shortlist for i7 2600K upgrade, thoughts?

stulid said:
Screw that, buy this tomorrow at the right time - http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18288009
Click to expand...

hmm, but is 1600MHz not the "sweet spot" for price/performance? This RipJaws kit gets recommended EVERYWHERE I look and I have managed to find it for a decent price. I am looking for the best performance with my upgrade and it seems like the 1600MHz RipJaws are a better choice over the Kingston 1333mhz RAM
 
Speed and timings seam to make little difference, some motherboards only goto 1333mhz, with settings above this being overclocked values.
 
I went with 16gb's 1333mhz kingston based on price/performance. It was a very close decision but I don't think the 1600MHz RipJaws would have offered me any noticable performance improvement.
 
sk82jack said:
Good choice! Can't beat that sort of price really.
Click to expand...

nope. Seemed sensible since I couldn't find any solid evidence I'd get £30 of extra performance using the G.Skill RipJaws instead.

I'm just stuck picking out the right motherboard now.

VALUE--> Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3H £100

GOOD REVIEWS--> Asus P8Z68-V PRO Z68 £150

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED--> ASROCK Z68 Extreme 4 £140

I am looking for quality/stability/decent overclocking and support for all of my components (4x HDDs, SSD drive, 2x GPU's, PCI sound card etc) I don't know if I'll get all of this with the Gigabyte motherboard. I am only interested in Z68 boards.

As it stands I am inclined to go for one of the more expensive motherboards simply because I am intimidated by the 4 pin CPU power connector on the cheaper gigabyte mobo. It will really give me peace of mind if I was made aware of some of the features offered by the more expensive mobos over the gigabyte one. Any thoughts?
 
stulid said:
Ignore the Gigabyte, the ASrock is great, i have one.

Or theres this - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-458-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990
Click to expand...

Great, that Asus mobo was appealing at £150, now it's £20 cheaper.

but, I already ordered some parts from overclockers this morning... this means I'll be paying another £9.50 delivery (£139.50 total) :/ I will call overclockers tomorrow and try to "consolidate" the delivery charge with my other order, but I fear that has most likely been shipped by now (it was next day delivery)

If I can't save on the delivery, then it'll cost ~£140 total, which is the same as the ASrock and I think I prefer the ASROCK over the Asus.
 
schmutz06 said:
Great, that Asus mobo was appealing at £150, now it's £20 cheaper.

but, I already ordered some parts from overclockers this morning... this means I'll be paying another £9.50 delivery (£139.50 total) :/ I will call overclockers tomorrow and try to "consolidate" the delivery charge with my other order, but I fear that has most likely been shipped by now (it was next day delivery)

If I can't save on the delivery, then it'll cost ~£140 total, which is the same as the ASrock and I think I prefer the ASROCK over the Asus.
Click to expand...

The one stulid linked to is actually a different board to the £150 one your thinking of.

Asus P8Z68-V PRO £150
Asus P8Z68-V £130

The PRO has 2 more SATA III connections, 2 IEEE 1394a connections, a USB 3 bracket and some extra audio features (Absolute Pitch 192kHz/ 24-bit True BD Lossless Sound, DTS Surround Sensation UltraPC)

The Asrock is more comparable to that of the PRO.
 
schmutz06 said:
but, I already ordered some parts from overclockers this morning... this means I'll be paying another £9.50 delivery (£139.50 total) :/ I will call overclockers tomorrow and try to "consolidate" the delivery charge with my other order, but I fear that has most likely been shipped by now (it was next day delivery)
Click to expand...

Try and get them early in the morning.
 
I went with the ASrock z68 extreme 4. It beat the ASUS in the tomshardware comparison review and at £10 less with a few extra features it is a solid choice. Thank you for the help guys.
 
I am happy to report everything is up and running. Not without a few significant problems:

1) ThermalRight Silver Arrow CPU cooler --> too big to close my Coolermaster 690 II Advanced case! I am surprised since it is a popular/highly recommended cooling fan and my case is definately not the smallest one out there. I need to address this ASAP. It is likely I'll sell the silver arrow (if it can't be returned) and buy another cooler. It can not be adjusted to fit, simply too big!

