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First Build: Sandy Bridge now or Ivy Bridge later?

G

Guinness74

Member
My current system is about 5-6 yrs old and has several bottlenecks.

MB: NForce 680i SLI
CPU: e6600 [COLOR=blue !important][FONT=inherit !important][COLOR=blue !important][FONT=inherit !important]Dual [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=inherit !important][COLOR=blue !important][FONT=inherit !important]Core[/FONT][/COLOR][/FONT][/COLOR][/COLOR]
GPU: GTX 460 768MB (already bottlenecked by CPU)
RAM: 4 MB DDR2-1066 PC2-8500
HD: 600GB Western Digital (forget the rest of specs)
Monitor: Syncmaster 2053BW, resolution 1680:1050

I wanted to take my first foray into building my own rig, but now unsure if I should just make the leap now into Sandy Bridge (based on how bad my current rig is) or wait until Ivy Bridge (fall 2011, Q2 2012?)

Here is my proposed rig if I make the leap now:

MB: ASRock Z68 Extreme4
CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K
GPU: Radeon HD 6970 2MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCi Express 2.1
RAM: Mushkin Enhanced Silverline 16GB (4 x GB) DDR3 1333 (PC 10666)
HD: [COLOR=blue !important][FONT=inherit !important][COLOR=blue !important][FONT=inherit !important]Samsung[/FONT][/FONT][/COLOR][/COLOR] spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0GB/s
SSD: Corsair Force F40 40GB SATA II MLC SSD (Cache)
PS: CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V
Monitor: Asus VH238H 23" HD HDMI [COLOR=blue !important][FONT=inherit !important][COLOR=blue ! important][FONT=inherit ! important]LCD [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=inherit !important][COLOR=blue ! important][FONT=inherit ! important]Monitor[/FONT][/COLOR][/FONT][/COLOR][/COLOR], resolution 1920:1080
Keyboard: Razer Black Wired Blackwidow Mechanical Gaming Keyboard
Mouse: Logitech MX 518 8 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB Wired Optical 1800 dpi Gaming Mouse

Could use some help on a couple fronts: 1) Should I make the leap at all or wait? 2) If I make the leap now, could I please get some feedback on my rig build? I've already gotten some great feedback here and modified accordingly, but could use more feedback on my revised build. I have never built one myself before so would love to get expert advice on areas where I should improve/pull back.

Thanks!
 
What are you using your computer for? 16GB of RAM is... a lot. If only for gaming, you won't need more than 4GB at this time (and for a few years to come).

As for Ivy Bridge, well, you have to ask yourself how much longer you want to be saddled with an E6600.
 
Yeah rig is just for gaming...I think the RAM is a clear case of overkill. As far as the waiting for Ivy Bridge vs. purchase now, its more of a case of longevity. I need this rig to last me a good 5 years (with occasional MEM, GPU tweak) so I wanted to make sure I got the most out of my money now.

A follow-up question for you as well...I currently pulled a sound card in favor of the onboard sound card on the MB. I also have relatively old speaker system (Klipsch Promedia 2.1). Should I also consider investing in either a dedicated sound card, new speaker system, or both? I don't have any plan to extend beyond 2.1.
 
Guinness74 said:
As far as the waiting for Ivy Bridge vs. purchase now, its more of a case of longevity. I need this rig to last me a good 5 years (with occasional MEM, GPU tweak) so I wanted to make sure I got the most out of my money now.
Click to expand...

Even in 5 years Ivy Bridge will be feeling quite old.

Then again, you can say the same thing every couple years. There is ALWAYS something better coming out, so you can play the waiting game forever. If Ivy Bridge was more imminent (say a month away) I'd say wait, but next year seems pretty far away right now.

Guinness74 said:
Should I also consider investing in either a dedicated sound card, new speaker system, or both? I don't have any plan to extend beyond 2.1.
Click to expand...

Start with onboard sound and your existing speakers, since those won't add to the cost at this time. If at a later time you want an improvement, upgrade.
 
If you are going to be mainly gaming on it just build the system now as it is going to be a rather long time before an I5-2500k becomes a bottleneck for whatever GPU's you decide to run also as already pointed out 16gb is complete overkill, you will never use it stick with 4 or 8
 
I would say Sandy bridge now, not sure what ivy will offer besides 22nm, maybe 6 core and stuff... Do it now, sandy bridge from now to 5 years be equally old as ivy from then to 5 years. If you have the budget, go for it now. Sandy Bridge is a pretty snazzy product, no reason to wait.
 
