Which Mobo and Processor?

Bawat

Bawat

Bawat

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Hey all!

I am attempting to build a new computer for myself and have all the parts except the Motherboard and the Processor. Since the two should be chosen together I was looking for some expert advice on which ones to pick.

I currently have a £500 budget to buy these two components but I'm not sure if pending that amount is necessary. They will primarily be used for gaming and occasional 3D Modeling, Server Hosting, Video editing and rarely game recording while playing.

I was looking towards the Core i5-2500K but would like a processor that I can overclock as much as possible. Are the only limits to how far you can overclock a processor the heat that is generated from it? (Unless clashing clock cycles are already a now-day problem) I have the Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme to work with and want to get to around 4.5 possibly 5 GHz. Do you think I could push it past 5Ghz?

I would also like the Mobo to support Raid 0 since I have two of these SSDs Samsung 830 Series 64GB Solid State Drive SATA 6Gb/s 256MB

Which SATA cable revision should I get for this? If I could get more than two SATA connector slots on the motherboard that would be a great bonus!

The motherboard would also need to at least have two DDR3 ram slots since I have two Vengenace 8GB 1600MHz CL10s

I also need to be able to attach a ATI Radeon X850 XT to the motherboard.

I appreciate that this seems like a massive request but I have taken five weeks to try and find my processor and mobo combination and I am still stuck. I have included links to the components to make everyone's life easier, all help, advice and time spent on this is very much appreciated. =]
 
Should definitely go for the newer and better i5 3570k. Smaller die size, so runs cooler and will clock better. I think the Gigabyte Z77X D3H is one of the more popular boards out there too.
 
with a budget of £500 for the two its well worth looking at the 2011 socket. The 3820 is a great chip, a bit better than the 3770k and perfect for video editing. As it uses the i7's extra threads.

Though the real holy grail is the 3930k. The hex-core i7, designed to compete with the xeons for video editing/cad performance while still being a great gaming chip. Its pricy though.
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3820 3.60GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £229.99
1 x Gigabyte X79-UD3 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £179.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ16GX3M2A1600C10) £79.99
Total : £501.37 (includes shipping : £9.50).



or if you want the 1155 socket which will soon be a dead end......

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £239.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-UP4 TH Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £159.98
Total : £410.77 (includes shipping : £9.00).



The OEM CPU is £20 cheaper and you don't need the stock heatsink that comes with the retail edition, only has a 1 year warranty but CPU failure is very rare to be honest. The i7 has Hyperthreading over the i5 which will help the video encoding. Ivybridge does more clock for clock than sandybridge and the IB i5 and i7Ks have a better IGP. The IGP is used by quicksync to help with video encoding if your software supports it.
 
Last edited:
Doomedspeed said:
with a budget of £500 for the two its well worth looking at the 2011 socket. The 3820 is a great chip, a bit better than the 3770k and perfect for video editing. As it uses the i7's extra threads.

Though the real holy grail is the 3930k. The hex-core i7, designed to compete with the xeons for video editing/cad performance while still being a great gaming chip. Its pricy though.
Click to expand...

Egh?
They've both got HT, the 3820 lower lower IPC than the 3770k.
The only way a 3820 would be faster is if there was some huge memory bandwidth requirements made possible only be the quad channel memory on socket 2011.
 
Martini1991 said:
Egh?
They've both got HT, the 3820 lower lower IPC than the 3770k.
The only way a 3820 would be faster is if there was some huge memory bandwidth requirements made possible only be the quad channel memory on socket 2011.
Click to expand...

I see his point though!

You get the added extra of the Ivy-E once released as well as the hex-core if he feels he needs the extra 2 cores & threads.
 
snips86x said:
I see his point though!

You get the added extra of the Ivy-E once released as well as the hex-core if he feels he needs the extra 2 cores & threads.
Click to expand...

This really, a 3770K can never be upgraded unless you change the board too whereas a 3820 can be upgraded to a 6 core SB-E or a 6/8 core IB-E. And lets not forget he mentioned overclocking, in which case the 3820 will match or beat the 3770K on performance as its IPC handcap gets offset by its higher speed potential.

But if the OP does go X79 I would advise ASUS over Gigabyte as they have had issues with their X79 boards blowing mosfets under heavy overclocking.
 
Sorry for the confusion Martin, I wasn't as clear as I intended.

The 3770k over the 3570k due to extra threads.

The 3820 over the 3770k due to ivy-e upgrade path.

3930k if you can push your budget.

Good advice above on the X79 boards. :)
 
Thanks for the input guys! I think I might be going for the 3930k if you think It's worth it. What would be a good Motherboard to go with that? I can always wait till I have a but more spare cash to spend
 
Please remove the competitor link.

The P9X79 is still a great board though with some USB issues.

The PRO has more PCI-E lanes and better bandwidth for Xfire/SLI. And no mention of the USB issues.

I wouldn't buy a refurbished motherboard (not at this money)
 
Hi, you should prob remove the competitor link before a mod does it for you :P

I have the P9X79 and its basically like Doomed said, the PRO has an extra PCI-E 16x slot (but you can't use all three at 16x) but lacks the PCI slot of the non pro which is usefull if you want a PCI slot, the PRO also has an extra pair of SATA-III ports via a marvell controller, fatter VRM heatsink above the CPU socket and an additional heatsink to the left of the CPU socket, bluetooth built in, however the PRO has no firewire port and has 6/12 USB3/2 ratio as opposed to the non PRO's 4/14 ratio.
 
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