ok im planning on saving up some money after i get back off holiday and im wondering what build to go for. I have 3 options, p67 SB, z68 SB or wait for Ivy Bridge. here are the two builds i have in mind.... 1TB Western Digital WD10EARS Caviar Green 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 XMS3 Fractal Design Define R3 2GB XFX HD 6950 Intel Core i5 2500K 750W Corsair Enthusiast 750TXV2 Asus P8P67-M PRO Rev3 Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H60 Comes to £810.26 I have a 1tb caviar black i can swap from current system to this also i can buy a nice new monitor for 100-200 quid so i can use that gfx card to its full potential. Plus i can flash the bios and it becomes a 6970. I would consider looking for the xfx black edition with dual fans to help the cooling side with rear exhaust of course. Maybe the msi p67 gds3 insted Or more expensive build... 1TB Western Digital WD10EARS Caviar Green 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 XMS3 60GB OCZ Technology Vertex 2E Fractal Design Define R3 2GB XFX HD 6950 Intel Core i5 2500K Unlocked Corsair H80 Hydro Asus Maxumus IV Gene-Z Intel Z68 Comes to £923.87 All this has is a ssd and a z68. either to use the ssd as a cache or a boot drive and i can use the on-board graphics to reduce power usage. The asus mobo looks good as well Or do i save the money roughly £900 and buy a nice new ivybridge system on the 2011 platform.
Motherboards - IntelSocket 1155 - Intel P67Gigabyte SKT-1155 P67A-D3-B3 Motherboard - GA-P67A-D3-B3 looks ok to me mate? : /
ivy bridge is lga 1155 same as current SB socket and is backwards compatible with Sb boards personally id go for the first build but tstill get the ssd and use it as a boot drive, i dont really see the point in spending 100 quid on a ssd just to use it as a cache drive but then thats just me in terms of ivy bridge...not to sure what to say about it, you could quite easily get a Sb system now and save up some cash and then when IB is released you can look at upgrading you cpu then. so in the mean time you have a stonkingly quick pc and then it will get quicker again for not much outlay as youll have your 2500k as capital one thing though, do you really need the hydro h60? you could save some pennies and a dark rock pro, SB cips are very cool running edit: also depends on hhow long it takes you to save, if its going to take a few months then wait
Sandy Bridge-E is expected to come out in January 2012 if Intel sticks to their roadmap. SB-E processors are going to be on the LGA 2011 socket. Ivy Bridge isn't expected till after SB-E, and Ivy's supposed to run on the LGA 1155 socket. Source 1 - Informative but not up to date Source 2 - Up to date.
Personally i'd go with a P67 board as there's little value in buying a SSD just for the cache thingie (if you had an old ~30-40GB kicking around then perhaps)... You'd get much better results using it as a boot drive. Also the P8P67 boards are very good for the money &, from the experience of mine, incredibly easy to o/c... though the specific model is down to budget & the odd extra feature here & there. & if you're after a 1st gen SF then go for the Corsair F60 instead of the V2 as they (still) use the 3Xnm nand which is much better... ...there's minimal difference in the f/ws now, the warranty's the same, the cost is roughly equal, etc... Oh, & is there any reason for a green 1TB drive? Simply that a F3 would be much faster.
and f3 would also be slighty cheaper as-well i think? edit maybe not but i still agree with pocketdemon, the f3 would be much better and there is less than a fiver in it
IB is definately on the lga 1155 socket, as i said its backwards compatible with current SB boards and couger point chipset (most likely requiring a simple bios update) even though it will be released with the new panther point chipset
I'm pretty sure that most 6950s even reference ones can't be flashed so u wouldn't buy one and rely on it working. And an f3 would be better
Caviar green would go in my current system (which i would put next to tv in a nice case to become a server/htpc) and i would put my caviar black in this new system. i would probably buy a c300 as an ssd boot drive, i was just trying to use scan as a place to tot it all up and get a rough price. im not counting on the 6950 flashing, but it has a dual bios switch so even if the flash fails i can use the original bios, plus it will be beefy enough as standard anyway. I will only be using one monitor which i want to buy as well... there is another thread im keeping an eye on. Will also get an air cooler for the cpu cooler.. will have a shop around and read sone reviews. Another thing to add is extra system fans and possibly a fan controller. I will probably go along the lines of the first build. I could afford to get it all in one month but that woyld leave me skint for a month so it would only take a couple of months to save up. Or i wait to the new year for sb-e..
