Upgrade my 939 system to FX60?

[Makaveli]

Or you can just buy an external enclosure that supports IDE!

 

[shady28]

The Core i7-2600K is the bottom of the line "premium performance" chip from Intel. It is not a low-end CPU.

Nitpick if you want, as I said 1155 socket based systems are Intel's low end Sandy Bridge systems. They are fast compared to 1156 and 1366 previous gen chips; they are unlikely to be seen as being fast when 1355 comes out.

There has been no information that I'm aware of that indicates that LGA 1155 can't support more than four cores.

Check my posted link. There is no reason to believe 1155 will ever do more than 4 cores; the roadmap calls for only 2-4 cores on 1155. It is the consumer variant of sandy bridge, not the enthusiast one.


There are some specific spots where the 2600 beats a 980x, mostly related to encryption and compression, but the 980x wins more than half the benches on the charts. Being 6 core 12 thread, it will likely widen the gap between itself and the 2600 as time goes on and apps get more threaded. In terms of raw power, the 980x is a 107 GFLOP part vs the 2600's 83 GFLOP rating.

The 2600 is the price / performance leader, but it isn't the fastest and in a years time it won't even be considered high performance from an enthusiast standpoint.

 

[FAUguy]

So if I were to go with either the i5-2500k or i6-2600K with the ASRock Fatal1ty Pro motherboard....
1) How much should I be able to overclock it on air?
2) Which RAM speed would be the best to use? - Does going to more RAM lessen how much the system can overclock? (I know that on my current Athlon 64 X4 4400+ system, that I could could overclock the CPU from 2.2GHz to 2.6GHz with 2GB of DDR RAM at 520MHz, but when I added more RAM, I had to lower the CPU to 2.4GHz, as the 4GB of RAM could not work at that speed.)

 

[LoneNinja]

So if I were to go with either the i5-2500k or i6-2600K with the ASRock Fatal1ty Pro motherboard....
1) How much should I be able to overclock it on air?
2) Which RAM speed would be the best to use? - Does going to more RAM lessen how much the system can overclock? (I know that on my current Athlon 64 X4 4400+ system, that I could could overclock the CPU from 2.2GHz to 2.6GHz with 2GB of DDR RAM at 520MHz, but when I added more RAM, I had to lower the CPU to 2.4GHz, as the 4GB of RAM could not work at that speed.)

Since they overclock using a multiplier and the memory will remain at default speeds, I don't think the amount of memory you have will effect the overclock. It also appears Sandy Bridge consistently overclocks to 4.5Ghz+ at what are considered safe voltages.

 

[pantsaregood]

Nitpick if you want, as I said 1155 socket based systems are Intel's low end Sandy Bridge systems. They are fast compared to 1156 and 1366 previous gen chips; they are unlikely to be seen as being fast when 1355 comes out.[/qoute]

1356 isn't the SB-E socket. 2011 is.

I'm not nitpicking, either. Go compare 1366 to 1156. 1156, despite being the "low end" (by your standard) platform, proved to be just as functional as 1366. Compare Lynnfield to Bloomfield:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/192?vs=100

The Lynnfield, surprisingly, wins quite a few. The only thing I can see causing that is the higher uncore speed.

Intel has done absolutely nothing to indicate that 1155 will never support more than four cores, either. Sandy Bridge will surely be limited to four cores on 1155, but we don't know anything of what Intel plans to do with Ivy Bridge.

 

[MustangSVT]

are they still making mobos with floppy and ide support?

 

[FAUguy]

Since they overclock using a multiplier and the memory will remain at default speeds, I don't think the amount of memory you have will effect the overclock. It also appears Sandy Bridge consistently overclocks to 4.5Ghz+ at what are considered safe voltages.

Oh Ok. I know on my current Athlon system, that I can change the FSB and multiplier. So if the FSB is 230Mhz and the Multiplier is 10x, that = 2300Mhz for the CPU and 230Mhz RAM (460Mhz DDR). So with the Intel, you can't overclock the memory speed?

 

[mnewsham]

There is no need for the 2600k as the only thing it will really add is hyper threading and the 2500k will already blow your current setup out of the water.

I recommend this:

DVD/CD
RAM
CPU
Motherboard
HSF


Total: $469.95

(-$5 in MIR)

Some notes:

1. there is no reason to spend money on better RAM, 1600mhz wont add ANY noticeable performance OR OC'ing. Sandy bridge is NOT effected by RAM speeds like older CPU's.

