Build Advice Upgrade Advice for gaming rig [Haswell or IB-E?]

Hmm, it's something to consider as a close-to-last resort I suppose... would probably require me to re-purchase Windows again (license nowadays is tied to MoBo IIRC?) which would increase the cost quite a bit beyond the "sticker price" of the secondhand MoBo :-(

 

Is it an OEM licence you have, or a retail one? OEM poses problems, but full retail isn't such an issue!

 

Boxed full retail Windows 7 with direct-from-Microsoft upgrade key to Windows 8 Pro

Windows 7 is not a problem, but the Windows 8 bit is less clear...

 

You should be fine there then, as it's not an OEM key tied to one machine. As long as you're only using it on one item of hardware, by my understanding you should be fine

 

would this be worth the risk with the slightly bent CPU pins? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/151183426758?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

 

They're not slightly bent they're buggered man.

 

I'd personally avoid a board with bent pins, but I'm quite over-cautious. They look to me, in this instance, like they're properly broken and not bent, mind...

 

that's what I was thinking, worth checking though!

 

Ah, I see.... on your motherboard they went with the rather more complicated uncore setting instead of straight up dram ratio. It essentially does the same thing, but you have to come up with the ratio end result manually. Try putting it settings between 2666 and 3600 until you find the sweet spot or max it will run at without causing system instability.

 

Ah ok, I was wondering what the Uncore frequency did!

Using this tool: http://www.linuxforge.net/freqcalc.php it seems the uncore frequency is also a multiple of the base clock and is unlinked to the memory frequency? For all but the 980 examples, however, the Uncore multiplier (and frequency) is twice that of the RAM frequency?

When I next have some time at my PC I'll try setting base clock to 160MHz and Uncore to 3200MHz and see what happens... I'm not convinced that'll work, as other sites suggest the Uncore must be lower than CPU but it's a start...

 

I reset everything to defaults (auto - which I assume plumps for XMP) before the CPU-Z screens, it was manual before. I've got the P6T Deluxe so I'm not sure I'm going to be much help on the BIOS side I'm afraid. This is what I used for reference when I was setting up:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2008/11/06/overclocking-intel-core-i7-920/3

 

well base clock 160 and uncore 3200 did give me a booting system with the RAM at 1600MHz, however it was still slow with no visible improvement...

This basically means that either the memory controller on the CPU and/or the motherboard RAM support is... lacking...

so, what I'm going to do now is return the RAM and upgrade the graphics card now, then when bonus is paid in March I'm just going to upgrade to something like Haswell in which case I'll need 4 new sticks anyway (and partner can have current system as they're looking for a system upgrade as well anyway but need far less gaming power than me)

I just give up, have tried everything now and nothing works

With this in mind, the question becomes: which is better, Haswell or Ivy Bridge E? (or wait for Haswell E assuming it's on the way!)