I7 930 vs 2500k

[megadelayed]

currently my build consists of:
i7 930@4.2ghz
rampage ii extreme
12gb ddr3 1600
2xgtx 480 super clocked
because my power bills are atrocious im thinking of selling my cpu and mobo and buying a 2500k with a z68 and crossfire 6870(or should i keep my 480's?)
i game at 5760x1080 but if the power savings are big enough im fine to go down to 1920 but i will still need to have triple monitor support for my work
would the upgade be worth it and would i notice bottlenecks and would the system be slower?
also i see that sandy bridge can only offer x8,x8 crossfire/sli, would that be a problem?

 

[nforce4max]

The performance gains are not worth it from that prospect but for efficiency then I suggest that you change your cards and that alone will roll back the power consumption nicely but not enough for what you are asking. Overall it may be downgrading as far as performance is concerned for the whole build.

Replace your cards and if not satisfied go from there. You could try to sell your build off and start fresh.

 

[rush21hit]

I think to compromise some serious power drop, you also have to consider downgrade. As nforce4max stated, your cards most likely are the primary culprit.

AFAIK, a monitor based on LCD technology has far known to have power efficiency. So I think your displays not necessarily needs to be sacrificed. A smaller display should be much more efficient, yes, but I think it would be negligible.

If your works are somehow involving of utilizing CUDA, then a single 580 or 570 should deliver about similar experience as your current cards. And it boast much more efficiency too. You might want to look into that. And if not, single substantial card solution from the latest gen of HD7000 series should save your bills. 7870 is a great card.

In any case, the primary culprit for hard time power bill for PCs are usually GPU, then down to sound system, then cames down further to hardisks ( particularly the conventional mechanic HDD, the more you have them, the more likely you'll see more numbers on power bills ). CPU-Motherboard-Screens usually comes last, at least in most cases.

 

[megadelayed]

The performance gains are not worth it from that prospect but for efficiency then I suggest that you change your cards and that alone will roll back the power consumption nicely but not enough for what you are asking. Overall it may be downgrading as far as performance is concerned for the whole build.

Replace your cards and if not satisfied go from there. You could try to sell your build off and start fresh.

how much do you think i could sell off my cpu, mobo and gpu for and what could i get for that money?
im only considering selling those parts since the others are fine and i dont think they need replacing atm

 

[megadelayed]

I think to compromise some serious power drop, you also have to consider downgrade. As nforce4max stated, your cards most likely are the primary culprit.

AFAIK, a monitor based on LCD technology has far known to have power efficiency. So I think your displays not necessarily needs to be sacrificed. A smaller display should be much more efficient, yes, but I think it would be negligible.

If your works are somehow involving of utilizing CUDA, then a single 580 or 570 should deliver about similar experience as your current cards. And it boast much more efficiency too. You might want to look into that. And if not, single substantial card solution from the latest gen of HD7000 series should save your bills. 7870 is a great card.

In any case, the primary culprit for hard time power bill for PCs are usually GPU, then down to sound system, then cames down further to hardisks ( particularly the conventional mechanic HDD, the more you have them, the more likely you'll see more numbers on power bills ). CPU-Motherboard-Screens usually comes last, at least in most cases.

as i said i would need 3 monitors for my work atm so a single 580/570 is not for me
as for having smaller monitors would make it harder for me since i need the res plus it would limit the stuff i have on my screen
though can you give me a better alternative for a fast reliable boot drive as well as a fast scratch disk that can save me power with the amount of money that i could sell my intel x25-e 64gb ssd and a pair of 300gb wd velociraptors?

 

[rush21hit]

I must say, I'm kinda lost here. I can't really tell what exact kind of GPU you need. Since what AMD nor nVidia offers for about the same performance essentially not much of a power saving either. If you insist dual GPU, that is. I don't really know if a 7870 already capable of CF setup by now, if so, I would suggest that.

Smaller monitor is fine too, as long as you personally don't mind with it.

