Hi, Ideally I would like to make a new build as i promised my nephew my current PC when i build a new one. unfortunately financing restrictions mean that it will be more of an upgrade moving onto a new build over the course of a year or so. The question is, with future proofing in mind, do i buy an i5-760 set up and oc the S*** out if it or do I go for the more expensive i7-930/950? i realise that next year Sandybridge should be out but i'm slightly worried about the prices and buying into new architecture soon after release. cheers.
yeah thats what i was thinking. any ideas for good ocing mobo? was looking at the ASUS P7P55D-E pro, any other suggestions would be welcome. The UD2 is of the market from scan and i would prefer to buy it all together from them. Thanks again.
I've got the i5 760 on a ASUS P7P55D-E pro motherboard, I've overclocked it to 3.5ghz but it can easily hit 4.0, they work well together and for the price it's a good buy.
I would go with the i5 and I did . The only thing you get with the i7 is triple channel memory over dual channel memory, hyper threading and more pci-e lanes. Unless he plans to do a lot of video/image editing then you won't see any real world difference with the memory or hyper threading. Pci-e lanes are only really needed for sli/crossfire setups (nothing wrong with running them 8x/4x usually but nvidia don't hand out the sli certificate unless its 8x/8x). Mine is running at 4ghz with only 1.25v so very cool, compared to my friends i7 930 to even get near to that speed he has to disable hyper threading and go to 1.4v. This does vary with how lucky you get with the cpu chip you get but I don't see the need to spend extra, where most people wouldn't notice much difference, especially if your worried about budget. I'm using the ud3r in my sig and I've experimented with the b-clock and it goes over 200 but have to lower the cpu multiplier (cpu unstable with 21 multi under load) so I think its a pretty good board, after all its just the ud2 with some extras.
Feel your pain. Really wanted to have a new build in place for the release of WoW: Cataclysm. While my current rig is perfectly adequate, I was really hoping to have a decent SSD, and DX11 card by now, and I hate 'upgrading' into old systems. On that basis I'd suggest completely moving over to an i5 system. TSB
Hmm this has made me rethink. I was gonna upgrade to an i7 chip early next year, and then buy my second GTX460 to go into SLI at the same time. If I will be going SLI is it more beneficial to go i7? My PC is onlt ever used for games and web surfing so it's purely from that point of view.
You don't need to go for a full 1366 i7 for sli, but you will need to spend a little bit more on a 1156 motherboard that has pci-e switching so it can run 8x/8x which is more than enough (lots of articles comparing x16/x16 and x8/x8 if you look around), you won't see any loss. I believe the gigabyte ud4 or asus p7p55d pro and upwards have this. The only other consideration here is that you will probably be looking at £20-£30 more than a standard 1156 board without the switching which could go towards a 1366 but there really won't be (a noticeable) performance difference in what your doing.
