Tell me I made the right decision on my processor...

[philipma1957]

edit

I did not get a chance to finish my last post. then get 2x 670 gpus and this will be a better system then you had. only do this if you can return the 680. 2x 670's would be better. last but not least next year please ask us and we can figure out what 2013 cpu to use. no game will run poorly with a 2500k oc'd and a pair of 670's. for that matter 1x 680 and a 2500k will beat a 2600k and 1x 560


one last thing read this thread

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2249262


my interpretation of it is that going beyond the cpu's powers is possible but that only some games with 2x top end cards will it happen.

 

[Ericsbk]

Best part of the story is he sold his old system for $500

 

[nurturedhate]

if you plan on playing bf3 multiplayer get the 3930k, otherwise the 3770k.

 

[Beavermatic]

I have no idea where Ericsbk1 even got that assumption or price figure :/

 

[moonbogg]

I'd have to say the fastest gaming CPU is the 3930K, but by HOW MUCH? I'm working on it.

 

[Wizlem]

Kinda sad, but the 2500k is still suggested as the best processor to get for gaming. I don't think you are going to see very noticable differences vs anything else, so save the money for Haswell next year and hope it offers a better upgrade.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Get a Dell.
Next year, get a Dell.

 

[philipma1957]

Get a Dell.
Next year, get a Dell.

thats funny.

 

[Smoblikat]

You are correct, I do use the superior processor brand.

wait.......im getting conflicting reports. He said you weer using AMD and you said yes, then you said you use the superior brand, which contradicts your original statement of using AMD. So which is it?

 

[borisvodofsky]

Beaver is just trollin' all of you, no one is "that" stupid.

 

[ShreddedWheat]

Best of luck with your decision. I would highly recommend changing your view point of full upgrade cycle of once a year as your gains are going to be nominal at the current pace of technology. Swapping out gpus once a year is more feasible. Though Ram is cheap 32 gigs is crazy and not even half that will even be used unless major multitasking.

If I had money to burn I would rather put it in an IRA, retirement, etc...

Have fun with your new computer.

 

[AtenRa]

@Beavermatic

Since you have the money to spend, go for the 3930K and Socket 2011. If you are on to OC then it will be much more fun to play with socket 2011 than 1155.

Edit: It seams to me that US is turning from Capitalistic to Communism.
Advice like, you dont need more ram, you dont need more Cores, a f...ing dual core will be enough when money is not a concern is getting pathetic in a enthusiast, Overclocking and high end computing forum like Anandtech.

You have the money man, enjoy the HighEnd hardware no matter if you will not use 100% of its performance

 

[borisvodofsky]

Best of luck with your decision. I would highly recommend changing your view point of full upgrade cycle of once a year as your gains are going to be nominal at the current pace of technology. Swapping out gpus once a year is more feasible. Though Ram is cheap 32 gigs is crazy and not even half that will even be used unless major multitasking.

If I had money to burn I would rather put it in an IRA, retirement, etc...

Have fun with your new computer.

32gigs is really not enough for ram drive.

I recommend at least 64gb of ram. therefor you can do 8gb working memory and 56gb for ram drive. You'll also need an SSD raid array for boot, otherwise it would take too long to reload the ram drive.

 

[fastamdman]

If you don't want to waste money this is what you should do.

Go through the classifieds and buy a HIGH overclocking 2600k. Run the piss out of her at 4.8 to 5.2ghz, whatever you can with the cooling you have on air. Then upgrade your SSD to whatever you prefer. I like the crucial m4s for stability. Feel free to upgrade to a gtx 680, but I wouldn't do SLI yet personally.

Other than that, basically get a system going from the classifieds that is CHEAPER than what you sold yours for, or very similar. That way you come out ahead, get to rebuild a rig, have a higher overclock than you had before, get a new gpu, have a new ssd, etc.

It will feel like a new build, but you won't be wasting a ton of money. It's funny, I have a friend who built a super rig and spent a ton of money. I did a budget build on mine and built it from classifieds / cheap deals etc and it blows his away. aka 2500k vs 2600k, overclock differences, gtx 570 vs gtx 580 *new/used price differences* etc etc etc.


In the end, it's all about the money. Gaining 1 fps which no one can tell the difference between 104 and 105 fps or 46 and 45 for that matter and wasting a ton of cash is pointless. Especially because the second haswell releases you will want to get it and you will be rewasting your cash.

Do the smart thing here and grab another 2600k rig that overclocks higher with better gpu, ssd and possibly psu etc.

