Upgrade Questions

Smokey Deza · 26 Oct 2011 at 01:08

Hi,

I'm looking to make several core upgrades but have a few questions as well.

Firstly, I've chose the following.

Corsair Obsidian 800D £229.99

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz Retail £184.99

Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) £89.99

OCZ Agility 3 60GB £76.99

Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
£53.99

Akasa AK-CCX-4002HP Venom CPU Cooler £39.98

Total £692.44

Any comments on the above? Have everything else but I'm considering purchasing a new PSU as my Corsair 650w is three years old now. No real interest in Crossfire (have 6950). Although I would like to game at 1440 on 27" one day (currently 1080)

Average overclocker I don't mess with voltage and memory timings etc.

Wouldn't like to go beyond £900.

Questions.

Mechanical keyboards. I spilt tea on my G15 and now I need a new one. But seriously, £100 for a keyboard? Are they really THAT good? I need more convincing. For games but I can't have difficulty typing.

And 'Cherry Picking'? I'm familiar with the term but what is it in the microchip that enables it to clock better than another chip of the same specs? Just curious and stuggled to google it.

Fire away!

I'll also send a free Dirt 3 Steam coupon code thingy to best poster.

Thanks

cmndr_andi · 26 Oct 2011 at 01:24

Looks good.

Personally I would go with this ssd (it generally regarded as a better bet - especially with the issues with the sandforce controller used in the agility 3) and this cooler (since it is just as cool and much quieter for basically the same price). also, i would suggest going with this low-profile ram, so you don't run into any issues with cpu heatsink clearance.

if your corsair 650w isn't giving you any issues then i would personally stick with it - since these are high quality, well built units.

as for the keyboard, i'm personally using a razer black widow ultimate (i moved from a g15 v1) and i really love it. to be clear, it may be marketed as a gaming keyboard, but in truth the cherry blue switches it uses are really made for typing - not gaming. don't get me wrong, it can play games fine - but there are other mechanical keyboards (ones using black and brown cherry switches) which are more suited to gaming, but if you plan to do a lot of typing an cherry blue keyboard is fantastic. Here is a really good guide which explains the benefits of mechanical keyboards and the differences between the different types of switches.

As for "cherry picking" it just means someone (either a shop or an individual) has access to a large number of components (in this case CPUs) and can test them all to see how well they perform/overclock. The ones that overclock the highest and use the lowest volts are put to one side, and thus "cherry picked". Some shops sell these CPU separately at a higher price since the luck-of-the-draw of getting a nice overclocking CPU is eliminated. The big issue with this system and a shop is if the non-cherry picked products are just the ones that didn't meet the higher grade (so there is less chance of randomly getting a great one, compared to a place that doesn't cherry pick).

As for how it works, I believe it's to do with the varying in quality of the silicon wafer used to make the chips - therefore some of the chips are of higher quality than the rest (can clock higher and/or require less voltage to achieve the same clockspeed compared to more average chips) and when tested are "cherry picked". I believe the manufacturers do some basic tests on the chips once they are made in a process called "Binning" which I guess is a form of cherry picking - however often higher binned chips are selected to make the higher-end chips in a product line. For example the Sandy Bridge Quad cores are all pretty much the same in terms of physical design, the ones lower binned are turned into i5 2300 and 2400 chips, while higher binned ones are turned into i5 2500K, i7 2600K and i7 2600K chips.

Smokey Deza · 26 Oct 2011 at 13:33

Sound. Will send to your hotmail acc later tonight.

King Damager · 26 Oct 2011 at 13:49

Good choices!

Depending on what you're planning on doing with your case you may want to look into something like a Corsair 650D, as whilst smaller, it looks the same, and unless you want to watercool, will probably more than meet your needs.

As above, definitely get the M4 SSD.

kd