i would just go for it now, youll have an uber quick pc for a few months and then when IB comes out you compare the two, if IB will be that much quicker then just sell you I5 and put up the rest for a new cpu as all the hardware from this build will be compatible. 1TB samsung spinpoint F3 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 XMS3 Fractal Design Define R3 2GB XFX HD 6950 Intel Core i5 2500K 750W Corsair Enthusiast 750TXV2 Asus P8P67-M PRO Rev3 Dark rock advanced as stated aboe, this would be my suggestion, just changing the cooler and hdd to what highlighted otherwise its a very good build. edit: one more thing, are you planning on a micro atx build? if not then change the board to the full atx version
It's 2011 for me, as it 'should' be insane... What i7 were to the older i5's could be the difference between SB abd SB-E. It will be pricey though...
I'd probably use the 64GB SSD as a boot drive. The "normal" Asus Z68 is just a few pounds more than the P67, and would give you the option of using said SSD for cache when you decide to upgrade to a bigger SSD boot drive. Virtu doesn't really do it for me... (as it only really shines when transcoding a lot...I don't, do you?)
I like the smaller form factor and may buy a smaller case, may have trouble fitting the 6950 in. But the option to crossfire and plenty of room for air flow will probably mean a full atx build.
if you fancy xfire then you will be best to an atx board, if your not to bothered about xfire then stic with what youve got, there are some excellent SFF cases these days, i had a silvertone TJ-08B which was excellent, would fit a 30cm gpu and managed to handle the temps from an oc'd 4890
1tb spinpointf3 £39 corsair ddr3 xms3 2x4gb £51 define r3 £70 xfx 2gb 6950 £190 i5 2500k £164 corsair tx750 £77 (not too sure about website) asus p8p67 £131 be quiet dark £43 crucial c300 128gb £100 thats £865 for a pretty good setup! I think this is what im aiming for... the 128gb ssd is an ebay item so if theres nothing around at the time ill purchase a 64gb version. And to top it off i think ill save for this monitor! Might even purchase that tomorrow Depending how much the missus spends for ibiza clothing that she don't need. Not like this monitor which is a must
ive decided to spread the spending over 3 or 4 months and tweaked the build, hope to have this badboy set up in time for xmas. 850W Corsair HX Series V2, Modular 80 PLUS Silver, 90% Eff', SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, 7 Year Warranty 2GB MSI HD 6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition/OC, PCI-E 2.1, 5200MHz GDDR5, GPU 850MHz, 1408 Cores September Purchases £380 But this first as it will enable me to play with the new gfx card 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 XMS3, PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-27, 1.65V Intel Core i5 2500K Unlocked, S1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.3GHz GPU 850Mhz 6MB Be Quiet! Dark Rock PRO BK016 CPU Cooler Socket LGA775/1155 /1156/ 1366 /AM2/ AM2+/ Asus Sabertooth P67 Rev3, Intel P67, S1155, PCI-E 2.0, DDR3 1866, SATA 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, Octobers purchases £286 23" Dell Ultrasharp U2311H Widescreen LCD, 1920x1080, IPS Panel DVI DisplayPort 10mm Thin Bezel Novemeber purchase £240 120GB OCZ Technology Vertex 3, 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Sandforce SSD, Read 550MB/s, Write 500MB/s, 60K IOPS £200 November/December Possibly a november purchase, but it might wait till either xmas present from missus or maybe just buy it myself to myself for xmas. After this i want to move my current system into a fractal array and have a nice storage/htpc next to tv downstairs. And then i may look at buying a new case, possibly a 650d.
