Hi guys I am desperately seeking some build advice. I have made the decision to upgrade my rig and have been looking at what CPU to go for. This is causing me major problems as Im indecisive at the best of times and the Mrs says if I don't make up my mind soon and spend the money she'll either kill me or use it to buy some new furniture. So the decesion has come down to either the i7-920 (which is being discontinued) or the I7-860. I have always excepted the fact that by the time you have ordered and build a system, new and better stuff has been released so I am purely to build the best system I can for the money and drawing a line in the sand. PC Purpose - Gaming (Call of Duty, WoW etc) Do I plan on using SLI? - NO Looking at prices it appears to me that either build will cost the same: CPU - I7 920 or I7 860 Motherboard - Asus P6TD Deluxe or Asus P7P55D Deluxe (or MSI P55-GD65 cos it looks nicer) Cooler - Corsair H50 H/D - Samsung F3 1TB Memory - 6GB Corsair or 4GB Corsair (Maybe stretch to 8GB if I feel 4GB is not enough) SSD - Maybe depending on cost to this point (The Mrs can wait for new curtains) So which is better for a non SLI setup? Will tripple channel help me. I realise that the 1366 Socket is probably more futureproof with the Gulftown around the corner but realistically if I was to be able to spend £1000 on that I would wait and go for a new motherboard when USB 3.0 comes out etc. Any advice you can offer would be much appreciated.
Will it be for gaming, or just allround use? If it's a gaming computer I'd go for a i5-setup tbh. i5 750 and MSI P55-GD65 with 8GB ram and a SSD. The only difference between i5 750 and i7 860 is about 140MHz and HyperThreading, which you have no use of in games. Atleast not yet. You could easily overclock those extra 140MHz with the H50 and save about £70-85. Just read that you will be using it for gaming, so definatly a i5 750 and OC it.
sincethe build is the same price id go i7-920 i7 920 plus Gigabyte x58UD3R is better than i7-870 (which isnt worth it) + P55 mobo costs almost the same price IF you overclock the i7-920, the 870 is faster out of the box. personally id get i7-920 or i5-750 Cooler is good ive got one but unless your going for 4Ghz its not needed plus some of the air coolers are just as good and cost less. TITAN fenrir or scythe mugen 2 dont bother with SDD if your budget is restricted its too epxensive Gb/£ at the moment. triple channel allows more memory bandwidth which doesnt always offer better performance in the real world as DDR1600 has a lot anyway depends on the app. just get 3x2Gb of DDR1600 i7 920 so far hasnt been discontinued and according to intel roadmap will be around till the Q4 of next year i tihnk.
Considering the list you made, you can make known to your dearest, that if she needs help to put you under she can rely on my help.
But don't benchmarks show the 860 is faster than the 920? p, let's pour gasoline on your indecisive flame shall we) EDIT: 870 even so nvrm
Go AMD X2 550 with an SSD, and have money for curtains. You don't need Nehalem for those sorts of games. Oh, and I notice you missed a GPU off your list! Might want one of them for gaming!
