Motherboard suggestions

[kzabak]

Hi
i just bought a 560ti and a 120gb ocz v3 ssd...
im very impressed with the ssd performance though it seems to overstress my e8400 dualcore OC@3,6ghz cpu (i have weird 3sec lags and cpu is at 90-100% mostly when gaming...

so im looking for a new board and chip... seems like the intel 950 seems a good choice-but which mobo?
i want a new one from my sli780i because sata3...and if i buy a new cpu the board should match the tech state..heard good things about the evga stuff and also trust them..

so as im a intel fan-what cpu mobo combo would you suggest?

 

[AMD X6850]

If you are gaming, get a Sandy Bridge motherboard and CPU (Socket 1155), rather than the almost outdated first generation Core i7 (Socket 1366).

Sandy Bridge offers amazing performance and great value. Just work out what chipset you want to use (there are three main ones, H67, P67 and Z68). They each have their pros and cons so do some research on them. You should consider Z68 because you have an SSD.

For the CPU, the i5 2500k is the best buy at the moment and provides a lot of room for overclocking as well.

 

[kzabak]

thx

good to know the 950 is outdated...will look into the z68

i am willing to pay 20% more if the parts last a bit longer

so im in a 65%performance/35%value situation)
sure im not gonna regret choosing an i5 over an i7?
sry dont know any details/benchmarks on cpu´s..

 

[kzabak]

alo: is it a good time to buy? otherwise i can hold out that bottleneck till winter/wpring if theres some changes on the horizon...

 

[AMD X6850]

There is Sandy Bridge-E (the enthusiast high end of the Sandy Bridge line) coming up very soon but I don't think it would benefit you over the current Sandy Bridge line.
Tom's tested out a Sandy Bridge-E processor recently and though it was faster with very CPU-intensive tasks like encoding, it didn't provide better performance for gaming. They cost a fortune as well.
The current Sandy Bridge processors (such as i5 2500k) provide the same performance for gaming at a much cheaper price.

Here is the review if you are interested: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-3960x-x79-performance,3026.html

There is also AMD's Bulldozer line coming out soon but since you are an Intel fan, that shouldn't matter =P

It does seem to be a good time to buy at the moment if the above don't matter to you. Everything is much cheaper (particularly memory, that has dropped a lot) than it was a few months ago.

For the i5 over i7, the only Sandy Bridge i7 processor out at the moment is the i7-2600 (and 2600k, with unlocked multiplier). The only main differences between the i7-2600k and i5-2500k is a 0.1Ghz increase in clock speed (extremely minor, no noticeable performance difference) and hyperthreading.
The i7-2600k doesn't have a noticeable difference in performance for gaming so you should be fine with the better value for money i5-2500k.

Note: I'm assuming you are only gaming, but do you plan on having any other uses for this computer?

 

[kzabak]

nice report thx

so the only word i wanted to know mor is hyperthreading...the i5 doesnt have any? dont know how important the concept of ht still is though



yeah for now the only thing i know which will get a great performance boost with the ssd is gaming...
the rig still has its old hdd though so i can switch back and forth...
in general that was my desktop home pc from which i did everything...and i also like doing office stuff with the ssd...speed is incredible..but i wanna keep it clean from any monsters

i also can feel enourmously when for example writing/reading off the ssd and wanting to play a game next to it...no way..

so things i also do is video and sound editing and postpro aswell as 3d with maya....

so maybe ill wait for the e series and hope that prices for the normal range will drop?!? is that a reasonable assumption?

thx m8

 

[AMD X6850]

Hyperthreading with the i7-2600k adds two virtual cores for every physical one.
Since it has 4 physical cores, it will have 8 virtual ones. Virtual cores individually aren't as powerful as an equivalent number of physical ones.
So 4 Physical Cores > 4 Virtual Cores for example.
An operating system (like Windows) treats each virtual core like a physical one.

Programs which make use of more than 4 cores will benefit from the 8 virtual cores but games generally won't since even the newest games only use 4 cores.

The i5 2500k doesn't have hyperthreading, so it just has 4 physical cores. The i7-2600k is basically a 2500k with hyperthreading.


Don't know about prices dropping since Sandy Bridge-E markets for a slightly different customer audience (the enthusiasts who are willing to fork out a lot of money and those who actually need the additional power). In my opinion, the normal range will remain the primary choice of most builders.

However, if AMD's bulldozer does put up a considerable challenge on Sandy Bridge for price-to-performance (no idea if it will, there haven't been any conclusive benchmarks or comparisons yet), Intel might drop the prices.
All just guesswork at this point though.

Summarising (this is becoming an essay XD), take a look at the performance of the E series over the normal one and consider whether it is worth the money and waiting time for the additional power.

 

[kzabak]

nah i dont think i will need the eseries..i want all to be nice and shiny but wont pay double to make 5-10%...

thx a lot for the great help m8-yeah like back in school^^

 

[AMD X6850]

No problem =)