Info needed for main cruncher upgrade

[Assimilator1]

Hi guys

[update] Decided to get a i7 4820k for S2011 (for a 6C upgrade route later), would still like some feed back on m/brds though. Atm I have in mind a Asus P9X79 (maybe a Pro).

What do you guys reckon?

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I'm finally ready to upgrade my main rig! (actually, financially I was earlier in the year, but I was busy fixing cars or going out on trips with my cousin on weekends, anyway she went back to France 2mths ago & I've got time now).

So atm I'm rather lost & somewhat out of touch with CPUs (& m/brds).

GPU wise I'm ok, I'm going to get a 2nd hand 7950 or 7970 (haven't decided which yet). It's got to be the Tahiti family GPU for it's DP power for my preferred DC projects (MW & E@H). And it'll be plenty good enough to play the only modern game I play atm, Elite Dangerous.

Back to the CPU's, a friend is offering me a SB i5 2500K, we haven't settled on price yet as he asked me to look up prices 1st. It seems on ebay they mostly go for £70-80. He could sell it to me for £70, or possibly less.
I know the SBs o/c better than the following 2 gen's of CPUs (IB & Haswell right?), but do the latter CPUs better IPC & lower power usage make up for it? (btw I re-read my older 'upgrade' thread )
What's the latest gen like? (Broadwell right? Going to read ATs review of it later)

I normally spend about £100 on a proper CPU upgrade, but I'm better off than maybe I have ever been (?). So ~£150 is quite acceptable, if say I could get a 6 core CPU for that, or a good 4C with HT (if HT doesn't add much more to price). I'd be willing to spend upto ~£125 on the m/brd.
Note, I'm not stuck on buying brand new gear only, I'll buy 2nd hand gear if it gives me more bang for my buck ..... err pound .
Efficiency is a serious consideration as my main rig crunches 24/7, and I pay the extra electricity is uses to my landlady, & I will (at long last!) be looking at moving out this year! , so I will likely be paying the leccy bill directly soon.

My cooler (a Thermalright Ultra 120 extreme) supports S1366, 1156 & 1155 as well as my current S775, so I'm hoping I can re-use that.
The PSU is a Corsair TX 650w so hopefully I can re-use that too.
Going to stick with Win 7.
No idea how much RAM I'll need.
Oh, and of course I will be overclocking!

TIA for any info & help

 

[TennesseeTony]

GPU: 7970=280X, but 280X's are more recent, nearly same price used, and the fans should have less wear on them. 340,000 ppd average for one card on MW. (running 3 tasks for redundancy, uses about 205 watts more than being idle)

Not sure if this is the CPU you're referencing, but the graph shows other popular CPU's.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-2500K+%40+3.30GHz

 

[Assimilator1]

Hmm, a quick look at 2 places I buy PC bits from shows a new R 280X at £176, I can buy a 2nd hand 7970 for £100-120, so their is still quite a difference.

Nice output! , IIRC my 5850 did 100k ppd.

 

[TennesseeTony]

nearly same price used,

a new R 280X at £176,

I would sure hope there would be a price difference in such a situation.

my 5850 did 100k ppd.

The old 4850 does 100k ppd too, one of the best computer purchases I ever made. I hope the 5850 has a better implementation of OpenCL though, the limited version of code in the 4850 limits the projects it can run.

Looks like the prices have gone up significantly since the last time I shopped, but below are two screen shots of the lowest priced+shipping items on the US ebay site. And the 280X's here are cheaper it seems.

 

[Assimilator1]

I think you've got your 4850 ppd numbers wrong as my 5850 did nearly double the ppd of my old 4870.

£120 to £176 is nearly 50% more, oh I see where I've mis-understood you now , I thought you were talking about a new 280X vs 2nd hand 7970s, but you weren't, doh!
I think I did look at 2nd hand 280X's too, but they were quite a bit more than the 7970s (I forget how much), even though they're nearly the same thing! (more ebay weirdness!).
But anyway, when it comes to buying a grx card I will check them both out.

Anyway, back to CPUs, been looking around at the prices of various CPUs & it seems the various 6C i7s are out of my budget (except maybe the old 9xx series, but I didn't look at those on the grounds of power usage, as well as an old platform).

So maybe a i5 4670K or i7 4770K for S1150?, or maybe a i7 4820K for a S2011 system? leaving the possibility of a 6C upgrade for latter.
I take it the S2011-3 is another platform again? (I'm not sure what the advantage is of the 5000 series atm - I see now the 5820K has 2 more cores & 5MB more L3 but is also more pricey, bar 1 that went on ebay for £140! , lucky git whoever bought that one!)

Which chipset should I be looking for?

 

[TennesseeTony]

Just a thought, to add to the confusion...Skylake is just around the corner and there is some speculation that says it's quite the performer.

I think you've got your 4850 ppd numbers wrong as my 5850 did nearly double the ppd of my old 4870.

Oh, yeah there's two 4850's in that box I'm thinking of.

 

[Assimilator1]

Ah that explains it .

Oh Skylake, I heard that mentioned before! Any info/links on that?
Will/is DDR4 going to be much more expensive than DDR3?

More confusion!

 

[TennesseeTony]

DDR4 pricing has dropped significantly.

