Upgrade itch, should i indulge or not

bakes0310

bakes0310

bakes0310

Soldato
Joined
22 Oct 2004
Posts
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Right ive got that upgrade itch fever again:rolleyes::p
Anyway heres my current spec:
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 965 BE [email protected]
Asus Crosshair III Formula
Corsair Dominator XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 16000C9D
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5970 Black Edition 2048MB GDDR5
128gb SSD
2x 500gb harddrive
windows 7 premium 64bit
Samsung Blueray Drive
Akasa Eclipse 62 case
Akasa Fan Controller
Senhesier HeadPhones
Zalman PSU 1000W
Dell U2711 27" Monitor
G15 Keyboard
Razor Mouse

Heres what i specced myself:
 
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You've got (overpriced) triple channel RAM for a dual channel board, and a ridiculously overpriced motherboard. Switch the board for a £100-£150 P67/Z68 motherboard, change the RAM to an ~£80 set of 2x4GB DDR3, and you've saved yourself about £200 for no noticeable decrease in performance- possibly even a gain, thanks to the extra RAM, and SSD caching on the Z68 boards.

The case is also overpriced, although cases are pretty much personal choice, and the H100 is very poor value for money if you're going on performance terms.
 
stulid said:
The Sandybridge CPU are dual channel memory, so a 2X2GB or 2X4GB kit is what you want.
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hybrid572 said:
You've got (overpriced) triple channel RAM for a dual channel board, and a ridiculously overpriced motherboard. Switch the board for a £100-£150 P67/Z68 motherboard, change the RAM to an ~£80 set of 2x4GB DDR3, and you've saved yourself about £200 for no noticeable decrease in performance- possibly even a gain, thanks to the extra RAM, and SSD caching on the Z68 boards.

The case is also overpriced, although cases are pretty much personal choice, and the H100 is very poor value for money if you're going on performance terms.
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Some much needed advice there thanks. So whats the difference between the P67/Z68 boards then, which one would i be better off as a gamer?
 
Put this together for you so see what you think;

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £155.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68X-UD3P Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £148.98
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 920 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM2+/AM2+/AM3+) £84.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £65.99
Total : £467.34 (includes shipping : £9.50).

The above does not include a case but here are some good options (imho);

Corsair Obsidian 700D - Click me (£158.99).
Cooler Master HAF X Gaming Case - Click me (£142.99).

There are of course cheaper cases depending on what you are after.

Stoner81.
 
P67 motherboards do not have on board graphics so unless you have a video card you would have no output to your screen. It is £50 more than the Gigabyte one I linked to and I can't see why it is more expensive to be honest. Considering your current spec perhaps waiting until Ivy Bridge comes out would be a better option?

Stoner81.
 
bakes0310 said:
Some much needed advice there thanks. So whats the difference between the P67/Z68 boards then, which one would i be better off as a gamer?
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Z68 can use the graphics built into the Sandybridge CPU's and can overclock the onboard graphics where P67 boards do not have graphics outputs on the board and must use discrete graphics. For a gamer this feature is pretty pointless as we'll always be using a discrete card. If you have a discrete graphics card in aswell though the motherboard can switch to onboard graphics until the power of your discrete card is required theoretically saving power consumption. I read a few articles claiming the saving is minimal however.

Z68 comes with the Lucid Virtu technology which greatly increases video transcoding speeds by using the onboard graphics chip to accelerate the process.

Z68 features SSD caching where you can use a small (30gb~) SSD in conjunction with a standard HDD to cache the most used files onto the SSD to boost the performance of the mechanical HDD. Since you are using a good sized SSD already this wouldn't be important to you.

Thats about all Z68 has over P67, so unless you do lots of video transcoding you'd be best by getting a nice P67 board. MSI do great p67 boards, pick up a GD53 / GD65 and have a great board at much less than your original choice.
 
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bakes0310 said:
Gaming.
I should really wait till ivybridge comes out. But after seeing BF3 and Skyrim theres probably little chance ill be playing it at max settings.
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Well you could alternatively wait for the release of Bulldozer or Sandybridge-E (skt LGA2011) later this year seeing at BF3 hasn't even been released yet!
 
bakes0310 said:
Gaming.
I should really wait till ivybridge comes out. But after seeing BF3 and Skyrim theres probably little chance ill be playing it at max settings.
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TBH even skyrim and BF3 wont be maxing out a sandybridge anytime soon. Id go for a sandybridge (or even a normal i7 920 and save even more!!) and keep your 5970. Then with the money every one has saved you above get a second 5970! That way you will deff max out both the games without a problem.

I havnt read much up on Bf3 or Skyrim (even though i am having wetdreams about them :D) but im pretty sure they will be more gpu heavy than cpu. Spesh with a sandybride/i7 overclocked to 4Ghz.
 
Yeah I'd say wait, you seem to have quite a bit of money to spend on this upgrade? In which case why not wait a short while for, at the very least, more information on Bulldozer and Ivybridge.....to be perfectly honest I doubt Bulldozer will outperform sandybridge...but who knows, Ivybridge will, but the question is by how much? and will the extra cost justify this.

Wait a month/2 for info on Bulldozer, could be worth the wait.

But then again the i5 2500k won't dissappoint, so if you are desperate to buy now its the way to go! :D

Note: Skyrim and bf3 will be on console to...so they wont be too intensive for your cpu as an xbox will have to run it as well! :P
 
bakes0310 said:
Ill wait and hold on till next year, my rig will last a while longer.
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Good decision IMO. Your system is still pretty high-end and won't struggle at all with 95% of games. In the meantime could look at getting a new cooler (perhaps water-cooling) and pushing that 965BE to 4.0GHz. How does the 5970 cope with gaming at 2560x1440?
 
I made the decision to go Sandybridge last week from a AMD 955BE and its so much faster.

best thing I done for a while.
 
^^ With that being said stulid perhaps an i5 SB rig would suit the OP better since it would mean just a motherboard and CPU since his current RAM should work (I think). Pretty cheap upgrade but with a big boost in performance?

Stoner81.
 
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