Build Advice New Upgrade from Q6600 to i5 2500k

[Groovedude]

Hey all,

i need some advise i've been on Q6600 for a while and finally have purchased some new parts. he is what i have so far.

Corsair 650W TX Series PSU - 120mm Fan, 80+% Efficiency, Single +12V Rail
Corsair Hydro Series H60 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
Intel I5 2500k
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 REV2.0
Geil Enhance Cobra 1333Mhz CL 9-9-9-24 (2 x4GB) *GEC38GB1333C9DC*
OCZ Vertex 4 SSD *OS-DRIVE* *64GB*
Corsair Force 3 SSD *Programs & Games* *60GB*
Western Digital Blue *temp/dump ground for random files* *500GB*
Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-219L
Asus Xonar DX
XFX AMD Radeon 6870

My main concern is would the H60 cooler be enough to keep a decent overclock on the i5 or do i need a higher model, should i be looking at getting a faster set of ram or even going to 16gb?

[mrbungle]

That cooler should be good for 4.5ghz or there abouts.

Depends on the chip and how quickly it starts to need volts.

Mine can hold it o pretty much stock volts, others need a bit pumped through them.

Ram is ok but I would get a 1600mhz set, 8GB is fine for a gaming system.

[Groovedude]

Originally Posted by mrbungle

That cooler should be good for 4.5ghz or there abouts.

Depends on the chip and how quickly it starts to need volts.

Mine can hold it o pretty much stock volts, others need a bit pumped through them.

Ram is ok but I would get a 1600mhz set, 8GB is fine for a gaming system.

that's good to know..

so if i got something like:

Corsair 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz Red Vengeance Memory
- 2 x 4GB Kit
- PC3-12800
- CL9 (9-9-9-24) 1.5v

that would be good enough ram?

[mrbungle]

That ram is perfect, especially if you like red things

[Groovedude]

Originally Posted by mrbungle

That ram is perfect, especially if you like red things

i don't understand why but seems to be cheaper than the black and blue, people dont like red? ....

[mrbungle]

The white looks good on Gigabyte boards but its hard to get hold of.

Failing that id get the cheapest

[Groovedude]

Originally Posted by mrbungle

The white looks good on Gigabyte boards but its hard to get hold of.

Failing that id get the cheapest

don't tell me things like thaat... haha!

i got myself:

Corsair Memory Vengeance Red 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 9 XMP Dual Channel Desktop Sandybridge
&
120mm Corsair Air Series SP120 High Performance Edition, High Pressure, 2350rpm, 62.74CFM, 35dB, 3-Pin, Twin Pack

boost some power on the H60 as its just got single fan that came with it a while back.

[sniperdude]

The white Corsair Vengeance is also low voltage 1.35V

scan has it

[Groovedude]

Originally Posted by sniperdude

The white Corsair Vengeance is also low voltage 1.35V

scan has it

yeah i saw this one:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-(...-9-9-9-24-135v

i don't like the LP look though.

[mrbungle]

You don't really need LP if you have a H60 either.

Handy for big air coolers though.

GL with the build, should clock easy and be a big jump from the 775 stuff.

[Groovedude]

Originally Posted by mrbungle

You don't really need LP if you have a H60 either.

Handy for big air coolers though.

GL with the build, should clock easy and be a big jump from the 775 stuff.

Thanks i shall put most of it together tonight. and await the ram. Hopefully come tomorow.

[Mankz]

Yeah, I've got the LP stuff in black, and there is still barely enough clearance to get my AC i30 on there..

[rollo]

The best fans for the H60 are the stock fans it comes with acording to anandtechs testing may want to test with its basic fans before paying extra for new ones.

If you get a nice chip h60 will carry the 2500k to 5ghz np if you get a bad chip you may not hit 4.4ghz thats kind of overclocking for ya.

[bodkin]

I would get a bigger SSD. Go for a slower one if you have to for price, you will fill a 64gb one way to quickly with just a couple of games

[Groovedude]

Originally Posted by bodkin

I would get a bigger SSD. Go for a slower one if you have to for price, you will fill a 64gb one way to quickly with just a couple of games

yeah i was thinking that but i tend to only play one pc game at a time on pc.. once complete Uninstalled. i tend to do all my multiplayer / repeat gaming on ps3.

[yougotkicked]

you might want to consider keeping windows on the HDD and leaving all 64 gigs of your SSD free for games and applications: windows might take a while to boot up, but it only needs to boot once a day usually. try it out, see how fast it boots, then decide if it's worth the 30-odd gigs of space it takes up on your SSD.

Anyone know who sells corsair their parts usually? those low-profile dims make me think they are re-packaging samsungs 30nm parts, which overclock like you wouldn't believe (I never maxed mine out, since I cant use a divider above 2133).

I made the same exact upgrade a while back, dumping my q6600 for the 2500k, really happy with the performance boost.

Don't sweat the cooling, I'm using a air cooler that's at least 7 years old now, and I was able to bring my chip to 5.2Ghz, held the boards highest geekbench score with a i5 for while. any form of liquid cooling will do just fine.

[bawjaws]

I would have thought that for general day-to-day usage, you'd want Windows on your fastest drive, i.e. the SSD. Otherwise, the only benefit you'll get from the SSD is faster loading times on your games, but you'll not see the benefit of the SSD for anything else.

Also, I'm not sure what the obsession is with boot times The benefits of an SSD are far greater than just faster booting - they make using your computer (after it boots ) far smoother and quicker.

[Elton]

Just make sure that your downloads and documents folder is in another drive. Saves space.

[Groovedude]

Originally Posted by yougotkicked

you might want to consider keeping windows on the HDD and leaving all 64 gigs of your SSD free for games and applications: windows might take a while to boot up, but it only needs to boot once a day usually. try it out, see how fast it boots, then decide if it's worth the 30-odd gigs of space it takes up on your SSD.

Anyone know who sells corsair their parts usually? those low-profile dims make me think they are re-packaging samsungs 30nm parts, which overclock like you wouldn't believe (I never maxed mine out, since I cant use a divider above 2133).

I made the same exact upgrade a while back, dumping my q6600 for the 2500k, really happy with the performance boost.

Don't sweat the cooling, I'm using a air cooler that's at least 7 years old now, and I was able to bring my chip to 5.2Ghz, held the boards highest geekbench score with a i5 for while. any form of liquid cooling will do just fine.

i got two SSD..

OCZ Vertex 4 SSD *OS-DRIVE* *64GB*
Corsair Force 3 SSD *Programs & Games* *60GB*

the Vertrex is my Os drive with like office etc installed. have 27GB free.

and then the Corsair is my data drive for games and other software.

[yougotkicked]

ah, glossed over the second one, with ~120 gigs of flash memory there's no reason not to keep windows there.

@bawjaws: because of caching, once something is loaded into memory there *shouldn't* be much of a performance difference between an SSD and a HDD, as the data is stored in RAM by the time it is accessed. This isn't always the case, but on the whole a SSD outshines a hard disk during boot-up and loading programs much more so than in random daily usage.