2) I can't find a way to use my PCI-E sound card (ASUS Xonar DX) while using my 2x 560ti GPU's. I believe this is a PCI-e bandwidth issue? I am using my GPU's in slots #2 & #4 as advised in the manual. The sound card was installed to the bottom PCI-e slot and at one point everything worked together, now I can't start my computer without removing the sound card (hangs on first screen). Are there any BIOS settings I should look into to allow use of all three PCI-e components?

3) GPU's are running in PCI-E 8x instead of 16x. Could this be related to issue #2?

4) I thought the SSD would be listed under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers in device manager...

devicemanager.png
devicemanager.png


Here are the BIOS settings I adjusted before installing Windows 7

hddbv.jpg


Well these are the issues I found yesterday after actively pushing the computer in all directions. Hopefully they can be resolved. I am very happy there aren't any random BSODs/significant performance issues to be reported.
 
If the sound card was in the bottom slot, did you add the additional power connector to the motherboard?
 
I just remember the manual saying that if you put a card in there (gpu) then connect that molex connector, if a sound card need it I'm not sure.
 
I believe so, would have to check the manual which is packed away.

Also, don't some ASUS sound cards need additional external power connected in to them?
 
Last edited:
looked through their online manual and all i can see if on the mobo diagram number 45 being SLI/Xfire Power Connector. but when you read about setting up the SLI/XFIRE it doesnt mention anything (that i can see) about plugging it in :confused:
 
Update: I left the computer on unattended for 1-2 hrs and upon returning to use it, it was on "startup repair". It must have crashed/restarted and automatically launched into this from rebooting.

The start up repair could not resolve/fix anything so I restarted, only for it to launch into start up repair again. When I tried booting into my new Windows 7 installation, I got a BSOD right after the Windows Logo screen.

I was completely unable to resolve this after 2hrs and beginning to think that the SSD drive or one of my new components was faulty. The only information I can give on the BSOD's/broken installation is as follows:

Problem event name: StartupRepairOffline
Problem Signature 01: 6.1.7600.16385
Problem Signature 02: 6.1.7600.16385
Problem Signature 03: unknown
Problem Signature 04: 21200468
Problem Signature 05:AutoFailover
Problem Signature 06: -
Problem Signature 07: Corrupt file

This information is taken from the "view information" link in startup repair.

To determine whether this was a hardware issue I had to reformat (thankfully, only losing a days work...)

I have just formatted the SSD/reinstalled Windows 7 and I'm up and running again. I am now reluctant to proceed with anything until I can resolve the cause of this issue. I installed a million drivers yesterday including most of the software on the Motherboard disk such as overclocking utilities/instant boot/usb speedup etc. I have a gut feeling one of these may be the culprit.

1) I reduced my "system restore" space to a few GB. This mean't that recovering my OS installation from system restore was impossible, there were no restore points to select from :/ I wonder if that would have allowed me to resolve the issue without reformatting. I've left it at it's default size this time around, do you think it will work correctly this time if I get the same problem again? Is there a way I can save a snapshot of my SSD drive onto one of my other drives? That would be useful. If I encountered the problem again I would like to be able to reinstall windows 7 and then patch a "drive image" to the OS installation, is this possible? Would give me some peace of mind if I am not able to define the cause of the problem.

2) For whatever reason on the new installation the Sound Card and 560ti's are playing nicely together, again... I wonder if it is a matter of time before I cannot get past the first boot screen again? Sigh.

3) When I went to reinstall windows 7 I saw two partitions on the SSD. One was around 119GB and the other was 100MB. I pushed "delete" on the 100MB partition and it didn't appear to remove it, I then formatted/installed windows 7 on the 119GB partition. In windows I now have a 100MB "H:" drive which "cannot be accessed until formatted" is there any way to remove this and reclaim it on my SSD 119GB main partition?

4) Device manager appears to list my components correctly this time:

devicemanager.png


hah. I was prepared for some headaches but this is the most bumpy new computer build I've ever done and I've been building for 10 years! I do not expect anybody to address every issue I have listed but it will be much appreciated if you can answer any of them off the top of your head

Thanks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom