Buy 980x now ... or ... wait for socket 1356

[lmartinefc]

Hi

I am moving on from i5 760 to a new build. No expense spared this time, will be a full spec system.

Planning on running 2 x GTX 470 in SLi (or GTX 480's) along with some Sandforce SSD's in RAID along with 12gb (possibly 24gb) G skill Cas7 gaming RAM.

Just thinking...the new 6 / 8 core i7 are due out in quarter 3 2011.

Firstly, will they be as expensive as the 980x, and also, will they be as powerful, or will they be more basic 6 cores?

No point me waiting til then if the new 8 core is going to cost too much (£900+). Would rather buy the 980x now for £650 and enjoy it from now til then. The 980x would be pretty solid for 3 years at least so not a wasted investment

In short...buy 980x now or wait for new 6 / 8 cores 1356 (and how much are they likely to be, respectively ?)

 

[LePhuronn]

If you wait for the next big thing then you'll never have anything. The 980X (or 990X coming very soon) is a monster of a chip on the right motherboard and will not be bested for a very long time.

As far as the new heacores go, you're gonna be waiting almost a year just to see if they're any better than the 980X.

I'd say get it now and enjoy for a long time. What exactly are you doing with the system though? 980X is overkill for anything other than high-level graphics and video and extreme overclocking.

You could be better off getting a 970 (non-extreme hexacore) and save £100, or even clocking the *** out of a 950 and putting the extra money towards GTX 580 SLI instead.

 

[lmartinefc]

Whaaaaaaaat....when did the GTX 580 come out? Thought we were still on the 4 series?

Hmmm...what are the major differences between the 970 and 980x

When is the 990x scheduled...guessing 980x will be a fair bit cheaper then

Using it for gaming, thats pretty much it. But I also do alot of video conversion (format changes, decode, encode) and DVD backup (but this is oviously slowed down by the speed of the drive).

I know at present it is overkill...but would still like it to be very high spec in 3 years...like the Q6600 held on and still stayed competitive.

 

[LePhuronn]

The GTX 580 looks like a refined GTX 480 (all cores unlocked, speed bump on core and memory, and a massively improved cooler design), but instead of calling it the GTX 485 like it was rumoured for a long time, Nvidia has done its usual renaming crap and called it GTX 580 like it's a whole new card.

Nonetheless, the GTX 580 was rumoured for 6 months, confirmed early October and is officially out today, but realistically it'll be a few days before benches come in and stock's available (Yoyotech have 10 in stock and retail at £400).

The difference between the 970 and 980X is nothing more than the usual Extreme Edition stuff - the 980X has an unlocked multiplier and is the top-notch silicon. Other than that they're the same chip.

The 990X is a speed bump over the 980X but I think it's intended to be a replacement, much like the 930 was for the 920, so I don't think we'll see 980X prices drop by more than a few quid until it's just replaced.

If you're going to make use of the 6 cores with video transcoding then jump for the system now - it will remain *** hot for a long time, and you'll be getting performance boosts for free as more games and software utilise more cores.


All I would say is wait for a little bit to see how things unfold with the 990X (due Q4 this year, so that's anything from 1st October to end of next month) and the GTX 580 - could be worth the £400, could drive other 400 series down in price.

Also, Intel's 3rd generation SSD ("Postville Refresh) is due anytime from now to end of March and supposedly kicks Sandforce into touch.

 

[lmartinefc]

Wow. Got a sandforce last month....very fast so happy with that. New system will have a couple of SSD in RAID to i might get the new intel when they come out.

Will leave it til end of November. At least I can buy the case and PSU now

Going to get the SUGO SG03B-F (new revision) with a nice big 800w PSU.

Moving from a mini itx core i5 (Sugo 6) so will be fun the have a PSU more than 450w (the biggest one available for SFX / SFF).

Yoyotech!? ;-/ good prices, bad customer service. The guy in there is miserable...

Think ill opt for the GTX 580, the 980x when it bumps down in price (or the 970 if it goes down by a greater margin) then all set to go.

What micro ATX board would you recommend, I want both PCI lanes running x16 so think only x58 will do that?

 

[LePhuronn]

If you want Micro ATX with 2 16x PCI-E with a 980X then you're looking at Rampage III Gene.

PSU-wise I'd wait until you see what happens with the GTX 580 - if they've reduced power consumption then you'd be OK around 850W (I'd recommend one of the new Corsair AX850s or NZXT Hale 850W - both gold-rated, both very good - and the guys at Overclock3D who use Corsair religiously have actually switched to the NZXT Hale!).

If power consumption is just as bad as the GTX 480 you're looking at 1000W (again Corsair AX1200 is my pick).

 

[lmartinefc]

Perfect, thanks! I have seen almost everybody using Corsair, they have good rep. I'm using a Corsair Force F60 sandforce SSD at present

Thinking for the RAM gskill Cas7 gaming ram (7-7-7-21) timings.

Or could go for some nice corsair dominator with the pretty fans

This is going to run the Sims great! lol

But in all seriousness, I will be running some Monte carlo simulations etc using Excel so need lots of RAM, high power CPU (more core the better) and SSD.

Big organisations are using Windows HPC instead...4 node machines with quad core processors, a control machine...then any big calculations tasks are "farmed" off to the nodes and returns...provided the calculations can run in parallel. Hoping to get the best parallel performance from a desktop (with a bit of CoD Black Ops on the side)

 

[LePhuronn]

Overclockers and Scan just launched the GTX 580

Ram-wise there's a lot of 4GB modules out there now - Corsair are doing 3x4GB Dominator GT now with sick timings (and it's red), but you pay for it - about £300 (which isn't too bad for extreme 12GB kit).

However I was browsing Overclock3D recently and they're raving about Mushkin Redline Ridgeback - excellent RAM and the head spreaders won't interfere with big coolers.

Also, the 6900 series from AMD are out in a month too - you'd be wise to compare them both.

 

[lmartinefc]

Forgot about the ridgeback. Saw them on a review...nice RAM. Think that's where the money will be going...unless the timings are better on the "tried and tested" corsairs.

Should be nice in the sugo 3 micro atx case. This thing is tiny but has twin 120mm front fans... 200 x 360 x 312 (WxHxD mm)

Funny this is, the new one - the SG03B-F is cheaper than the old one SG03-B. Check Silverstone site, lots of mods to original

Why do people have such large cases anyway. I went into Yoyotech, some are the size of a small child. Unless you have a dual xeon board and 20 hard drive, why would people buy these cases?

 

[LePhuronn]

Initial reviews for the GTX 580 are out - uses less power, runs cooler and gives about 10% boost over the GTX 480.

Not much point in upgrading to a 580 from a 480, but for a new purchase it's a monster card.

SLI scaling is sweet too.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_580/1.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_580_SLI/1.html

 

[lmartinefc]

Hoping if I buy a couple of these for SLI they will battle on til the bitter end...like the 8800Gt did (still runs modern games at respectable levels).

How would the cooling go for these? I have seen alot of people stacking 2 in SLI...and the fan on the top one gets blocked on alot of cards?

Is the spacing adequate on the GENE III ?

 

[LePhuronn]

You're always going to have a stacking problem unless you have a board with well thought out spacing (Rampage III Extreme - the 2 16x slots are 1 and 3, so you have a big gap between them), a board that can electrically switch which lanes uses 16x (EVGA X58 Classified) or use a case designed to work around it (Silverstone's Raven series and Fortress FT02).

The Gene has the two cards right next to each other, so one's gonna get choked.

 

[lmartinefc]

Sorry typo I meant Rampage III. That will be the one! Might as well get that now, along with the case, a H70 water cooler and 1000w PSU.

Then just wait for the 980x to dip down in December (if much) and grab it with some mushkin along with a 580

Thanks for all your help

Anything else I could do to make this a better system?

 

[lmartinefc]

Think i might stick in one of those mini cocktail umbrellas...they always make everything look fancy

 

[LePhuronn]

Better in terms of spec? Not much without going to a full-sized board.

Better in terms of appearance? That's subjective - I like brushed black aluminium, key point lighting, clean face-plates and slot-loaded drives ;-)

 

[lmartinefc]

Sounds like my SG06 - plain front, slim DVD (plain), brushed black alluminium.

How would a full size board increase performance?

I would never want to have more than 2 cards in the system (start with one 580..then SLI)

The reason I chose the Sugo 3 is because is looks very clean, and neat, with lots of cooling (twin front 120mm fans - will replace one with the H70 watercooler) and will sit on my desk at only 36cm tall (hate HUGE pc's, alot are large for the sake of being large - no watercooling, no extra HDD...just big ugly cases with tons of spare room around the mobo etc)

 

[LePhuronn]

Full-size boards allow for more power phases, improved cooling and more cards (not just GPUs), so you can belt out bigger overclocks without stressing the components quite as much.

But, it's all relative to what you want to do - I'm going Rampage III Extreme because I need to push my 980X (or 990X) as far as it will go for short-burst rendering, so I'll need the motherboard power and stability to cope.

Also as well as multi-GPU for gaming (like you I'm only going 2 cards) I need teh space for HD sound card and video capture card - these things you can't do on mATX boards.

I'm not going stupid case though - Fortress FT02 will fit everything I want wonderfully without wasting space (and still be able to do some of the lighting mods I'm planning).

 

[lmartinefc]

But will it play crysis ;p

Ha ha...finally finished that game this week...lame. Better as a benching tool than as a game.

Will a H50 or H70 be enough for the 980x? I have always steered clear of watercooling, as you wouldnt know it wasnt working until it was too late. On the other hand, chances of the cooling fan not workings is slim (and comes with heatsink in any case). But watercooler so complex....fan, pump etc...anything could silently fail...or worse, leak all over my (soon to be) 580

Thinking I should give it a try,silent operation and more controlled temp range (my i5 jumps all over the place when im gaming)

 

[lmartinefc]

Being offered a 980x, fully sealed for £620 (probably get it for £600)

Any known issues with bad chips making their way into the market on the cheap. This is from an ebay shop based in UK. Allows for me to collect from his address (has a small ebay business) and happy to do business face to face etc

 

[jj463rd]

Well I'll tell you that a Core i7-980X system with a GTX 580 would be a killer Microsoft Flight Simulator X or upcoming Microsoft Flight system (if you're ever interested in that)

 

[lmartinefc]

Ah dilemma. Some guy just called me up. Got a 975 extreme edition. Basically a 45nm version of the 980x with quad core instead of hex. Would prob get it for £350.

That a big saving. But then I know some apps are already using 6. And 2011, hex and oct cores will start to become the norm

On a side note, sold the GTX 460 (for retail) while waiting for GTX 580....been using a GT 430 temporarily. V suprised...played Crysis, played Warhead etc...all on high (not very high) and switched off AA. No lag or anything

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

The sandy bridge is due launch out this January at CES 2011.
I am also in your feet now i would go for the i5 760 as you have mentioned and buy the GPU of your choice after that I will be thinking for an upgrade.After a year or two.i5 would still be decent.

 

[ABn5clinYR]

wait for ddr4, wait for socket 2011, and get a 500 series nvidia or 600 when it comes out if your not holding back