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Hardware Question

Discussion in 'Tech Support' started by enembee, Feb 1, 2011.

  1. enembee

    enembee The Nicromancer DLP Supporter

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    After CheddarTrek got such a huge quantity of advice, I thought I'd post my question for our resident tecchies to endlessly debate over ;D

    I'm currently looking at dropping around £600 on a new processor, mobo, RAM and GFX card because the PC I'm using at the moment is dying a painful death. (Either the RAM or the slots on the motherboard are fucking up horrendously and I cba to figure out which one it is)

    Currently I'm looking at the following specs:

    Core i5 2500 3.3GHz Socket 1155 (Sandy Bridge)
    ASROCK Socket 1155 P67 Pro
    G Skill Ripjaws 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1333mhz
    XFX 5770 850M 1GB

    Now here's my dilemma; in approximately 5 months I'm going to have another £500. I was planning on, at that point, buying another couple of 4GB sticks of RAM. However, at the moment I'm running a BFG 8800GT graphics card and as I only really play source games is there any point in my buying a relatively cheap card like the 5770? Should I invest in the extra RAM now and wait to buy a much more expensive graphics card?
     
  2. Ceebee

    Ceebee High Inquisitor

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    5770's are fine. They can run most current games at high-mid (though not absolutely maxed) settings on relatively large resolutions (1920x1080 etc). Is there a reason that you specifically need a large amount of RAM? I'd suggest sticking with 8GB and try and stretch your CPU a little further and look at one of the i7s.
     
  3. enembee

    enembee The Nicromancer DLP Supporter

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    Okay so I talked to a mate of mine, who's far more knowledgable with this sort of thing than my crippled little mind can handle. He gave me an awful lot of techno-babble that I didn't really understand and then suggested the following:

    Asus P8P67 PRO
    Intel i7-2600
    ATI 5770 HD
    8GB Corsair Vengeance

    Is this a better purchase? Can anyone explain why?
     
  4. Sauce Bauss

    Sauce Bauss Second Year ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    The difference in performance between 1333MHz RAM and 1600MHz RAM aren't worth the price IMO. You can fairly easily overclock it if you're so inclined, but it's not really a bottleneck that you'll need to worry about.

    The Intel i7-2600 is pretty awesome. It outperforms the i7 980X Extreme fairly consistently in benchmarks and in the few cases where it's outdone, it's a close call.

    I don't know enough about the new MoBo's to have an informed opinion regarding that, so I can't help you there.

    As far as the video card goes, I like Nvidia more than ATI but I don't want to get into a flamewar. If you use a Linux distro, Nvidia has better drivers. You can have a fairly easy upgrade in the future by buying an identical card and running it in Xfire/SLI. The GTX 460 1GB is a really good card that avoids the heat problems that most of the Fermi cards had. Video cards can be a bit tricky when it comes to drivers and performance, but there's nothing wrong with the 5770 and it'll run nicely in Xfire on 1900x1200 monitors without a problem.

    Whether it's a better purchase overall really depends on your needs. Do you need the i7, do you need a lot of fast RAM, etc. Hyperthreading won't really give you a huge performance boost unless you spend a lot of time encoding video or something. That's a problem a lot of people have building/buying computers. They want to future-proof, and all you should buy is what you need. You can't future-proof, so when the time comes to replace your (insert component here) there'll be something twice as good on the market and what you need is probably cheaper because of it.

    Threw this together in 20 minutes, hope it helps.
     
  5. enembee

    enembee The Nicromancer DLP Supporter

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    I mean this is exactly that I was thinking. I originally went with the i5 because I'm literally only going to be gaming on it, not doing anything intense with video or shit, like PSCS5 is about the closest I get to anything like that. So I guess it comes down to the following question:

    Will I see an increase of performance during gaming equivalent to the £120 extra I'd have to spend to upgrade from an i5 to an i7?
     
  6. Sauce Bauss

    Sauce Bauss Second Year ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/20

    No. The difference in gaming is miniscule at best. There are even several comparisons where the i5 is outperforming the i7. Personally, I'd go for the i5. The real difference between the two is hyperthreading and it doesn't sound like you need it.

