Upgrade dilemma

Pilgrim57 · 20 May 2012 at 21:08

Hello - so I'm planning a major upgrade/rebuild.
Waited for IB which some seem to be have heat problems when giving more volt to get to +4.5GHz. Seems a shame to chose SB.
Can't see the point of paying a premium to get a 3770k for 100MHz stock & 2MB cache, so opting for 3750k.

Will more RAM help F@H esp SMP & BOINC or is faster better i.e. o/c +1600MHz?

Was looking @ Noctua & Be Quiet dual rad coolers. A. they're big! B. could be fiddly to fit. Any thoughts? Or should I go for a water cooling kit [Corsair or Antec]

Thanks for the input.

Biffa · 21 May 2012 at 01:08

SB-E is around 30% faster at folding than the equivalent SB cpu.

IB should be faster again. But I havent had a play with IB yet. Coolers shouldnt be fiddly to fit, water cooling does give you some gains, but is still noisy, noiser than some air coolers, because of the nature of crunching meants 24/7 with fans at full pelt.

CaptainUnlikely · 21 May 2012 at 07:56

More RAM won't help crunching or folding performance in most cases, as long as you have sufficient (8GB is fairly standard and cheap nowadays and won't cause you problems) overclocking the RAM has little impact on performance.
I'd go with a decent air cooler over an all in one liquid cooler, they perform the same and the air cooler is often cheaper, plus you don't have to worry about the pump failing. Proper watercooling would far outperform either and depending on the parts you choose could be quieter too, but at a higher cost.

hanluc · 21 May 2012 at 10:20

When I use to fold the big, big-advs having faster RAM did improve my TPF, I'm not sure what difference it would make on normal SMPs. With crunching I've noticed some projects use a lot of RAM, about a Meg each on the physical cores, and half a meg each on the HT ones.

and I've had a bit of success with my 3770K with regards to the heat issues, it's not for the fainthearted though

I probably try 4.8Ghz at some point.

Biffa · 21 May 2012 at 12:40

hanluc said:
When I use to fold the big, big-advs having faster RAM did improve my TPF, I'm not sure what difference it would make on normal SMPs. With crunching I've noticed some projects use a lot of RAM, about a Meg each on the physical cores, and half a meg each on the HT ones.

and I've had a bit of success with my 3770K with regards to the heat issues, it's not for the fainthearted though I probably try 4.8Ghz at some point.

I agree on the memory speed, depends entirely what and how you are folding.

And :eek:

on the cahones required to do the IHS removal and re-tim

hanluc · 21 May 2012 at 22:29

Biffa said:
And on the cahones required to do the IHS removal and re-tim

There's a fine line between cahones and stupidity

luckily it went.
I've decided to go for a more conservative 4.7Ghz, don't want it to be a gas guzzler being as it's doing a fair bit of crunching now.

Pilgrim57 · 23 May 2012 at 20:20

Thanks for the replies, guys. Won't be ordering liquid pro, too much of a wimp.
[many years ago I botched fitting the HSF to my brother's AMD & broke off the corner off the core

]

Ordered today:
IB i5 3570K retail [for extra warranty £12 for 2 more years seems ok]
ASUS P8Z77-V-Pro
Corsair vengence low profile 1600MHz 2x8GB [figured it would use less leccy than 4x4]
Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro 2 [not on sale here :confused:

so £5 delivery & some how the £2 insurance stayed ticked

]
Will walk a mile to get a Samsung 830 SSD for less than a ton.

Jubilee build is on