Refreshing my current i7 965 build

Keirnoth

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Apr 24, 2013
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Hello all. I have plans to upgrade my old build to something current generation since my system is about 4 years old.

Here's the specs for my old build:

Antec 1200V1 case
Zalman 9900CNPSLED
i7 965 Processor (LGA 1366)
Corsair DDR3-1600 2 x 3 GB Dominator RAM
Corsair AX750 PSU
EVGA GTX 460 1 GB EE
EVGA X58 SLI
OCZ Vertex 1 60 GB SSD
Various mechanical HDDs (mostly 1 TB WD Caviar Blacks)
HT Striker Omega 7.1
Pioneer BD-R Burner drive
Samsung 22" T220 LCD Monitor

Approximate Purchase Date: Around the time Haswell comes (June - July)

Budget Range: (e.g.: 300-400) $1000-$1200 before shipping

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, streaming, video rendering for upload/Let's Plays

Are you buying a monitor: No, but that will be my next purchase.

Parts to Upgrade: CPU, Motherboard, RAM (if necessary), SSD, Graphics Card

Do you need to buy OS: No - I have a copy of Windows 8 I may upgrade to, else I will reuse my old Win7 license.

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Amazon.com, because Newegg.com's shipping prices is murder for people like me who live in Hawaii. I'll resort to Newegg if it's absolutely necessary.

Location: City, State/Region, Country - Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

Parts Preferences: CPU - Intel i7 (this is a requirement), Motherboard - EVGA (but I'm willing to exploreother options), GPU - EVGA NVIDIA (however I am more than open to AMD if their single GPU cards are better bang for buck)

Overclocking: Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution: Current is 1680 x 1050, planned is 1920 x 1080, but I normally play games in 1280 x 720 windowed - in fact I use windowed mode often. This may change once I upgrade to a 1080p monitor - I might want to play games in 1600 x 900 windowed if that's the case.

Additional Comments: I actually dislike LEDs and bling. I like practical and minimalist builds (requires the least amount of effort).

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: My old build was mostly composed of parts made during the "bleeding edge" start of the Core i7 CPUs and infancy of SSDs. My system feels somewhat long in the tooth so I kind of want to do a system refresh.

Parts I am reusing:
Antec 1200 V1 case
All my mechanical HDDs
Corsair AX750
RAM (but I can be persuaded to upgrade it if it'll provide me a noticeable performance increase)
Pioneer BD-R Burner drive
HT Omega Striker 7.1
Samsung T220 monitor

My main goal is to upgrade my system to a build that will give me the most amount of performance without breaking the bank and will give me a perceivable enough performance boost in my gaming.

Since I'm keeping a lot of my old parts, I guess I just need advice on the five above mentioned components.

The only two parts I think I want to get for my build are the following:

CORSAIR Hydro Series H100i Water Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181032

SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD512BW 2.5" 512GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147194

Would the cooler be overkill for my intentions? Is there another SSD out there that provides the same performance and capacity for a better price?

Otherwise, I'm sort of at a loss on what to get for the CPU, GPU, and Mobo. I know I'll want SATA6.0Gbps and USB3.0, and I do want a single GPU setup. I also want to leave the potential for overclocking in the future. I'm not going to go for top clocks, but I do want to get enough of an overclock for a perceivable performance boost.

I've seen posts saying that Haswell may not be as fast as the higher end Sandy and Ivy Bridge CPUs, so I don't know if waiting for Haswell to get a reasonably priced high end CPU that can surpass my i7 965 would be worth it. I've seen posts saying that the i7 965 is already on the top of the pile, but after spending the $1k to buy this, I kind of don't want to have to go for another Extreme Edition $1k processor to get something that can beat it.

Thanks in advance! Your help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Solution
Ahh. Didn't know you were doing rendering. The best bang/buck i7 is the i7-3770k. Then you could grab the Asus P8Z77-V LK motherboard. No combo deal, but can't do much about it unless you live near a microcenter.
As others have said, the i7-965 is still a decent processor.

ismaeljrp

Distinguished
Feb 8, 2012
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18,860


I concur , I'd wait till Broadwell if I were you. You could get a new better and bigger SSD, GPU, RAM and you're set.
 
-Good cpu cooler, though it may be overkill for your needs. Since you said "maybe" to overclocking, that may be a waste of $100. If you want a cheap one, grab the CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO heatsink. For a $30 price, you should be able to get some nice OC. If you do plan on doing some more-intense oc, then that corsair h100i is a good choice.
-The Samsung 840 PRO is the fastest SSD, but it is kinda expensive especially at 512gb. Since you already have a 1tb HDD, you might want to just grab a 128gb or 240gb.
-About the waiting for haswell thing, it is reported that Haswell will be 10-15% faster than ivy bridge. If you wait, you might not be able to get the first wave (it'll be popular so it might sell out fast) and you will have to wait longer. Or you can just build a pc now and be happy. Either way, you will have better performance.
-If you're building it now, grab the i5-3570k + Asus P8Z77-V LK at newegg.com: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1270852 This price is similar to microcenter price. The i5-3570k is the recommend gaming processor. It has great performance, and it's not overprice. Like with the i7-3770k, it's $100 more and you get very minimal fps increase, if any.
-For the gpu, you won't need a very good one since you run your games at 720p. Consider a 7870XT, I believe it should be able to run all games maxed out at 720p.
 

Keirnoth

Honorable
Apr 24, 2013
15
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10,510


I think I need to modify my post to say that I would prefer an i7 if possible. Even though I would game at 720p (for now), I still need the extra processing power for video rendering. I don't want my renders to take longer if possible.

However, I'll take a look at that combo deal and graphics card - those look like good bang for bucks.
 

Keirnoth

Honorable
Apr 24, 2013
15
0
10,510


That's what I was thinking also. Perhaps I can make do with my current processor and just upgrade the other stuff. Is there that much of a performance gap between the i7 965 and the current generation processors to warrant upgrading? I'm guessing no.

Sounds like it was kind of a good idea for me to buy the best processor possible at that time so that it could last me longer than a couple years.
 
Ahh. Didn't know you were doing rendering. The best bang/buck i7 is the i7-3770k. Then you could grab the Asus P8Z77-V LK motherboard. No combo deal, but can't do much about it unless you live near a microcenter.
As others have said, the i7-965 is still a decent processor.
 
Solution


yea i don't see a reason to change the cpu yet, more ram would probably be more noticeable to you at this point.