For storage part, honestly, your old SSD still compelling. So I don't think it's necessary to replace them. Your HDD on the other hand, do need a replacement.

Something like this : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148697
Or this : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148681

The reason I suggest Seagate is because I personally had a bad times with WD. If you notice the the physical appearance of the HDD they made, you should notice that WD puts a kind of plastic foam just between the HDD board and the primary hardware. I just don't get this. The heat it generates will not be dissipated properly from the HDD board, and I often find some of my friend's WD HDD mainboard got fried right on their chip. So, I'll never suggest a WD HDD ever again for anyone since they persist this design even today.

 

[wolfram23]

I suggest not touching the CPU. An i7 930 is a very good CPU, and the 2500k would be more of a sidegrade. At the very least wait for Ivy Bridge, but even then, I think you'd probably better just wait till Haswell.

As for the power stuff, yeah 480s are power suckers. If you went with SLI 570 you would have similar performance but lower power. Or you could get CF 7870 2gb for a nice gain and much lower power as long as you don't need CUDA.

And swapping the SSD/HDDs will not save you much at all. By far the worst offender is the 480s.

 

[esrever]

crossfire 7850s are probably going to cut your power consumption in half while giving you the same or better performance.

the CPU isn't really worth it and you might as well wait for ivybridge. Ivybridge will come with max tpd of 77w so cpu power consumption will be a lot better and general; performance should be better as well.

 

[HEXiT]

you could probably get 150 per card to the right buyer (hopefully you can find sum1 wanting to sli or tri sli who thinks there a bargain) but i wouldn't sell the 930..(power and performance gains are negligible in real world application).
what ever you do manage to get for em i would consider replacing em with a single 7950 or at a push a 7850. you wont loose much in the way of performance especially if you get ridd of 2 of the monitors while gaming... in fact you may well gain, as far as smooth gameplay as every game you play will run at a minimum 60 fps maxed out x4fsaa (except metro)...
you could also consider selling 1 of the screens if you decide to stop playing on triple monitors. i often use both mine but only game on 1. and to be honest i find the bigger screen layout no help at all. it really is just a gimmic for games in my eyes.

 

[megadelayed]

I am after a 480 for my rig....
I will pay a max of 130 british pounds.

i can see 480's go on ebay for £150+ atm even though its the stock ones
mine is factory overclocked and heres the review
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=661&Itemid=72

 

[megadelayed]

you could probably get 150 per card to the right buyer (hopefully you can find sum1 wanting to sli or tri sli who thinks there a bargain) but i wouldn't sell the 930..(power and performance gains are negligible in real world application).
what ever you do manage to get for em i would consider replacing em with a single 7950 or at a push a 7850. you wont loose much in the way of performance especially if you get ridd of 2 of the monitors while gaming... in fact you may well gain, as far as smooth gameplay as every game you play will run at a minimum 60 fps maxed out x4fsaa (except metro)...
you could also consider selling 1 of the screens if you decide to stop playing on triple monitors. i often use both mine but only game on 1. and to be honest i find the bigger screen layout no help at all. it really is just a gimmic for games in my eyes.

would the 7950 offer a noticable performance increase over the 7870 cos ive just looked at reviews and it seems that the 7870 is pretty close plus the 7870 costs about the same as what i can sell my 2 480's for and i really dont want to spend more than i have to.
also how does the 7950/7870 fare with games@5760x1080 i can manage with medium details as long as the gameplay remains fluid?

 

[megadelayed]

crossfire 7850s are probably going to cut your power consumption in half while giving you the same or better performance.

the CPU isn't really worth it and you might as well wait for ivybridge. Ivybridge will come with max tpd of 77w so cpu power consumption will be a lot better and general; performance should be better as well.

yup thats what i was thinking but i recently heard the news about intel delaying ivy release, and if its really pushed back then the savings on power in the time period would probably be a fair amount and according to leaks the improvements in terms of performance dont seem to be too big, and i could always upgrade in the future

 

[megadelayed]

I suggest not touching the CPU. An i7 930 is a very good CPU, and the 2500k would be more of a sidegrade. At the very least wait for Ivy Bridge, but even then, I think you'd probably better just wait till Haswell.

