Spec me a mobo/system please

blackice8r · 4 Feb 2012 at 08:04

Hi guys,

I'm here because an evil person planted a seed in my head...to dump my Q9550 while it's still worth something and upgrade...

I don't want to spend a lot of money really...
My system is fast and reliable but it makes sense to upgrade if the difference in price is not great...

I've been out of touch with the new mobos and CPUs that came out since I've build my system (about 2 years ago I think)

So I need a bit of direction.

I was thinking a cheap : GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 >I found a review here: http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/reviews/43666-gigabyte-ga-z68x-ud3p-b3-living-review.html

and a cheap i5-2500k -possibly overclocked.

I hope I can get 100£ on my q9550 and maybe about 30£ on the mobo

I'm willing to add another 100-150£ to that, so that would make my price range for the upgrade 230-280£

Of course the less I spent the better...

Does this sound like a good plant to you?
Is it worth it?

Would you suggest another combo/other CPU&mobo?

Subliminal Aura · 4 Feb 2012 at 13:11

lolwut ?!

That board is VERY cheap if you look around... Seeing lots of non gen3 boards plummeting in price which should help your upgrade

Sounds like you've been given some very sound advice

RJC · 4 Feb 2012 at 13:16

I assume your memory can run at 1.50v to 1.55v then I have done a build below, but you might want to look out for a after market cooler rather than the stock cooler.

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99
(£149.99) £179.99
(£149.99)
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
(£70.82) £84.98
(£70.82)
* Sub Total : £220.81
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £46.06
* Total : £276.37

blackice8r · 4 Feb 2012 at 15:54

RJC said:
I assume your memory can run at 1.50v to 1.55v then I have done a build below, but you might want to look out for a after market cooler rather than the stock cooler.

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99
(£149.99) £179.99
(£149.99)
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
(£70.82) £84.98
(£70.82)
* Sub Total : £220.81
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £46.06
* Total : £276.37

Many thanks!

My memory should work on this mobo I think...
My cooler is a: Arctic Cooling Freezer Extreme Multi Socket CPU Cooler
I hope it's good enough...

But, would the mobo be good enough for an overclock?

The CPU , at 180£ it's expensive, I'll wait a bit. Does it have to be a particular version if I want to overclock it?

Subliminal Aura · 4 Feb 2012 at 15:56

blackice8r said:
The CPU , at 180£ it's expensive, I'll wait a bit. Does it have to be a particular version if I want to overclock it?

If you ever see the 2500k drop to £150-160 brand new then it's a steal - Just buy no questions asked.

2nd hand 2500k can be had in the 120-140 range

RJC · 4 Feb 2012 at 16:03

blackice8r said:
Many thanks!

My memory should work on this mobo I think...
My cooler is a: Arctic Cooling Freezer Extreme Multi Socket CPU Cooler
I hope it's good enough...

But, would the mobo be good enough for an overclock?

The CPU , at 180£ it's expensive, I'll wait a bit. Does it have to be a particular version if I want to overclock it?

You will need the K series cpu to overclock.

Does your cooler come with socket 1155 / 1156 brackets.

blackice8r · 5 Feb 2012 at 22:12

Subliminal Aura said:
If you ever see the 2500k drop to £150-160 brand new then it's a steal - Just buy no questions asked.

2nd hand 2500k can be had in the 120-140 range

Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
(£70.82) £84.98

Lowest * £148.58 Sep 12, 2011 - that's the lowest it got, I'm confident it will drop again, maybe even this month.
Don't forget, February is the best month of the year for deals.

I'll wait untill the end of the month...

would the Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
(£70.82) £84.98
be good enough for overclocking the 2500k ?

RJC - good point, I'll check but probably I'll need to buy another cooler or the 1155 / 1156 brackets (is it possible to find just the brackets?)

Subliminal Aura · 5 Feb 2012 at 22:24

blackice8r said:
Lowest * £148.58 Sep 12, 2011 - that's the lowest it got, I'm confident it will drop again, maybe even this month.
Don't forget, February is the best month of the year for deals.

I'll wait untill the end of the month...

It's like playing the stock market and knowing when to flinch

blackice8r said:
would the Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
(£70.82) £84.98
be good enough for overclocking the 2500k ?

Yup but would really want to be buying a revision 1 board ?

blackice8r · 6 Feb 2012 at 08:14

Subliminal Aura said:
Yup but would really want to be buying a revision 1 board ?

fair enough, what would you suggest instead? (I've been out of touch with the new motherboards for about 2 years now)

the Gigabyte Z68X-UD3P looks like a newer version, would that be better?

this doesn't look like a cheap upgrade anymore

edit: I just found a thread about this combo...I'll have a read there in the mean time

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18338090&highlight=2500k+overclock

cmndr_andi · 6 Feb 2012 at 08:26

Since the Q9550 is still a pretty nice CPU (especially when overclocked) then unless you are having performance issues you may want to cosider holding off the upgrade until April when Intel bring out their shiny new 22nm Ivy Bridge CPUs and motherboards.

blackice8r · 6 Feb 2012 at 10:10

cmndr_andi said:
Since the Q9550 is still a pretty nice CPU (especially when overclocked) then unless you are having performance issues you may want to cosider holding off the upgrade until April when Intel bring out their shiny new 22nm Ivy Bridge CPUs and motherboards.

I was just talking about that with my colleague!

No performance issue with my system, I want a bigger SSD to put BF3 on it (stupid EA/Origin - closing the game every single time when you change the server it's idiotic) but I'll wait - SSD prices and HDD prices in general - should go down.

You are probably right, it's worth waiting..

I'm just worried that the price of the Q9550 will depreciate by a lot.

Subliminal Aura · 6 Feb 2012 at 10:22

blackice8r said:
fair enough, what would you suggest instead? (I've been out of touch with the new motherboards for about 2 years now)

I'm going to treat myself to a Maximus ... seem to be going pretty cheap at the moment

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/41...ntel_z68_matx_motherboard_review/index12.html

blackice8r said:
I'm just worried that the price of the Q9550 will depreciate by a lot.

Supply and demand.... It might even go up :eek:

Anyway, I've sold up can't care less about socket 775 anymore

blackice8r · 8 Feb 2012 at 18:04

I think I'll wait for the new Intel CPU...but I could not refrain from getting the 120G Corsair : http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-021-CS&groupid=1657&catid=2101&subcat=2103
I think it's one of good ones right? Good price too..
BTW, this one comes with 3 Years Manufacturers Warranty, right?

It will run on SATA II but at least it should help with bloody BF3...
I simply hate the way they implemented the server changing part... Having it on SSD should help...

blackice8r · 15 Feb 2012 at 08:12

Right, got my new SSD in place, it gets a better score in tests but only because it has higher write speeds. The read speeds are lower in tests than on my old Crucial SSD.

The old SSD was set as IDE , the new one is AHCI (I've read that IDE doesn't support TRIM, is that right?)
Is AHCI slower than IDE?
the old Crucial SSD had 350/70 read/write, the new Corsair SSD 550/510.
Both have the latest firmwares.

Any idea ?