New i7 2600K Build - What Would You Do Different?

It will not get any significant boost over the i5 2500K. Same for gaming performance.

Taking a look at some reviews and scores for single-threaded apps like Super PI and Cinebench R10 appears to show only a 3% or so gain by using a 2600K. I'm still concerned though as I often ALT+TAB between CAD, Photoshop, Illustrator, Firefox whilst listening to music. Would the 2600K still be more beneficial?

Not to the tune of an extra 1/3 in cost.
i5 2500K will do all that you describe easily. The SysMark2007 Producitivity multi-tasking benchmark again shows a 3% difference.

For $171 you might have picked a better PSU. That one got mediocre scores at JonnyGuru.com:

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=...

Something like this:

http://greenboxit.com.au/product_info.php?cPath=713_427...

http://greenboxit.com.au/product_info.php?cPath=713_427...

or this:

http://greenboxit.com.au/product_info.php?cPath=713_427...

Why raid 0 for the storage drives? Seems to me like you would want to Raid 0 the Operating system SSD's because reliability is a non-issue with them, and Raid 1 or 5 your magnetic storage drives to gain some parity.

You might consider the Samsung f4 2tb drive, even though its only a 5400 rpm drive it has transfer rates comparable to the f3 1tb 7200rpm drive. If you raid 1 a pair of these you gain parity with the same storage capacity.

As far as the i7 2600k goes....WR2 is right about cost/performance. The 2600k @ $358 is 44.2% more expensive then the 2500k @ $248 while only adding a 2.4% increase in performance in 3dmark11. Imagine Daniel Day Lewis drinking 44.2% of your cpu milkshake through a long straw. This is what your doing to your build.

Yeah true, 30% extra in costs is not justified by 3% performance increase.

Thanks for your detailed response. I have changed the PSU to the XFX 850 Black Edition. It's certainly much better than the Silverstone I had. Changed the 2600K to the 2500K; 3% gain is not worth it. A going to leave the Samsung F3s but place them in RAID 1 instead. The F4s though larger storage more expensive and slower. What do you think of the rest of the system?

Thanks again for your response. Not many others have here!


Read the article that you linked to regarding the Z68. Certainly brings some interesting new features. Pretty much merges the H67 and P67. Would be great if you do a lot of video encoding/decoding and would like to go cheap with SSD caching. Can't see it be too beneficial for me.


The CAD program I use does eat my RAM now so it may well be useful to just rack out the four DIMMs. 4x4GB of Ripjaws is only $240 AUS. Plus I often run this beast program with Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and Firefox. And true with the devastation in Japan (sorry heart for them all) memory is bound to go up in the near future.


I will check the stock for the brands you listed.

Good point. Particular if they are going to be unlocked to 6970s. Looks like the Arctic brand is very good. The case I'm getting has a window with a fan mount. Will try with case fan first; if the cards (importantly the top one) are still too hot will get the Artic.


It is certainly expensive but I justify it because the constant loading of components in the CAD program. My goal is to run Windows, applications and a small 10gb component library off the SSD. The reviews of the 240GB are staggering. As you say I will wait to see what the benchmarks show for the 120GB.


Some people are say that Sandy Bridge doesn't get hot enough to justify the NH-D14. Do you agree? The other thing is, I am dubious about the swirling of air that would occur with the NH-C12P pushing air back down over the CPU/RAM area. This may prevent efficient air-flow unlike the D14. Also a reviewer of the Shinobi case said the the clearance is 158mm whereas the D14 requires 160mm!


I rarely use my optical drives. Plus I have so many lying around. My plan is to get a Blueray drive when I get my new monitor; so it would be pointless getting a DVD drive atm.

Thanks for your feedback again.

You will know if that GPU goes up to ~90 C that's when the GPU throttles down to prevent damage.
It looks like your planning a sizable overclock so yea I think that would justify an obscenely large heat sink. When you consider that electrical resistance in metal and transistors increases with temperature (the hotter your system is the higher you need to adjust the voltage to compensate), you find that every degree cooler adds to the longevity and stability of your system.

LOL break out a file and file down the stand offs 2 mm.


Blu-ray drives seem to be a great buy, until you find out you need expensive software to make them work.

Best answer selected by rainwilds.