As for the power stuff, yeah 480s are power suckers. If you went with SLI 570 you would have similar performance but lower power. Or you could get CF 7870 2gb for a nice gain and much lower power as long as you don't need CUDA.

And swapping the SSD/HDDs will not save you much at all. By far the worst offender is the 480s.

http://media.bestofmicro.com/1/O/242412/original/Power Consumption.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph5625/44655.png

the 7xxx series seems to be a bit overpriced right now and if i sell my 480's now i would only be able to get 1 first then have to wait for a while before the second

 

[FinneousPJ]

A single 7900-series card would help with your power usage. Going crossfire tends to be much less efficient per watt than a more powerful single GPU. The 7950 is more efficient than a 7970 though, but it's not a huge difference.

However, if you're just looking to save on power bills, I'd recommend other measures.

 

[megadelayed]

I must say, I'm kinda lost here. I can't really tell what exact kind of GPU you need. Since what AMD nor nVidia offers for about the same performance essentially not much of a power saving either. If you insist dual GPU, that is. I don't really know if a 7870 already capable of CF setup by now, if so, I would suggest that.

Smaller monitor is fine too, as long as you personally don't mind with it.

For storage part, honestly, your old SSD still compelling. So I don't think it's necessary to replace them. Your HDD on the other hand, do need a replacement.

Something like this : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148697
Or this : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148681

The reason I suggest Seagate is because I personally had a bad times with WD. If you notice the the physical appearance of the HDD they made, you should notice that WD puts a kind of plastic foam just between the HDD board and the primary hardware. I just don't get this. The heat it generates will not be dissipated properly from the HDD board, and I often find some of my friend's WD HDD mainboard got fried right on their chip. So, I'll never suggest a WD HDD ever again for anyone since they persist this design even today.

^im just waiting for HDD prices to fall down atm they are still sky high
are the hdd's on the list as fast or nearly as fast as my velociraptors because the first link its a 7200rpm, how does this compare to my 10000rpm WD?
the second seems to be a bit slow so im not considering it
capacity isnt a problem because i store most of the stuff in my NAS so i dont mind if the storgae is smaller if the drive is considerably faster.
also tbh WD isnt that bad, ive never had a problem with mine for the fast couple of years, it might be that it's just a bad batch

 

[redeemer]

Stay with your i7 930 bro, no point going for an i5 2500k. I even think you should skip out entirely on this generation and wait for Haswell. Spend the money on something that you will actually benefits from like a new gpu, oh nevermind your running those beastly gtx 480's.

 

[Soda-88]

if you wanna save some money on electrical bills then i'd suggest you to get radeon 7xxx series cards instead, 480 is the biggest power hog you could hope for

 

[nforce4max]

how much do you think i could sell off my cpu, mobo and gpu for and what could i get for that money?
im only considering selling those parts since the others are fine and i dont think they need replacing atm

Around $200 USD for each card before fees and shipping. $125-200 on the cpu depending when you sell it. As for the board I am not sure but maybe around $100. You might as well sell the ram alone with the board for a little extra. Beyond that I would personally hold on to what you got and replace the cards. As for the monitors there are very little power savings by upgrading to LED based monitors.


Upgrading your cards is the best way to go.

 

[megadelayed]

Around $200 USD for each card before fees and shipping. $125-200 on the cpu depending when you sell it. As for the board I am not sure but maybe around $100. You might as well sell the ram alone with the board for a little extra. Beyond that I would personally hold on to what you got and replace the cards. As for the monitors there are very little power savings by upgrading to LED based monitors.


Upgrading your cards is the best way to go.

do you think i should wait for kepler to be release before choosing?

 

[nforce4max]

do you think i should wait for kepler to be release before choosing?

Right now I doubt Kepler is going to be any thing power friendly, I've already seen the GT650m reviewed and the clocks are pretty low. I would wait until it has hit the stores and sites before wanting one. I've learned a few lessons when it came to Fermi. The 78x0 right now look amazing but $350 usd for a 7870 is just out of reach.

