 
qx9650 lasted you for 4 years, it's the equivalent of the current i3 in gaming terms.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/49?vs=289

Being a pioneer/early adopter always costs a lot, and it's risky. Look at the Intel debacle with the new i5 boards and then a new i5 2500k cpu in a few months - what utter rubbish - must have made them tons from people having to buy new MB's and CPU's - what for - 1 pin - a disgrace (am getting carried away here I am a noob, but who knows I may be right, if just a little).

If you had gone from q6600 4GB to i5 2500K 8GB rather than an early adopter you would have had much more money left in your wallet and still had a superb gaming experience with the games of the time.

There is very little difference between i5 2500 and i7 in gaming terms, why give all your money to Intel?

There is a saying I would rather have a pound today than a pound tomorrow, it applies here.
 
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The Slayer_UK said:
yes i do see all your of points are valid ill still be going sandybridge E but its nice to know what others think and get other peoples perspective on things hence why i made this thread. i like to see things from other peoples point of view even if i dont agree lol
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Fair enough. You will have a beast of a computer, for sure. Show us some build pictures :)
 
I have an i7 930 on the older 1366 socket but since it is overclocked to 4Ghz there is no point at all in upgrading and your situation seems similar. The i5 SB chip is quite simply a beast it really is, unless you make extensive use of the hyper-threading in the i7 chips then it is rather pointless imho. You overclock the i5 to 4.5GHz and the machine will last you 5 years at least.

Stoner81.
 
Stoner81 said:
I have an i7 930 on the older 1366 socket but since it is overclocked to 4Ghz there is no point at all in upgrading and your situation seems similar. The i5 SB chip is quite simply a beast it really is, unless you make extensive use of the hyper-threading in the i7 chips then it is rather pointless imho. You overclock the i5 to 4.5GHz and the machine will last you 5 years at least.

Stoner81.
Click to expand...

if your refering to me i dont have a i5 im currently running a qx9650 (775 socket) so what ever now ive got to upgrade to new mobo lol
 
Well Ive just upgraded to a i5 2500k, and Im thinking this this cpu will last about 4 years, as when I got my E8400 3-4 years ago it was the same as the 2500k in spec terms

I might upgrade to a i7 in a few months, as this i5 2500k isnt a great overclocker as it need a fair few volts to get it stable at 4.3ghz. But even if I dont upgrade the 2500k should last me as long as my E8400 did easy.
 
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