As stated there's always going to be something new on the horizon. If you keep waiting for the next best thing you'll never buy anything. Build what you need now. Sandy Bridge handles everything thrown at it right now and in the forseeable future. I predict you'll be GPU bottlenecked again down the road before you're CPU limited.
 
I agree with that, gorcorps. I think thats one reason why I am opting to go to a single card Radeon 6970 vs. a Crossfire/SLI configuration. I suppose I could just add another GTX 460 in SLI to get close to the performance of a 6970/6950 configuration. I just figured that I would still need to upgrade my PS (eating up some of my savings), and would probably need to upgrade relatively soon down the road. With the 6970, I can pop another one in at a later date (when the 6970 is much cheaper) and get alot more legs out of my build.
 
gorcorps said:
As stated there's always going to be something new on the horizon. If you keep waiting for the next best thing you'll never buy anything. Build what you need now.
Click to expand...

To elaborate on my stance, there is a lot of "it depends."

WHEN TO WAIT:
1) Something wrong or lackluster with current product.
2) The "just around the corner" is literally days or weeks away.
3) You can easily get by on what you have now.
4) You don't have enough budget to buy anything even remotely decent (like the occasional "what can I build for $200" threads we get around here).
5) When there is a known, impending price drop (very rare, but does happen with Intel CPUs on occasion).

WHEN TO NOT WAIT:
1) Your current computer broke and you need one NOW.
2) Your current computer looks like the one in that Staples ad where everything gets stolen except for the computer.
3) When the next generation stuff becomes available is measured in months or years.
4) When something is on sale for a super hot price (Dell Outlet coupons, Newegg ShellShocker deal, etc.).
 
Zap is wise. Bulldozer is due very shortly (until told otherwise, everybody's expecting the official debut to be at next week's Computex), so it would be smart to hold off at least until some serious information manifests regarding that--unless you're simply jonesing for an upgrade hit RIGHT NOW, in which case you might as well go snag a 2600k and call it a night. 🙂
 
On CNBC today they mentioned Intel's next chip, IB. 37% faster than SB was what they were talking about. I would say wait until at least BD releases in June to see what it does and if it makes Intel change pricing at all on the SB chips.
 
Skott said:
On CNBC today they mentioned Intel's next chip, IB. 37% faster than SB was what they were talking about. I would say wait until at least BD releases in June to see what it does and if it makes Intel change pricing at all on the SB chips.
Click to expand...

We'll have to see whether or not Bulldozer is truly the second coming like some people are making it out to be. I'd love to see a return to true competition.
 
OK, I've tweaked a bit based on feedback where I felt it made sense for me. I greatly appreciate all the patience. To be candid, I'm a bit nervous about doing this so all of your great feedback has definitely helped me get a handle on what I need to consider.

CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K ($224.99)
Heatsink: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 ($39.99)
MB: ASRock P67 Extreme4 ($159.99)
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaw 8GB (2 x 4GB) ($94.99)
GPU: Radeon HD 6950 2GB ($279.99)
Case: COOLER MASTER HAF 932 ($154.48)
PS: XFX Core Edition PRO 750W ($99.99)
Hard Drive: Western Digital 1TB 7200 RPM ($84.99)
Solid State Drive: OCZ Vertex 2 120GB ($209.99)
DVD-RW: Asus DVD-RW ($21.99)
Media Reader: Koutech all-in-one ($19.99)
Monitor: Dell Ultrasharp U2311H 23” eIPS Monitor 1920x1080 ($287.99)
Keyboard: RAZER Blackwidow Mechanical ($79.99)
Mouse: Logitech MX518 ($37.99)
TOTAL: $1,781.33

A couple of things of note:
1) I upgraded LCD to Dell Ultrasharp 23" eIPS Monitor (1920x1080) vs. Asus VH238H (TN)
2) To recoup cost of monitor, I downgraded from HD6970 to HD6950. I believe the HIS model was one that everyone said could be "unlocked" and OC'ed to a 6970 level (admittedly, NO IDEA how to even approach doing that). Even without OC, will I see much difference between 6970 and 6950 on a 1920 x 1080 monitor?
3) Downgraded MB to ASRock P67 Extreme4 from Z68 Extreme4. Figured I have a large enough SSD that I wouldn't need to cache, so wasn't getting much benefit from a Z68 Mobo. Saved $30. Am I correct?
4) Upgraded PS to XFX Core Edition 750W. Did this in case I ever go Crossfire, however, that may not ever happen. Is 750W overkill?