Two 78x0 series cards will do wonders for you plus when not gaming one card turns off to save power or so that I have been reading.

 

[megadelayed]

Right now I doubt Kepler is going to be any thing power friendly, I've already seen the GT650m reviewed and the clocks are pretty low. I would wait until it has hit the stores and sites before wanting one. I've learned a few lessons when it came to Fermi. The 78x0 right now look amazing but $350 usd for a 7870 is just out of reach.

Two 78x0 series cards will do wonders for you plus when not gaming one card turns off to save power or so that I have been reading.

exactly, the 7xxx series are WAYYYY overpriced.
i always though the 7800 series was going to replace the 6800 series, here in the uk a 6870 is available for £130~ while a 6850 often drops under £100
looking at the us prices the 7800 series is more of a 6900 replacement and by the time it get in the uk im guessing the 7870 will be price around £250 while the 7850 would be around £200, so im hoping the intro of kepler would AT LEAST force amd to reduce their prices

 

[blackhawk1928]

currently my build consists of:
i7 930@4.2ghz
rampage ii extreme
12gb ddr3 1600
2xgtx 480 super clocked
because my power bills are atrocious im thinking of selling my cpu and mobo and buying a 2500k with a z68 and crossfire 6870(or should i keep my 480's?)
i game at 5760x1080 but if the power savings are big enough im fine to go down to 1920 but i will still need to have triple monitor support for my work
would the upgade be worth it and would i notice bottlenecks and would the system be slower?
also i see that sandy bridge can only offer x8,x8 crossfire/sli, would that be a problem?

I feel your pain, power bills are expensive. However, your power bill savings will be absolutely minimal. You will save more money by lowering your heating temperature by 1 degree or increasing your AC temperature by 1 degree than you will from a more "efficient" computer.

99% of your powerbill are taken by:
Kitchen Appliances
Heating/Air conditioning
Dryer/Washer
Water heating

The other 1% is lights and all of your electronics basically.

If you want more than a few bucks per year savings (literally...a few dollars from a more efficient computer most likely), look into better home insulation, more efficient appliances, more efficient heat pump...etc.

In fact the ROE (Return on Investment) you will get for switching to a more efficient computer may take years to recoup the costs of spending on a new computer. Therefore, I wouldn't bother about a computer for power savings, its not going to help anything.

 

[megadelayed]

I feel your pain, power bills are expensive. However, your power bill savings will be absolutely minimal. You will save more money by lowering your heating temperature by 1 degree or increasing your AC temperature by 1 degree than you will from a more "efficient" computer.

99% of your powerbill are taken by:
Kitchen Appliances
Heating/Air conditioning
Dryer/Washer
Water heating

The other 1% is lights and all of your electronics basically.

If you want more than a few bucks per year savings (literally...a few dollars from a more efficient computer most likely), look into better home insulation, more efficient appliances, more efficient heat pump...etc.

In fact the ROE (Return on Investment) you will get for switching to a more efficient computer may take years to recoup the costs of spending on a new computer. Therefore, I wouldn't bother about a computer for power savings, its not going to help anything.

lol i dont use my heating, its off 24/7/365 and i just warm my room up with my computer, only thing is though that in the summer my room is like a sauna
my washer are rated A+ in terms of energy, same with the majority of my kitchen appliances. FYI air con in the UK is very rare and im not one of the minority
but even that i pay £20 a week electric (top up meter) even tho i live on my own!

 

[wolfram23]

FYI [strike]Fermi[/strike] Kepler is getting a paper launch on Monday.

As for power, for me as an appartment renter, my power usage is probably fridge and stove mostly, followed by my PC and HDTV/Surround sound/PS3 lol.

I notice during months I game more than usual, the bill goes up by like $20.

 

[megadelayed]

FYI Fermi is getting a paper launch on Monday.

typo?? do you mean kepler?
fermi was launched for a long time now?