Sandybridge Advice: Upgrading from Q6600

[clinomaniac]

Hi all,

It's been a while since I've posted a Q. I hope the community is well.

I am planning a new build and am having difficulty making up my mind regarding the new sandy bridge processors. Initially, after reading the numerous reviews for Intel's latest line up and checking prices I was convinced the 2500K was for me. However since then I have bought a beauty of an ITX case which unfortunately restricts me to H67 motherboards so goodbye overclocking. This is making me doubt whether the stock i5 2500K is worth the extra £40 over a stock i3 2120... and then there's a thought in my head saying hey, you only live once, why not splash out and get the i7 2600K as it is quad core and has 8 threads...

Here's what my plan is so far:

CPU: i7 2600K or i5 2500K or i3 2120
MOBO: Asus P8H67-I DELUXE
RAM: 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 SO-DIMM PC3-10600 (1333)
GFX: 1GB Palit GTX 560
SSD: 120GB OCZ Vertex 3
PSU: 450W Silverstone SST-ST45SF Strider
Case: Lian Li PC-Q11B Aluminium Mini-ITX Cube Case
CPU Cooler: Thermalright AXP-140

Current PC:
CPU: C2Q Q6600 (stock)
MOBO: ASUS P5Q PRO Turbo iP45
RAM: Corsair 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2
GFX: XFX ATI HD 4850 512MB
HDD 1: Samsung F3 1TB
HDD 2: Samsung F3 1TB
HDD 3: Samsung F3 500GB
HDD 4: Seagate 1.5TB
HDD 5: Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB
PSU: 600W OCZ StealthXStream
Case: Antec 900
CPU Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro


I know the SSD is going to make the most noticable difference to my day to day activities but my question really is..

with my proposed setup how much difference will I notice between these 3 processors at stock when playing games at 1920x1080?
Is the 2500K at stock speeds worth the extra £40 over i3 2120?
Is the 2600K at stock really worth the extra £75 over the 2500K at stock?

The most stressful thing this PC will be doing is playing one of the 5 games I ever play. TF2 (which is getting suprisingly juttery on my Q6600+HD4850), DoW II, WoW, Supreme Commander and CSS.

P.S. I'm not worried about the PSU handling the 2600K and GTX 560 together as Tom's used a similar setup in this article: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/lian-li-pc-q08-silverstone-sst-sg07-cubitek-mini-tank,2864-10.html

I look forward to reading people's 2 cents.

 

[brandondiep]

To me the psu is the most important part of the pc. I wouldn't cheap out with the psu if you ask me, it never hurts to have extra headroom. Since you got the H67 chipset the unlocked CPus are worthless (2600k, 2500k). I would get the 2500, a dual core would run the 560 but it would be pushing it. Also, how does a case restrict your chipset choice?

 

[jaguarskx]

The Core i3 is a dual core CPU so if that's fine then go for it. The vast majority of games currently only use two core. There are some games that use 3 cores and a small number of games that use 4 cores. More games that can use 3 and 4 cores are on the horizon.

Core i7 has 4 cores and is more expensive than Core i5, it is 100MHz faster and has Hyper Threading (HT). Since games cannot make use of HT it's not worth buying unless you use programs that does make use of HT.

Core i5 are all quad core CPU with one exception. There is a single dual core Core i5 CPU, but I believe it is only sold to OEMs. If you are not going to overclock, then you can choose either the i5-2300, i5-2400 or i5-2500. Only the i5-2500k (and i7-2600k) have unlocked cores.

If you want to overclock, then I suggest selling your ITX case; even if it is going to be at a loss. Then buy an ATX case to build your Core i5-2500k.

 

[clinomaniac]

To me the psu is the most important part of the pc. I wouldn't cheap out with the psu if you ask me, it never hurts to have extra headroom. Since you got the H67 chipset the unlocked CPus are worthless (2600k, 2500k). I would get the 2500, a dual core would run the 560 but it would be pushing it. Also, how does a case restrict your chipset choice?

Thanks for the reply. As it's a tiny case, to make the most of the airflow generated by the single 140mm case fan I went for the best SFX PSU I could find. It's not a cheap PSU by any means (80 Plus Bronze rated, 36A on 12V rail) and according to the review on this site it should be fine as they used the same one with a 2600K and GTX 560 Ti in their tests.

The reason my case choice restricts my chipset choice is that there are only H67 m-itx motherboards in production. Over here the 2500K OEM is practically the same price as the retail 2500 so figured I'd go for the K version incase I decided to upgrade case/mobo in the future.

+1 vote for the 2500 it seems.

 

[clinomaniac]

The Core i3 is a dual core CPU so if that's fine then go for it. The vast majority of games currently only use two core. There are some games that use 3 cores and a small number of games that use 4 cores. More games that can use 3 and 4 cores are on the horizon.

Core i7 has 4 cores and is more expensive than Core i5, it is 100MHz faster and has Hyper Threading (HT). Since games cannot make use of HT it's not worth buying unless you use programs that does make use of HT.

Core i5 are all quad core CPU with one exception. There is a single dual core Core i5 CPU, but I believe it is only sold to OEMs. If you are not going to overclock, then you can choose either the i5-2300, i5-2400 or i5-2500. Only the i5-2500k (and i7-2600k) have unlocked cores.

If you want to overclock, then I suggest selling your ITX case; even if it is going to be at a loss. Then buy an ATX case to build your Core i5-2500k.

I fancied a change so went for a m-itx case. It's pretty sweet so can't see myself selling it. I don't think I need or can overclock with my new case as airflow is limited and I would be slightly worried about powerdraw and increased noise from fans as case temp would be quite warm.

At stock speeds do you think the i3 2120 would be better for gaming than my current Q6600 at stock?