Hi, I think I know what I want, but really need to make sure. Here goes: Budget: £800 (on case, mobo & CPU - I think I already have everything else I need for now) Main uses of intended build: Gaming - I currently have two GTX 580s in SLI and want to rehome them in a new case, with a new mobo that is tri-SLI capable. What's left of my current rig will be used to build a second PC for my son, so nothing will get wasted. This will be my first full build, so I'm thinking air-cooled to keep it simple. Parts required: Case - Silverstone Fortress FT02B-W v1.7, Black, Full Tower Aluminium Case wide Side Window + AP181 Fan Mobo - Asus Maximus IV Extreme, Intel P67 Express, S 1155, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 2200(OC), SATA 6Gb/s, EATX CPU - Intel Core i7-2600K (is this overkill for gaming?) Previous build information (I already own): OS: MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit RAM: Crucial 12.0GB Triple-Channel DDR3 @ 640MHz (10-10-10-28) Display: DELL SP2309W (2048x1152@60Hz) GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 + NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 + one to come much later on Hard Drive 1: 117GB OCZ-VERTEX2 (SATA) Hard Drive 2: 977GB SAMSUNG SAMSUNG HD103SJ (SATA) Optical Drive 1: LG HL-DT-ST BDDVDRW CH10LS20 Optical Drive 2: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-218L Monitor resolution: 2048x1152@60Hz Storage requirements: OK for now, but would eventually want to upgrade to 2TB or even 3TB, and I'm thinking Western Digital's Caviar line Will you be overclocking: yes - if I need to Any motherboard requirements: Tri-SLI capable Over to you please!
I love the way you ask about the 2600K being overkill and not the x2 580's and 12 gb of ram BTW that ram is triple channel ram where as you will need dual channel.So you will either need to use 8gb or buy more identical ram and use 16. 2600K is great if you can afford the price increase over the 2500K. I get the assumption you currentlly have a socket 1336 socket system yes? In that case upgrading to the 2600 is a complete waste. The 2600K isn't near fast enough to justify the upgrade. You really should be waiting for socket 2011.
That made me laugh too. But you've certainly given me food for thought! On the RAM front, I do have an extra 4GB, so can make 16 in total. I had this installed on my current PC and had to pull a module once I realised what I'd done (thanks forums!). My current mobo & CPU are: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. EX58-UD3R (Socket 1366) + an i7 920 overclocked to 3.2. This was going to be the heart of my son's PC. When is Socket 2011 due? My son can wait!
16 GB is overkill though. 8GB is loads for anything that's not rendering or anything other heavey ram process. People are saying it will be fall of this year.
You will see a performance increase going to a 2600k. However the problem is that the board can only use x16pci lanes, so if you went tri sli you could only have 4 per channel if i'm right? Also tri sli is very driver dependant and generally doesn't scale too well. Some cases it helps, others it doesn't. Maybe wait for the Z chipset (i think that is full x16) or bulldozer or this lga 2011.
If Sandy bridge is anything like Lynnfield then unless you can get a MB with an extra PCIe controller chip then Tri-SLI is out of the question as the PCIe lanes will be limited by the channels on the CPU.
My i7 build is delayed until the P67 issue over, I really don't want to hang about once they've fixed it. However; for a gaming rig what practical benefit do you have with a 2011? An i7+580 is going to pretty much run any game buttery smooth. I tend to be a 2 -3 year upgrade path so I'm not sure if 2011 is so awesome it's worth hanging around for, the difference seems to be between fast and even faster.
Been reading up on Sandy Bridge and I gather only P67 can overclock the CPU but doesn't do SLI whereas H67 can do SLI but lacks the overclock ability! Any clue when we'll see a board fully capable of both?
Isn't the board doing both the Z chipset? I'm not too sure when thats released, however i have a feeling it was just a couple of months before the 2011 board...
Thanks for your replies, but I'm really confused about all this. Are there no mobo/CPU combinations at the moment that maximise the potential of tri-SLI? And if people do have to wait, are we agreed on what we're waiting for? Assuming I can eventually find a winning combo, is my idea of the air-cooled Fortress FT02 a good one, or would water-cooled be the best way to go?
12GB of triple channel ram won't fit in your LGA1155 board: you need to look at a dual channel 8GB or 16GB kit instead.
You'll struggle to fit 3 gfx cards in the FT02, especially if you're using the 5.25" bays. Be mindful of the depth of your optical drives too because they will need to squeeze in alongside the mobo. A long blu-ray drive will hit the 'bottom' of the motherboard.
