3700 vs 3700K for BOINC

[LMF5000]

I'm building my first desktop ever (been a laptop owner all my life thus far) and I'm trying to decide between the Intel Core i7 3700 and the 3700K.

The thing is, the official BOINC FAQ discourages overclocking because they say it increases the chances of returning wrong results (which means you get zero points for the work).

I don't know how many more points you'd get from an overclocked 3700K vs. a stock 3700 (maybe some experienced BOINC users can tell me of their experience in this regard?)

The thing is, the price difference is small compared to the CPU price, so it's tempting to get the K anyway ("better have it and not need it than need it and not have it").

What do you think?

 

[biodoc]

I'm building my first desktop ever (been a laptop owner all my life thus far) and I'm trying to decide between the Intel Core i7 3700 and the 3700K.

The thing is, the official BOINC FAQ discourages overclocking because they say it increases the chances of returning wrong results (which means you get zero points for the work).

I don't know how many more points you'd get from an overclocked 3700K vs. a stock 3700 (maybe some experienced BOINC users can tell me of their experience in this regard?)

The thing is, the price difference is small compared to the CPU price, so it's tempting to get the K anyway ("better have it and not need it than need it and not have it").

What do you think?

If you can, go for the 3700K. Finding a stable overclock that produces "clean" data for all the projects is part of the fun, IMHO. Depending on the chip you get, a 15-20% overclock should be easily obtained.

 

[blckgrffn]

I sorta agree with Biodoc, but if you are budget minded, the 3770 is a good choice too. It will OC easily to at least 3.8Ghz, or four bins off its base Turbo frequency:

http://ark.intel.com/products/65719/Intel-Core-i7-3770-Processor-(8M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz)

Then I would spend the difference on a nice heatsink like the Cooler Master EVO:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103099 (you can likely do a lot better on the price...)

From my standpoint, you'll be getting a reasonable OC, lower temps (which means even better power utilization) and you won't be tempted to spend endless hours tweaking the OC I know that can be fun for some, but I am no longer in that camp

Also, the stock cooler is just unsuitable for 24/7 100% utilization IMHO, it is a whiny little thing.

Setting a 3770 to 3.8 (or 3.9, I'll look into what you can expect...) and forgetting it with a nice cooler is as close to a sure thing as imaginable in the current CPU landscape. Yup, 3.8. Oddly, the K 3770 has a 3.5 Ghz base speed, the non K has a 3.4 Ghz base speed.

Plus, it's still going to be beastly fast!

Now, if budget is of lesser concern, I'd just get the 3770k because you could likely get an easy 4.0 Ghz out of it (and doesn't that sound nice?) and flipping it in the future will be that much easier. I'd still plan on a nicer heatsink, though.

 

[LMF5000]

I sorta agree with Biodoc, but if you are budget minded, the 3770 is a good choice too. It will OC easily to at least 3.8Ghz, or four bins off its base Turbo frequency:

http://ark.intel.com/products/65719/Intel-Core-i7-3770-Processor-(8M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz)

Then I would spend the difference on a nice heatsink like the Cooler Master EVO:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103099 (you can likely do a lot better on the price...)

From my standpoint, you'll be getting a reasonable OC, lower temps (which means even better power utilization) and you won't be tempted to spend endless hours tweaking the OC I know that can be fun for some, but I am no longer in that camp

Also, the stock cooler is just unsuitable for 24/7 100% utilization IMHO, it is a whiny little thing.

Setting a 3770 to 3.8 (or 3.9, I'll look into what you can expect...) and forgetting it with a nice cooler is as close to a sure thing as imaginable in the current CPU landscape. Yup, 3.8. Oddly, the K 3770 has a 3.5 Ghz base speed, the non K has a 3.4 Ghz base speed.

Plus, it's still going to be beastly fast!

Now, if budget is of lesser concern, I'd just get the 3770k because you could likely get an easy 4.0 Ghz out of it (and doesn't that sound nice?) and flipping it in the future will be that much easier. I'd still plan on a nicer heatsink, though.

The thing about budget is that considering I only buy PCs maybe once every 3 years, if I'm going to spend 300 euros on the CPU alone, then I'm going to be kicking myself 3 years down the line for not to spending 335 euros on a better CPU if it's worth the extra 10%. Though of course if I do this for every component the differences quickly add up and it ends up costing 2000 euro instead of 1500 (and the average salary in Malta is 1200 euro a month after taxes :'().

I'm also having a tough time deciding on heatsinks. I tend to like Akasa but I'm open to suggestions. I use frostytech to get educated opinions (it's a bit like jonnyguru is for PSUs and anandtech is for CPUs). If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd like to hear them.

I think I'm going for the K. It'd be nice to hit 4GHz for an extra 35 or 60 euro

 

[salvorhardin]

Just buy the k and think of it as an investment. In a year or 2 you can buy a better heatsink and get some more performance. Since you upgrade every 3 years (I also do this) It's a better investment. I bought a Q9400 in 2009 and normally run it at 3.4GHz (2.66GHz stock).

 

[LMF5000]

Just buy the k and think of it as an investment. In a year or 2 you can buy a better heatsink and get some more performance. Since you upgrade every 3 years (I also do this) It's a better investment. I bought a Q9400 in 2009 and normally run it at 3.4GHz (2.66GHz stock).

I'm going to buy a good air-cooled heatsink with the CPU. Any suggestions? There seem to be a couple of recurring configurations of coolers. There are those that blow air onto the CPU (like the stock cooler), the "tower-style" coolers that blow air perpendicularly, and the ones with two "towers" - one perpendicular and one on the CPU...

 

[salvorhardin]

I haven't kept up with the latest info on heatsinks. My last build was in 2009 and I used this xigmatek heatsink and I've been happy with it. When overclocked and at full load my gpus are louder than my cpu. I haven't checked recently but it used to run low to mid 50s at full load.

 

[LMF5000]

I haven't kept up with the latest info on heatsinks. My last build was in 2009 and I used this xigmatek heatsink and I've been happy with it. When overclocked and at full load my gpus are louder than my cpu. I haven't checked recently but it used to run low to mid 50s at full load.

What a coincidence. I happen to have a Xigmatek dark knight from my days of experimenting with Peltier coolers for an engineering project. I didn't realise it actually works with socket 1155? Or did you have to modify something?

 

[salvorhardin]

I'm running it on a socket 775. There's a Dark Knight II that works with 1155. If I remember correctly the original dark knight can work on a 1155 but you need to buy brackets that allow it to mount on the motherboard. I tried to look up my order at newegg to see what sockets it works with, but it refers to the dark knight II. When I find the box I'll get back with you on what sockets the original brackets work with.

Edit: Box says compatible with sockets 775 and 1366. I don't know if the socket spacing has remained consistent between socket generations.