What CPU for my new build for gaming ?

ReAPeR101 · 31 May 2011 at 12:45

Have to agree with most in the thread. My next build will be a i5 2500k.

opethdisciple · 31 May 2011 at 12:54

panyan said:
dont be obtuse - he means a 2500K based system, not the whole rig!

I wasnt being obtuse at all!!!

I was looking at the 2500k bundel and it was £429, so was intersted to hear I could have it for only £300.

Sorry if it came accross as rude.

Is this mobo not too cheap tho? MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £89.98

Will it allow the cpu to be overclocked properly, and have full bandwidth for future pci ex gpu's?

Also is 8x 8x sli/xfire not a bandwidth limitation?

Edit*

Sorry to hijack thread!

Aideh · 31 May 2011 at 16:42

Ok this is turned into a fanboy thread, so let me shine some light:

My currently PC is an AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE. Im currently UPGRADING to a i5 2500k for clocking purposes, that and the fact that AMD have messed me around too much with their new launch dates.

In all honesty, for budget go with AMD, theyre so good for the price, i paid around £200 for a 965 when it was new, todays prices are deffinately worth it

.

If you're an avid starcraft 2 player like myself, i'd highly recommend the i5, as it outperforms AMD processers by quite a bit in it. Also the new Intel motherboards are upgradable to Ivy Bridge (no idea how much better Ivy Bridge will do compared to sandy bridge) so atlest theres some room for upgradability (rare for Intel!).

Thats my two cents

.

shadow_boxer · 31 May 2011 at 21:18

Completely agree with the post above.

Depends on budget. AMD is great for the price. A overclocked cheap Athlon II X3 and 5850 can play BFBC2 at 1920x1080 on max settings. I wouldn't discount a Phenom II X4, however, if you can stretch to an i5 2500K then this is the obvious choice IMO.

throdgrain · 31 May 2011 at 21:37

I bought an i7 2600k, not a i5.

Why?

Because 7 is a higher number than 5

cmndr_andi · 31 May 2011 at 23:37

opethdisciple said:
Is this mobo not too cheap tho? MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £89.98

Will it allow the cpu to be overclocked properly, and have full bandwidth for future pci ex gpu's?

Also is 8x 8x sli/xfire not a bandwidth limitation?

It's a very nice board, uses high quality components and overclocks great. The main downside is that it only has one full-size PCIE port - so no crossfire or SLI.

If you want these features then I would suggest spending the extra £10 - this board supports both CF and SLI (albeit unofficially) and with two cards runs each at x8 speed.

opethdisciple · 1 Jun 2011 at 00:10

cmndr_andi said:
It's a very nice board, uses high quality components and overclocks great. The main downside is that it only has one full-size PCIE port - so no crossfire or SLI.

If you want these features then I would suggest spending the extra £10 - this board supports both CF and SLI (albeit unofficially) and with two cards runs each at x8 speed.

Thanls for the heads up on the mobo.

What makes you say sli and xfire is 'unofficialy' supported when it says on the product description supports xfire and sli?

cmndr_andi · 1 Jun 2011 at 00:14

opethdisciple said:
Thanls for the heads up on the mobo.

What makes you say sli and xfire is 'unofficialy' supported when it says on the product description supports xfire and sli?

It's an SLI licensing thing I believe, if you look on the MSI page it isn't advertised to support SLI. However, in reality it does - as confirmed by the MSI rep and people with the board - hence why it is advertised as SLI capable on ocuk and other retailers.

Crossfire is officially supported.

opethdisciple · 1 Jun 2011 at 00:19

Yea if I was to upgrade, it has to be as cheap as possible, but covering all the bases.

I dont neccessarily need to skimp, there is no budget restriction, but I dont want to pay more than what I need, or spec too low and find my self limited.

The only thing I see that I dont like is the board is 'limited' to 1133MHz ram, buy the time im upgrading the board should support at least 1600Mhz.