2. It is a small HSF yes, however it is powerful enough for sandy bridge (a small HSF is all the is needed to OC to 4.2GHz and more for most people!)

3. The motherboard has 4 SATA 6Gb ports (more then enough) and 4 SATA 3Gb. Unless you are going balls to the walls, there isn't much point in going over 150 bucks or so on a motherboard.

4. CPU, as i stated above the 2600k while a good CPU is not worth 100 bucks more to you! the 2500k will blow any current AMD offering out of the water, let alone what you are running.

5. If you live near a microcenter pick up the CPU there, it will still however probably be cheaper to get everything else online (i find MC has the best CPU prices for B&M but they really get you with everything else!!!)

Hope this helps!

PS.
If you need to spend that last 50 bucks or so i would recommend picking up a newer HDD because if you are running old HDD's a new one will give you better performance. Or you can save up for an SSD, which was the best investment i have made into any computer to date, it is the single greatest performance increase you can currently give your computer!

HDD recommendation
SSD recommendation

These are recommendations only and should be on the back burner, the main thing is your platform and CPU! Upgrade those first.

 

[VirtualLarry]

are they still making mobos with floppy and ide support?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2174127&highlight=ide+floppy

 

[FAUguy]

There is no need for the 2600k as the only thing it will really add is hyper threading and the 2500k will already blow your current setup out of the water.

I recommend this:

DVD/CD
RAM
CPU
Motherboard
HSF


Total: $469.95

(-$5 in MIR)

Some notes:

1. there is no reason to spend money on better RAM, 1600mhz wont add ANY noticeable performance OR OC'ing. Sandy bridge is NOT effected by RAM speeds like older CPU's.

2. It is a small HSF yes, however it is powerful enough for sandy bridge (a small HSF is all the is needed to OC to 4.2GHz and more for most people!)

3. The motherboard has 4 SATA 6Gb ports (more then enough) and 4 SATA 3Gb. Unless you are going balls to the walls, there isn't much point in going over 150 bucks or so on a motherboard.

4. CPU, as i stated above the 2600k while a good CPU is not worth 100 bucks more to you! the 2500k will blow any current AMD offering out of the water, let alone what you are running.

5. If you live near a microcenter pick up the CPU there, it will still however probably be cheaper to get everything else online (i find MC has the best CPU prices for B&M but they really get you with everything else!!!)

Hope this helps!

PS.
If you need to spend that last 50 bucks or so i would recommend picking up a newer HDD because if you are running old HDD's a new one will give you better performance. Or you can save up for an SSD, which was the best investment i have made into any computer to date, it is the single greatest performance increase you can currently give your computer!

HDD recommendation
SSD recommendation

These are recommendations only and should be on the back burner, the main thing is your platform and CPU! Upgrade those first.

Thanks.
I don't have a MicroCenter in my area, just a CompUSA, and they are pretty limited on PC parts and have a crappy return/exchange policy. So that's why I would end up buying on-line, like I have in the past.

The reason why I was looking at the ASRock Fatal1ty Pro was that it had PATA and Floppy port, which I still use. All 4 of my hard drives are SATA 3Gbps, though would want the most SATA 6Gbps ports for future drives. I've thought about the SSD, but most of the large ones are expensive.

 

[mnewsham]

Thanks.
I don't have a MicroCenter in my area, just a CompUSA, and they are pretty limited on PC parts and have a crappy return/exchange policy. So that's why I would end up buying on-line, like I have in the past.

The reason why I was looking at the ASRock Fatal1ty Pro was that it had PATA and Floppy port, which I still use. All 4 of my hard drives are SATA 3Gbps, though would want the most SATA 6Gbps ports for future drives. I've thought about the SSD, but most of the large ones are expensive.

If you NEED a PATA device or floppy just get a converter. If you cant then replace it with SATA. Also for SSD's a 60GB-120GB is all that is really needed for most people, you aren't doing EVERYTHING on the SSD only the main things (OS installation and important applications) then you use your HDD for everything else (music, movies, documents, photos, etc.)

 

[Twsmit]

I echo the sentiment that upgrading an old 939 isn't worth the money. I would only jump on a FX60 if you could find one for about $20-30, and even then it won't be much faster than what the OP already has.

Dropping $200 is simply ridiculous compared to buying modern parts.