Some Very General Build Questions

meths · 15 Jul 2011 at 09:48

I'm gonna buy and I5 or I7 shortly but am confused and have some easy questions for you lot.

1) What's the best motherboard chipset for these processors? Is it the X58?

2) I see many people getting 4gb or 8gb ram but should I be looking to be 6gb of DDR3 (3x2gb) so I can run them in triple channel mode?

Any advice is appreciated as I've not upgraded for years and am finding all the options a bit overwhelming atm.

olivier renault · 15 Jul 2011 at 09:53

6GB is only for triple channel chipset (1366).

4/8GB are for dual channel chipsets (all the others).

- Best value and performance at the moment is the socket 1155, P67 or Z68 chipsets, with a i5-2500K or i7-2600K. Those take dual channel ram.

meths · 15 Jul 2011 at 09:56

Does one perform better than the other? Out of the P67 and Z68 I mean.

andy_mk3 · 15 Jul 2011 at 09:59

Z68 supports onboard graphics, SSD caching and quicksync for video transcoding.

Some more info here if you fancy a read: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/z68-express-lucidlogix-virtu-ssd-caching,2888.html

goodl · 15 Jul 2011 at 10:01

More features on the z68, performance is similar.

Z68 adds Discrete Video + IGP (allows using of encoding engine QuickSync)
Rapid Storage Technology (SSD Caching)

meths · 15 Jul 2011 at 10:03

Interesting. So I can possibly keep my existing DDR2 ram if I can clock it high enough. That just might be the difference between me going for the I7 over the I5.

Thanks guys you've been a big help.

Edit: Looked a bit more and I5, Z68, DDR3 seems the way to go.

olivier renault · 15 Jul 2011 at 10:17

Nope. You will need DDR3.

And yeah, the consensus is 2500K, P67/Z68 (I like the Asrock Z68 Pro 3 board for budget), and 4GB DDR3 for great performance and good value,