Any good price/performance board in this category? (Good overclockablity)

Whats the difference between the p67 and the z68?

cmndr_andi · 1 Jun 2011 at 00:28

opethdisciple said:
The only thing I see that I dont like is the board is 'limited' to 1133MHz ram, buy the time im upgrading the board should support at least 1600Mhz.

Yea, that's a typo - if you look here that board supports :

Main Memory

• Supports four unbuffered DIMM of 1.5 Volt DDR3 1066/1333/1600*/1866*/2133*(OC) DRAM, 32GB Max
- Supports Dual channel mode

As with all LGA 1155 systems, the memory controller is onboard the CPU and this is only rated at 1333MHz by intel (with four RAM modules installed), the motherboard has no affect on this. However, as we all know the memory controller overclocks very well and (especially when only running two RAM modules) you can happily run memory at well in excess of 1600MHz without issue. Running higher speed memory isn't really to do with getting the right board, but instead getting a CPU with a good memory controller.

As for overclockability - all the boards overclock pretty much the same. If you look at this review of the MSI GD53 (£110 board), it happily overclocks to 5GHz. However, beyond around 4.5GHz you will start to exceed Intel's recommended CPU voltage limits.

opethdisciple said:
Whats the difference between the p67 and the z68?

The main difference are that (most of) the Z68 boards allow access to the graphics processor onboard the sandy bridge CPU - this allows for Intel Quick sync technology (for very fast, high quality video transcoding) to be used, even with a discrete graphics card installed (thanks to lucid virtu software). Also Z68 boards support SSD caching, which allows you to use a small SSD to speed up a standard mechanical hard disk by intelligently caching files. The final big difference is the price, Z68 boards are a fair bit more expensive that P67 boards.

If you don't think you will make good use of the technologies that I mention then I would suggest going for a cheaper P67 board instead.

opethdisciple · 1 Jun 2011 at 00:53

cmndr_andi said:
Yea, that's a typo - if you look here that board supports :

As with all LGA 1155 systems, the memory controller is onboard the CPU and this is only rated at 1333MHz by intel (with four RAM modules installed), the motherboard has no affect on this. However, as we all know the memory controller overclocks very well and (especially when only running two RAM modules) you can happily run memory at well in excess of 1600MHz without issue. Running higher speed memory isn't really to do with getting the right board, but instead getting a CPU with a good memory controller.

As for overclockability - all the boards overclock pretty much the same. If you look at this review of the MSI GD53 (£110 board), it happily overclocks to 5GHz. However, beyond around 4.5GHz you will start to exceed Intel's recommended CPU voltage limits.

The main difference are that (most of) the Z68 boards allow access to the graphics processor onboard the sandy bridge CPU - this allows for Intel Quick sync technology (for very fast, high quality video transcoding) to be used, even with a discrete graphics card installed (thanks to lucid virtu software). Also Z68 boards support SSD caching, which allows you to use a small SSD to speed up a standard mechanical hard disk by intelligently caching files. The final big difference is the price, Z68 boards are a fair bit more expensive that P67 boards.

If you don't think you will make good use of the technologies that I mention then I would suggest going for a cheaper P67 board instead.

Thanks for that very detailed explanation.

With the board you mentioned above, it supports overclocked ram speeds of 1600Mhz +, can I by 1600Mhz rated ram, and it would work at that speed?

Or I will have to overclock the cpu to get a configuration where im runningthe ram at 1600mhz?

Even if this is the case is there any harm in just buying ram rated at 1600mhz?

cmndr_andi · 1 Jun 2011 at 01:01

Yes, a two stick 1600MHz kit like this or this would work fine with that board.

To get memory running at higher than 1333MHz speeds you don't need to overclock the CPU per-se, but by running memory at a speed higher than what the memory controller (part of the CPU) is rated to then you are technically overclocking the memory controller. At 1600Mhz with two sticks this really isn't a worry. When you install the RAM it will default to 1333MHz and you will have to set the rated frequency, timings and voltage manually - make sure you run the DRAM voltage at ~1.5V, this XMS3 stuff can candle 1600MHz at this voltage.

opethdisciple · 1 Jun 2011 at 01:04

Right so its basically I buy the 1600mhz rated ram, put it in and 'overclock' the ram and bump up the volts to make it stable?