    Also, overclocking (K series is unlocked). Games benefit from higher core clocks, not a higher number of cores (generally). You could get a stable 4 GHz out of the older i7's without too much trouble IIRC, and there are guides that can tell you exactly what to do. A quick search shows people getting 4.5 GHz fairly easily. You'll want a good HSF, the stock one might be ok but they're not too expensive. Good ones go from $30-$100 or so.



    As a side-note involving a potential problem regarding your MoBo, read this.
    http://www.intc.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=546454&ReleasesType=Financial%20News
    That way if it happens, you can RMA the Motherboard.
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2011
  7. Militis

    Militis Supreme Mugwump

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    Jesus...reading that made me feel so out of the loop. My computers are still running Core2Duos. I need to get back into keeping up with hardware...
     
  8. Ched

    Ched Da Trek Moderator DLP Supporter ⭐⭐

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    I'm obviously not an expert (as I've been asking for advice also), but I have done a ton of reading lately on this stuff.

    What I have gathered is that the 2500 is generally packaged with the H67 motherboard and used with onboard graphics while the 2500k is usually with the P67 and a discrete card. This is because the K-series is over-clockable and the other is not and you need a P67 board to overclock (but can't use the onboard graphics with P67).

    If you want one of the newer iCore processors thought you're in for a bit of a wait (at least a month) while Intel fixes the problems with the chipset and gets them back on the shelves.

    The Radeon 6850 should be the best price/performance card right now in the $150-$200 range, but cheaper than that your 5770 is probably best. However the jump in performance between the two is supposed to be significant and if you wait and can spend more on a 6970 or something then naturally the increase from the 6850 is also significant.

    DLP has been extremely helpful to me in putting together ideas for my build and in telling me about things (Modular options for PSUs, etc.) that I had no idea existed. I also had a few RL friends give me tips. But on the internet I'd say that with all my looking the best place for information of this kind is probably [H]ardforum. The only problem is that you have to give them a non-free-webmail address to register (I.e. no gmail, yahoo, etc.) but you can browse all you like without registering. I read some of the threads in the general hardware sub-forum and there are tons of people asking for build help and the responses seem to be high quality.
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2011
  9. Rhett

    Rhett Fourth Year

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    Guys, hold off on buying Sandybridge for a few weeks. Intel have just suffered an embarrassment.

    http://forums.aria.co.uk/showthread.php?t=48599

    EDIT: Seems while I was typing Cheddar got there before me. But the link above is still helpful to those who want to look into the situation further.
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2011
  10. coleam

    coleam Death Eater

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    Pretty much everything has already been said, though I did feel the need to comment on this:
    Basically true, but there's no reason to skip the P67 board on a regular 2500 unless you plan on using the onboard graphics (you don't have to use them).

    Oh, and on the overclocking front, the Sandy Bridge processors do actually overclock well despite the limits placed on the BCLK rate, so long as you get the K series (about $15 US more for the 2500K). Tom's Hardware has an article out today where they easily got to 4.5+ GHz on air cooling with an i7-2600K.
     
  11. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    Been ages since I kept up with new hardware stuff, but I do remember Asrock producing very cheap and very shitty mobos. If that is still the case (and I'm guessing it is, but feel free to correct me), you're much better off buying a decent board for more money (like your ASUS in #2), and not having to worry about compatibility issues or inflexible bios settings. Especially if you want to OC.

    ^
    Since you asked about differences between the builds.


    Edit: Ah, thanks coleam. Well, feel free to ignore this then, nmb.
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2011
  12. coleam

    coleam Death Eater

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    ASRock's quality has really gone up in the last year or two. They're still on the low end in terms of pricing, but I've heard very few complaints about their recent products. They also seem to be the kings of packing as many features into a board as will fit.

    Here's a review of a bunch of P67 boards that Tom's Hardware did a week or two ago; the ASRock was near the top of the pack in most things, and had the best UEFI (new iteration of BIOS) interface. It's not the same model (the reviewed one is the Extreme4, not the Pro), but it'll give you an idea of the improvements they've made.
     
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