Hi folks. Long time lurker here and thought i'd post as i'm confused about a few aspects of the Sandybridge. I'm looking to upgrade my existing set-up but not sure what is best to go for for my money. I'll be mainly play games on this machine. I do a very small amount of video encoding etc too. Here's my existing setup: CPU: Intel C2Q 9550 2.83ghz (stock speed) Mem: Corsair 4gb 1066mhz ddr2 Mobo: Asus P5Q-Pro Gpu: Nvidia GTX460 1gb HDD: 1TB Spinpoint F3 PSU: Tagan 750w "piperock" (not sure if good) And here's what i'm looking to buy: CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K Unlocked, S1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad, 3.3GHz, Mem: 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Jet Black, PC3-12800 (1600), Mobo: Asus P8Z68-V GEN3, Intel Z68, S 1155, DDR3, SATA III From scan the cpu and memory are £201 on offer at the moment as a bundle and the motherboard is: £121.92 which totals £333 (is scan generally the way to go here?) My question is this, Would the PCI-E 3.0 version of this motherboard be worth it for the next wave of gpus or should I save a little bit of money towards something else and get a cheaper 2.0 version? I usually leapfrog my Graphics card purchases so I'll be getting one of either the HD7xxx series or the 600 series later on this year. Also, has anyone used the hybrid SSD option on this chipset?, What is it like in terms of reliability and response and is it difficult to setup? (i'm looking to get a 60 - 120Gb boot drive in the next couple months) Suggestions are much welcome as i'm looking to drop an order soon
Not worth it. Those chips are still capable CPU's that beat Phenom 2's per-clock. http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/charts/index.php?pid=61,76&tid=3 And that P5Q-Pro is a great board. OC the CPU as much as you can, you should easily be able to take it up to 3.4. Then shoot for a better card. You'd gain much more from a better GPU over a CPU. Not even close. I mean, a 7950 with a heavily OC'ed Q9550 would yield in superior results than a 2500k with a 460. As a side note, yeah, that Piperock 700W is an excellent unit. It's built on a similar Enhance design used in the SilverStone Strider Plus 750, but, with heatpipes.
For now all you should buy is the SSD. There isn't much reason to go from a quad core to another quad core, even if it is a sandy bridge chip. I agree with John Doe and you should overclock the chip. You should hit 3.5GHz without any issues. You aren't in desperate need of a new PC so you may as well wait for Ivy Bridge at the very least and for the Kepler GPU's.
I upgraded from an Q9450 which was overclocked to 3.56Ghz. Didn't notice any difference in games but my current rig (see sig) almost halfed my encoding time. But based on you not encoding much I would look to get a good cooler on your current rig and overclock it. Should be able to at least get 3.5Ghz. So in conclusion - stick with what you've got and spend the money on upgrading your graphics card.
Thanks for the advice! I was thinking about putting in an ssd first but was worried about them being sata 3 compatible only, Are most SSD's backwards compatible with SATA 2? Whats the best to go for in the 60 - 120gb range? With regards to overclocking, I did manage to get it to 3.2ghz but I think my cooler is lacking and i had some high temps at full load (high 80's celsius)with an arctic freezer pro, i dont think it has very good contact on the die however. I'm using an antec case 900-2 case which has plenty airflow. What make/model air cooler would you recommend that I could use now and drop into an ivybridge build later? i'm open to all reasonable suggestions on this but nothing crazy like evap/peltier units.
EVERY secondary storage device, that means SSD, HDD, all optical drives, that are on the SATA standard, are backward compatible, and "forward-compatible" to any SATA standard. A SATA 3 drive will run perfectly (just at reduce performance to fit the limitation of the older standard) with SATA 2, same with SATA 1. A SATA 1 drive will run perfectly with SATA 3 (SATA 1 drive won't take advantage of SATA 3 performance, obviously). So feel free to buy a SATA 3 SSD, attach it on a SATA 2 port.. and when you upgrade, you'll plug it on the SATA 3 port. In real world setup, though, nothing you will do will take advantage of SATA 3 performance. The only time SATA 3 performance will shine, is when you are copying, working with, or creating/reading large files. In other words, some saved games can be loaded a bit faster, so you'll see that. But Windows boot up will not show any visible large speed increase. In fact you might not even see anything. As it's all small files.
If you really want to upgrade, what you've proposed is a solid package. I'd ensure it has PCI-3 and sata 3. As long as you know your options, it's entirely up to you and your circumstances/priorities what you consider "worth it" or not worth it. I recently "upgraded" from a 1366 i7 to the SB i5 2500k and am happy with the increased performance, overclocking ability and efficiency. For me, SB was a good reason to upgrade to newer tech (or a good excuse to go for a new build), and as I sold the 1366 i7, costs were minimal. And will likely do the same at the end of the year following Ivy Bridge and the new AMD and nVidia GPU's.
Honestly don't bother upgrading. It isn't really worth the cost seeing as you already have a beefy C2Q. May I suggest a spot of overclocking.
**update** Late reply (work zzzz) I managed to upgrade a few existing components. I took advice and bought an Antec Kuhler 620 (with 2 noctua NF-F12 PWM's) I'm sitting on prime after an hour at 3.40ghz my temps do not rise above 44 degrees so i'm well happy with it. I have also bought a Corsair Force 3 120gb (going cheap at the time), I havent managed to install it yet as im scared (plus backing some stuff up.. skyrim anyone? ) Whats the best advice on windows/Bios setup for an SSD? Do i need to change any options in the bios ? (using an ASUS P5Q Pro) Thanks again guys
Thats not true, I run a SATA 2 SSD and my boot times are insanely fast, sub 20 seconds. I also have a dedicated SSD for games, and it speeds up loading screens considerably! I normally agree and respect what you say Goodbytes, but this time you're way off the mark...
Get a SSD with SATA 3. Measure the speed of the boot time, now switch it to the SATA 2 port. You will see that the speed difference while still there.. is only a few seconds off. Look at benchmark for 4K read/write. Large file transfers, I am wrong. the difference is obviously there. My point, is that he can get an SSD on SATA 3 now. Plug it on SATA2. Enjoy it. And when he will upgrade to a new system, he will plug it on SATA 3 and enjoy the full speed of it.
yes that's what i have GB, I asked at scan to be sure and they said it should be fine. I heard I need to enable AHCI, is that about it for the bios options?
Yes it is in your BIOS. If you have multiple SATA controllers, be sure to set AHCI mode on the right controller where your SSD (and HDD) are. The instruction manual of the board (available on online at your motherboard manufacture website, if you lost it), will tell you which is for which.
I only have one controller so its cool, I set it and forgot to change it in my registry first so it looped through startup recovery (doh!) so managed to run through the Msoft fix it to correct it. I figured it set it to AHCI now so there are no complications later. So nowim backed up, and ready to install my SSD Thanks!
If you want upgrade your CPU, the 2500k is much faster the core2q. Phenom 2 was around level pegging with them and the upgrade I made was noticeable, by a lot. I would agree on the ssd front, but then uefi over BIOS makes a large difference also. So I'd prefer the new CPU.