Ahh so when overclocking these chips, Id need to do two things:

1. Overclock the core(?) and bump up the vcore.

2. OVerclock the memory controller to run ram at 1600Mhz (or beyound?)

Would trying to achive number 2, hinder number 1?

I dont want to shoot my self in the foot! I always shoot my self in the foot when buying new pc tech.

cmndr_andi · 1 Jun 2011 at 01:06

opethdisciple said:
Right so its basically I buy the 1600mhz rated ram, put it in and 'overclock' the ram and bump up the volts to make it stable?

Well you run the RAM at rated speed and overclock the memory controller - but basically yes.

Don't bump up the volts of the DRAM, make sure they don't go too high - if you enable the XMP (extreme memory profile) then it will automatically run at 1600MHz 1.65v, this is fine with nahalem systems but with sandy bridge you really don't want the memory to be running at this high a voltage as it can damage the CPU. Instead, set it all manually and put the DRAM voltage to 1.5V.

logi-cat · 1 Jun 2011 at 11:37

Go for a 2500k, it will be the easiest decision you will ever make.

Randall8686 · 1 Jun 2011 at 13:06

yup 2500k, will overclock very well and has bags of performance, in battlefield bad company 2 im getting 110-180 fps lol (yes i know my monitor will only display 60 before some one jumps in)

cmndr_andi · 1 Jun 2011 at 13:20

opethdisciple said:
Ahh so when overclocking these chips, Id need to do two things:

1. Overclock the core(?) and bump up the vcore.

2. OVerclock the memory controller to run ram at 1600Mhz (or beyound?)

Would trying to achive number 2, hinder number 1?

I dont want to shoot my self in the foot! I always shoot my self in the foot when buying new pc tech.

Yup - that's the way to do it.

Achieving 2 (at 1600Mhz at least) really doesn't impede on 1, so feel secure in that. When overclocking the CPU I reckon the limit you will reach (so long as you use a half decent cooler) is a self-imposed limit based on maximum frequency the chip will reach on safe voltages.

opethdisciple · 1 Jun 2011 at 13:20

Im interested in raising the minimum fps of my 5870.

It can dip at times of mayhem in BFBC2.

Think a 2500k will achive that?

Jasonst888 · 1 Jun 2011 at 13:37

By the way the ram you mentioned above wouldn't be ideal, I believe thats the 1.65v version, sandybridge processors prefer the 1.5v or below. 1.65v can cause instability when overclocking.

I second/ third/ whatever number we are on to....the i5 2500k....

P67 board as you will be buying a seperate graphics card so the z68's main features would be pointless for your purposes. MSI GD53 - amazing board - very cheap - both sli/crossfire compatible - dual 8x8 pci e lanes or single 16x ... its recommended by a lot of pc magazines as the p67 board to get (only recently though as it didn't get a lot of coverage until now)

If you intend to oc don't forget a good aftermarket cooler (I know its simple but ticking all the boxes here

)

Jasonst888 · 1 Jun 2011 at 13:41

opethdisciple said:
Im interested in raising the minimum fps of my 5870.

It can dip at times of mayhem in BFBC2.

Think a 2500k will achive that?

Personally I was running a Q6600 at 3.2ghz with my HD 6950 (flashed) and the cpu was severley limiting my graphics card, but its hard to say for certain....with me it was like there was a cap there....it kept bumping up dropping one then down and it dropped loads when lots started happening (e.g. explosions) I do know that bfbc2 is very intensive on the cpu so it could be the cause, maybe taper back the oc on the chip and see what difference it makes? If that drops performance you know the cpu is affecting it, but if it keeps dropping off in explosions it could just be the gfx card struggling, but then again the 5870 should be able to manage no worries!