After some thought, I'd advise against only 4 cores if using the GPU, because you need one for the GPU, dropping you to a 3 core. A hyper-threaded quad core CPU lets you run 7 tasks, reserving one thread for the GPU.

 

[Assimilator1]

Seems like Skylake might be released next month, guess I should hold out for at least a few weeks if only to wait for the prices of old CPUs to drop!

Yea a quad core with HT would be my 2nd choice, so that leaves the i7s.
4770K 3.5 GHz, 8 MB L3 (H/well) for S1150 (£160-180 on ebay)
4820K 3.7 GHz, 10 MB L3 (IB) for S2011 (cheaper than above!, and allows a 6C upgrade path) (£125-160)
3820 3.6 GHz, 10 MB L3 (SB) also for S2011 (£100-130), damn, not a K version
3770K 3.5 GHz, 8 MB L3 (IB) S1155 (£150-170)

The 6C upgrade path is too good to resist , so that leaves just the S2011 i7s, with the 4820K apparently the cheapest choice (bar the 3820), unless I've over looked 1?

Am I right in saying I'd need an X79 chipset for that CPU? And I couldn't use an X99?
(Now the next minefield, which mbrd do I want!?).

No one else want to pitch in?

 

[Assimilator1]

Can anyone help?

(yep, X79 only )

 

[Ken g6]

4820K requires LGA2011, but not LGA2011-3. That's because it uses DDR3, not DDR4.

What's your overall budget? And what parts do you plan to replace or keep?

 

[Assimilator1]

Replacing cpu, mbrd, RAM & grx card (getting a 7950/70/280X).
I'll get 16GB RAM however much that is.
Budget is in my 1st post , although I would go a bit higher on cpu & mbrd if worthwhile.

I wonder if my cooler will fit on S2011?? [update] looks unlikely!

Re mbrd, I see Asus P9X79 Pro's going for reasonable money on ebay (£100-125 it seems), they ok?

 

[TennesseeTony]

I think you'd be happy with something like the link below. 12 semi-modern, fast cores with hyper-threading (24 threads). And you can sell that particular vid card for a decent sum. But they are HUGE and HEAVY, and possibly not available locally for you.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-PRECIS...M-1TB-WIN-7-/191643991456?hash=item2c9edf3da0

 

[Assimilator1]

Awesome! , but sadly in the wrong country, I'm not even going to ask how much shipping to the UK would be . I bet that would also take it a long way over my budget (which I'm estimating for the CPU, mbrd, RAM, grx & cooler would be £425-£500)
Pity as that server works out to £536! I wonder if I can get that here.....

There's a dual X5650 going for £950 , dual X5550 for £600, that's better , but still a way over, & yea impractically large for me atm! And I wonder if 2.66 GHz will be fast enough for modern games? Good value though & it would make for a good dedicated cruncher, maybe when I get my own place .

Anyway, back to S2011, anyone see anything wrong with my choice of mbrd? (Asus P9X79 Pro) Or know a better choice?.

 

[Assimilator1]

ttt

 

[petrusbroder]

No, I see no prob with the mobo ... I really like it.

 

[Assimilator1]

Cool , you've got 1 then? How well does it o/c?

Btw I've just bought 4820k, paid £140 which is about the mid range for used versions, actually he accepted my 1st offer so I must of paid too much! lol

 

[petrusbroder]

No probs OC-ing. It is my CPU (i7-3960X on closed-loop-water cooling) which doesn't go too high ... 4.5GHz; it could in some instances go up to 4.8 GHz ....

Edit: it needs a lot of power @ that speed - approx 300W.

 

[Assimilator1]

Yea that's quite a bit of power, especially for just the CPU!
Crunching on all 4 cores of my quad & on my 5850 it can draw upto 290w (only on MW@H v1.02 WUs, otherwise ~270).

Time to hunt for a P9X79 & a HD 7950/70 or 280X!

 

[Assimilator1]

So it looks like my Thermalright U120e cooler doesn't support S2011 .
Or maybe I can get adapters for it afterall http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=371459

Any recommendations for a large air cooler?

 

[TennesseeTony]

Soccer/foot-ball sized "Large" I'd have to suggest a Noctua NH-D14. But I'm warning you...it's LARGE.

 

[Assimilator1]

Lol

I'll check it out, but I've since found out that my U120e will fit S2011 afterall with the supplied S1366 backplate & bracket I already have . Thanks to Dash*t who posted in this thread for the info.

[update] Wow! The NH-D14 is a beast!

 

[TennesseeTony]

Kinda hard to imagine how big this thing really is. I barely was able to attach the side panel on BumbleBee, with an Antec 900 case, as it almost rubs the side panel.

 

[Assimilator1]

Heheh, yea my U120e just touches the side panel (it's also 160mm tall), but it 'only' has 1 cooling tower, not your twins

Just dusted out my PC, as expected, their was loads in it!

 

[TennesseeTony]

One thing I do like about the Antec 900, is the ease of filtering the incoming air. This is a dedicated cruncher, so no need for optical drives or the lot up front, allowing three 120mm intakes (currently set to medium speed {Antec 3-speed fans}). It has the 200mm exhaust on top and the PSU is exhausting, but I can still feel warm air moving out of all other openings, so it definitely has positive-pressure ventilation, even with the slight restriction caused by the filters.