 

[philipma1957]

If you don't want to waste money this is what you should do.

Go through the classifieds and buy a HIGH overclocking 2600k. Run the piss out of her at 4.8 to 5.2ghz, whatever you can with the cooling you have on air. Then upgrade your SSD to whatever you prefer. I like the crucial m4s for stability. Feel free to upgrade to a gtx 680, but I wouldn't do SLI yet personally.

Other than that, basically get a system going from the classifieds that is CHEAPER than what you sold yours for, or very similar. That way you come out ahead, get to rebuild a rig, have a higher overclock than you had before, get a new gpu, have a new ssd, etc.

It will feel like a new build, but you won't be wasting a ton of money. It's funny, I have a friend who built a super rig and spent a ton of money. I did a budget build on mine and built it from classifieds / cheap deals etc and it blows his away. aka 2500k vs 2600k, overclock differences, gtx 570 vs gtx 580 *new/used price differences* etc etc etc.


In the end, it's all about the money. Gaining 1 fps which no one can tell the difference between 104 and 105 fps or 46 and 45 for that matter and wasting a ton of cash is pointless. Especially because the second haswell releases you will want to get it and you will be rewasting your cash.

Do the smart thing here and grab another 2600k rig that overclocks higher with better gpu, ssd and possibly psu etc.

THIS in fact really do this. Better then my idea.

 

[TekDemon]

You should have just upgraded the graphics and maybe upgraded your cooling solution to push the 2600K a little bit further because none of the CPU upgrades make any sense.
On the bright side the 3770K isn't too much more money anyway and if you're really brave you can try to razor off the heatspreader to fix some of the heat issues.

 

[Zap]

next upgrade ask before you decide.

This.

Here's what you should do. Don't worry too much about which CPU to get, other than being a socket 1155 and a "K" CPU. Get a bigger SSD than that Agility 3 240GB. Get the rest of what you were going to get. Enjoy your system and don't obsess over it.

 

[Ratman6161]

thats funny.

The "get a dell" advice is not really funny at all. It's what I've got sitting at my desk at work (a Optiplex 960 tower system). Down sides of a dell? 1. No over clocking and 2. proprietary cases and motherboards that can't be swapped. but if you are going to get a new system every year anyway, what do those negatives matter? So, yea. Just get a Dell and make sure it's got a big enough power supply to handle that 680 and you are in business.

Wouldn't work for me - but in the situation described it's actually a good idea.

Edit: You may be confused since I said on the one hand that I've got a Dell and on the other that it wouldn't work for me. The Dell is at work and belongs to my employer. What I use at home is a completely different issue and that's where the Dell would not work for me.

 

[Beavermatic]

So here's what I've ordered/received so far...

Intel i7 3770k ivy bridge ($289 at microcenter [their doorbuster cpu specials])

Intel Desktop Board DZ77GA-70K ($219 at newegg, current flaghsip intel gaming board... say what you want about intel boards for overclocking, but my prior board for my 2600k was the most stable board I've ever ran.. not a single lockup, crash, hang, etc. And it overclocks plenty fine for those who want to... i do not overclock my processor. Also has all sorts of nice features to it)

Samsung 830 256GB SSD ($189 after $60 off newegg deal last week... per everyones recommendations)


EVGA Geforce GTX680 2GB ($489, received like new, unregistered, from forum sale, dude bought it, decided he wanted multi display, and sold it 2 days later to get 4GB 670)

Cooler Master Cosmos 2 ultra case (was *not* planning on getting this... had a Cooler Master Stacker 832 prior... but saw the case and fell in love... so got it for $50 off deal at Newegg [$299 after deal]

CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) -- (got this last night off Newegg for $89.99 deal... RAM looked plenty fast, and had really good reviews.)




Only things I am keeping from old machine are my sata bluray burner/cd burner, 800w activePFC BFGtech 800w powersupply (which after 4 years is running strong.. suprisingly), and a pair of 32MB cache, 6MBsec Sata III Western Digital 1tb harddrives i bought at microcenter last year as my primary drives for last machine.

Still waiting on mobo and ram to arrive =D cant wait!

 

[Yuriman]

Basically it boils down to this:

2600k = fastest CPU you can get
3930K = identical to 2600k + 2 cores you probably won't use
3770K = lower overclocking headroom than 2600k but is a more well-rounded chip for every-day use

I don't know anything about the Intel board, but a quick google search shows some fairly bad reviews - it has 3-400mhz less overclocking headroom vs ASRock/Gigabyte/Asus boards running the same chip. That's not to say it won't be stable, you're just missing out on some extra performance.