Again, thanks everyone for your patience as I try to figure this whole thing out. Its been confusing so your help has been appreciated!
 
2) Anandtech bench - 6950 vs 6970
3) You'll also lose the IGP too, if that matters.
4) Yes. You didn't even go SLI with your current rig. Still think you might try it this time? I really don't think it's worth the trouble if you're gaming at 1080p though.

And if you feel like shaving a bit off the cost of the 3rd party cooler. It's essentially a clone of the 212+:
$39 ($24 AR) - Corsair A50

Cheaper and just as good as the WD Black:
$65 - Samsung F3 1TB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...msung%20f3

Cheaper ram:
$85 - Patriot Signature 2x4GB DDR3-1600
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820220569
 
I think the reason I ultimately decided against those HD/RAM options was that newegg reviews had a lot of consistent fail rate comments about those items.

I did go to 750W in case I wanted to go Crossfire, however, may scale back..trying to be at least a little considerate of power consumption.

I saw the fps differences, however, my question is more whether I will even notice a difference of ~10% when both are such high levels.

Thanks!
 
not bad to see a rig in use for gaming 5 years later tells how how great the core 2 era was and still is heck if that 680i could support a q9650 he might buy yet another couple years from that rig even a pentium 4 back in those days didnt have that long of a useful life did it?i can see some people gaming with q9650 rigs for the next 5 years easily and the i7 will be around probaly for another 15 years since its entirely overkill for anything but gaming lol
 
Guinness74 said:
I think the reason I ultimately decided against those HD/RAM options was that newegg reviews had a lot of consistent fail rate comments about those items.

I did go to 750W in case I wanted to go Crossfire, however, may scale back..trying to be at least a little considerate of power consumption.

I saw the fps differences, however, my question is more whether I will even notice a difference of ~10% when both are such high levels.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

The general rule of thumb is that you won't notice a 10% difference unless you're specifically looking for it. So the 6950 should be good for you!

Also, Newegg reviews are a terrible way to judge failure rates because they suffer from horrendous selection bias. G.Skill has about a 2% return rate overall (vs. 1.6% for Corsair and 7.1% for OCZ). Get this $75 DDR3 1333 8GB kit. Samsung is also very reliable (1.8% versus 1.5% for WD), so you should definitely grab the F3 and same some money.
 
You may be able to shave a couple of bucks off by looking for combo deals at the egg also.

Pick the 2500K for example and scroll down and click the view all combos and take a look. Pretty much all items at the egg have some kinda combo deal. Might save some bucks or maybe wind up with better hardware for the price. Just gotta look and see what they got when your ready to order.

Here's an example for you

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL8D-8GBXM

Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500K

Combo Price 276.98

You need to search them out tho as you can't just add both to the cart to get the combo discount. Note that sometimes discount/promo codes will also stack with the combo discount making some pretty good deals on items you need to buy also.

Link to the above combo....At least when I posted anyways as I'm not sure how long these combos last.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.644341
 
Zap said:
To elaborate on my stance, there is a lot of "it depends."

WHEN TO WAIT:
1) Something wrong or lackluster with current product.
2) The "just around the corner" is literally days or weeks away.
3) You can easily get by on what you have now.
4) You don't have enough budget to buy anything even remotely decent (like the occasional "what can I build for $200" threads we get around here).
5) When there is a known, impending price drop (very rare, but does happen with Intel CPUs on occasion).

WHEN TO NOT WAIT:
1) Your current computer broke and you need one NOW.
2) Your current computer looks like the one in that Staples ad where everything gets stolen except for the computer.
3) When the next generation stuff becomes available is measured in months or years.
4) When something is on sale for a super hot price (Dell Outlet coupons, Newegg ShellShocker deal, etc.).
Click to expand...

This needs to be stickied. Too many people chanting the "don't wait because you'll be waiting forever" mantra. They can't honestly believe it never makes sense to wait for something, can they?
 
XLNC said:
This needs to be stickied. Too many people chanting the "don't wait because you'll be waiting forever" mantra. They can't honestly believe it never makes sense to wait for something, can they?
Click to expand...

I believe what was said was "buy what you need now" (emphasis added). If you don't need anything, then you obviously shouldn't buy anything.
 
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