Ivi or Sandy ?

[Berberis]

Hi there !

I was just wondering for my new build :

Shall I already look for an 7-family (Ivy) of MB or shall I go for a 6 family (Sandy)?

I'm still on a old Pentium 4, and my MB is an old ASUS, P5... the change wil be there anyway but.

If I can save some money on the MB, I could invest it on GPU .. And on the balance, the new chipset will allow all the new features for an evolutive machine... Because the difference is not so high, but (10+10+10+10+10 USD/EUR/GBP can allo you to invest more in another component)

thanks for you wise opinions about it

 

[Cons29]

i'd personally go with 3570k, then overclock it. pair it with a 660ti or a 670.

i have 2500k and 670, and it plays well

 

[faster23rd]

Building a gaming rig?

What do you mean by "7-family" and "6 family"?

Anyway, I would advise you to get an Ivy Bridge chip. The Ivy Bridges have better availability, more efficient power consumption, and more headroom for OC.

 

[Berberis]

Hi,

Yes, was buidling a gaming rig..

But I'm not a hardcore gamer just playing World of Warcraft, and some others games I would like to try : BF3, Crysis 2, ...

6 family was for me Sandy Bridge Family
7 family is Ivy Bridge.

the questions was :

Invest already into an Ivy or let's take a Sandy - a bit cheaper - and invest the saved money into a powerful CPU/GPU

 

[Cons29]

is the difference in price that big?

 

[Berberis]

indeed not I have around 10/15 EUR but I could invest those into a more pwerfull GPU or CPU

ex : I have an I3 for 160.00 EUR and an I5 for 174.00 EUR
As my budget is quite limited, I would have saved soe money.

But I was wondering if it was worth such a "saving"
Personnaly, I would go for IVY bridge motherboard, which will allow more evolutivity

 

[faster23rd]

Hi,

Yes, was buidling a gaming rig..

But I'm not a hardcore gamer just playing World of Warcraft, and some others games I would like to try : BF3, Crysis 2, ...

6 family was for me Sandy Bridge Family
7 family is Ivy Bridge.

the questions was :

Invest already into an Ivy or let's take a Sandy - a bit cheaper - and invest the saved money into a powerful CPU/GPU

You'd need a good CPU for those games.

My personal opinion would still be Ivy. The added price would be worth it if you take into account the reasons I've posted earlier (power efficiency, cooling).

If you want to save money for a GPU, get a lower tier Ivy Bridge i3 or i5, they'll serve you well enough.

 

[Berberis]

Ok then

Many thanks

 

[timarp000]

or wait for Haswell... It should be out in the next 2 months

 

[Berberis]

Hi Timarp000,

Was also thinking about it..

But I have the feeling this will be also more expensive than now, and since I'm not te be on the point of technology (and because my old Pentium 4 is dying every evening when I4m playing ) I would go for Ivy

Prices and if any delays are blocking me...

 

[J_E_D_70]

Typically the price points are the same (or very close to it). Intel chips don't get significantly cheaper over time.

Still, would go with IB since it supports PCIe3.0. Doesn't matter now, but might down the road since you appear to keep your PCs a loooooong time.

 

[spike15_mk]

or wait for Haswell... It should be out in the next 2 months

I am with timarp000 in this one. I recently bought a new rig, Asus P9X79 and i7 3820, and now I am getting scared of Haswell

 

[timarp000]

there wont be a big difference in price... maybe 10 or 15 dollars...

@spike - the 3820 is a really good processor so no need to feel bad

 

[RetiredChief]

1) Diff between IB and SB as far as CPU performance is concerned not a biggy between 5 -> 10 pecent for equivalnt speeds. NOTE - SB cpus will generally OC higher an easier than IB. For Small diff (at same speed) yes I'd go for IB cpu.

2) the real question is On MB, Yes the IB (7 Series is The choice) regaudless of SB or IB CPU. NOT because of CPU performance, BUT:
.. Pcii-e 3.0
.. Native support for USB3.
.. Increased Sata III ports.
.. Improved Chipset (for HDD) which provides a small boost (Probably not noticable) for SATA III SSDs.

Another diff between IB and SB used in 7 Series MB. is selection of Ram.
Specs for SB is DDR3-1333 @ 1.5 V (using DDR3-1600 voids SB Warrantee
Spec for IB Ram is DDR3-1600 @ 1.5 V and above 1600 voids warantee.
This is not a biggy as again outside benchmarks, not a big performance diff between 1333 and 1600 Ram

 

[darkspartenwarrior]

A Sandy Bridge at 5.0GHz is roughly equivalent to an Ivy Bridge at 4.6GHz in terms of power consumption, speed, and temperature.

However if you want worry free performance with no overclocking or tweaking, I'd reccomend Ivy, if you are an extreme overclocker, Sandy.

 

[InvalidError]

2) the real question is On MB, Yes the IB (7 Series is The choice) regaudless of SB or IB CPU. NOT because of CPU performance, BUT:
.. Pcii-e 3.0

PCIe 3.0 comes from the CPU, not the motherboard/chipset. Almost all 6x-series motherboards with Ivy Bridge i5/i7 support gain PCIe 3.0 support when you put an i5/i7-3xxx on it.

Both 6x and 7x series south-bridges (IO Hub) only have PCIe 2.x lanes.

 

[RetiredChief]

^ Concur you need BOTH a X7 series MB and a IB CPU for pci-e 3.0. The 7 series MB uses PLX chip set to controll the lanes. Quote form Anandtech "The forty lanes from the CPU are split into two lots of 16 for the PLX chips, and 8 lanes to the LSI chip"