A buddy of mine has that case. It's a pretty case but too big for my tastes (lots of empty/unused space inside), and extremely heavy. Noise isolation isn't good. A matter of personal taste though.

The best ram to get would be the new 32nm(?) Samsung chips. They're rated at a very conservative 1600mhz but from what I've read it isn't unusual to get a 5-800mhz overclock - and they're cheap.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

I second the ram point. Sub $150 nothing comes close to $90 16gb 30nm samsung ram

 

[Mars999]

I would have gone for the 2011 Socket from the 2600k... the extra cores would be nice if you need them... but I have the 2600k also, and wanted to do 3770K but decided against it until Haswell is here as it will be a new socket 1150pin and will do a rebuild at that time. Reason I never went with 2011, is they gutted the SATA 6 ports to 2!! WTF supposed to have more than that so I went with 1155 this time, when I moved from a X58 board.

Enjoy the rig! Building fast is fun!

 

[HeXen]

next time just ask before you buy a new processor. Not after.

 

[Beavermatic]

I understand intel does not make the best board of choice for overclocking... But they make the most stable for the processor.

I had the purchased the 2600k and intel board the first week it shipped, just made it before the sandy bridge recall. Never a single issue with that board. Rock solid, and ran nonstop.

I do not overclock. For what I use my processors for, stock is plenty fine. When you start running things out of spec, no matter how cool or what board your running, your doing damage to it... damage that may not show today, or tommorow, but over a period of time, destroys the integrity of a processors architecture. No matter what excuse you come up with, no matter how you try to justify it... You are sealing an early fate for a CPU even if slowly. I don't like the thought of reselling that to someone else. You may say "then why buy the "K" series processor. Just because I do not overclock, does not mean the next buyer follows suit. Most want the unlocked processor. Chucking them every year makes it alot easier to sell if I have the "K" processor for the unlockers to go nuts over. besides, what, $20 difference?

I almost went 2011... was a couple clicks away. Ralized it was not a gaming platform, nor was it the successor to 1155. I early on made the mistake beleiving it was the successor to my 2600k/1155 machine... intels next step in the market. Before I realized that mistake, i had already chucked my 2600k system. Thing is, 2011 is likely to be replaced along with 1155 with haswell. So not only would I have wasted $300 going to 2011... it provides no extra performance to me as of current, and by the time it would, intel will already have 6 or 8 core processors for 1155 (or whatever haswell's socket will be if they dont plan to release them for ivy bridge)

 

[Yuriman]

Couple of things:

I don't think Intel plans to release a 6 ore 8 core processor on Haswell's desktop socket, but you're probably not going to have a use for more than 4 cores in a year or even two if you don't have a use for them today.

I have an AMD Opteron 165 running a 50% overclock (1.8->2.7) and it has been rock solid for 6 years. You may be reducing the life of a chip by overclocking it, but for most processors it's something like cutting the lifespan from 30 years down to 20. You're probably not even going to find it useful in 5. Add to that, there isn't really any such thing as a stock voltage or clock on Sandy/Ivy because of turbo and c-states, thus the frequency and voltage you run it at is completely arbitrary. Intel says "stay under 1.5v". Well, I am - I'm running 4.5ghz with 1.25v, which is approximately "stock" voltage and considerably below what Intel defines as the safe upper limit. Voltage is what typically kills a chip, and I'm not running any higher than stock, so I could perceivably get 20 to 30 years out of my chip at this clock. It's your choice not to overclock but the performance is there, for free. Intel even provides a Windows-based utility that lets you easily change what it turbo's up to with a single click.

That said, if you're not overclocking, the 3770K is not a bad choice. It has the fastest "stock" clocks (and highest turbo overclock) of any chip Intel sells and it's very easy on the power supply. It's faster per clock than Sandy and since you're not overclocking, you wont experience any of the negatives. In fact, you'll probably gain a non-negligible amount of performance from this upgrade. Also, you probably won't be using more than 250w under full load, even with a 670, because of the power savings this generation.


As for the motherboard thing, I don't believe I can say that Intel makes the most stable motherboards when it's unstable at the same overclock that another board is stable at. Intel motherboards are just Foxconn boards with an Intel sticker on them anyway - a company that is widely regarded as "entry-level" and "budget".

EDIT: Not everyone is aware but even the non-K chips allow their turbo frequency to be increased by 4 bins. A 3570 (non-k) can turbo at up to 4.2ghz.