Buy 2500K in May or Ivy Bridge in June?

sanirudh

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Mar 21, 2012
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Hello,
I have shortlisted following components for a new build:

Corsair HX750 PSU
ASUS p8Z68-V pro gen3 motherboard
i5-2500k CPU
Samsung Spinpoint 1 TB HDD
Lite-On DVD burner
G.Skill 4GBx2 RAM (CAS 9)
Corsair Carbide 300R chassis

Approximate Purchase Date: May/June

Budget Range: 850-1000

System Usage from Most to Least Important: surfing the internet, watching movies, photo editing, possible video editing

Parts Not Required: LCD, speakers, OS, keyboard, mouse

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com

Country: USA

Parts Preferences: Intel

Overclocking: Yes

SLI or Crossfire: Maybe

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments: n/a


I was thinking of buying Sandy Bridge in April once Ivy Bridge arrives as SB Motherboard/CPU will be cheaper. Or I could buy Ivy Bridge in June since people get 30 days to return new (Z77) motherboards and (Ivy Bridge) CPUs. Or I could drop in an Ivy Bridge CPU in a SB motherboard.

Which one of these options should I go for? I have a HP Pavilion notebook which is slow to startup but works fine for the most part.
 
Solution
You could run the IB chip on a Z68 board with a simple BIOS flash. The Z77 boards will have more PCI-e 3.0 slots, but Z68 boards have them as well.

mojorisin23

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First off, i would go with the Corsair Carbide 400 or 500.... they are not that expensive $99 for the 400, 120 for 500 and offer much more than the basic 300.

what are you doing with this build? gaming? SB is find for the foreseeable future (2-3 years). When ivy bridge comes out, it will be more expensive than SB is now, let alone more than SB costs when IB comes out.

I would upgrade the case, bc its easy to upgrade any one part in the machine, but to upgrade the case you would need to remove every component inside.
 
Since you're using this as an office PC, I'd say the 2500K is the most you'll need. Heck, if you don't do editing very often, a better option would be an i3-2120; you get two very fast cores and hyperthreading to assist with the editing every so often. A 2500K is a waste for something that is only used to browse the internet 90% of the time.

I'd also drop the motherboard down to an H67, since you don't need the OC features and still get the integrated video.

With all of this, you'll need a ~400W PSU at most. 750 is about triple what your components would actually use, so you'd be wasting money on a massive PSU that will run at inefficient power levels (~50-70% is optimal for efficiency).
 

sanirudh

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Mar 21, 2012
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I was thinking of placing the case in my table, hence the 19" height restriction, but I could rethink that. I could also consider a non-overclockable CPU/motherboard to keep costs low and downgrade the PSU.

As for gaming, I plan to play Trackmania Canyon, which lists Intel HD2000 as its minimum requirement.
 

angaddev

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If you want a small case that can still handle ATX, try the Fractal Arc Midi, it has similar features to the Carbide, but it's much smaller.

Go with the i3-2120, since it's only an office PC. Also you won't need such a high end mobo and PSU. The Antec Earthwatts Green 500W is cheap and very good quality.

Also, other than Trackmania, do you plan to play other games? A GTX 460 with 256-bit memory can handle Trackmania without lag, and pretty much all other games on at least med.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130752
GTX460
 

sanirudh

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Mar 21, 2012
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Made following changes:

CPU - Core i3-2125 (HD3000 vs HD2000 in i3-2120)
Motherboard - ASUS P8H67-V Rev 3.0
PSU - Antec Earthwatts Green EA-430D (430 Watts)
RAM - G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 1333 2x2GB CAS8
HDD - Samsung F3 spinpoint 500GB

Build comes out to be about $530 as per newegg.com. (Breathes sigh of relief).

Would I benefit from a true quad-core like core i5-2400? I want to postpone adding a GPU. Still undecided about the chassis.

Any ideas on sound cards? Do they make a big difference to audio quality? I have an external USB-only DAC (HRT HeadStreamer). Also my speakers have TOSLINK inputs (Audyssey Lower East Side Media Speakers).
 

angaddev

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If you want a good sound card try the Creative Audigy SE, or any Asus Xonar.

If you do a lot of processing work then yes, get an i5-2400. Also if you are using processor intensive programs get 8GB of RAM so everything will run smoothly.

Also get the best GPU you can with the rest of the money, if you don't need such a high end one then you can save the money ;D
 

sanirudh

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Mar 21, 2012
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Changed mobo to angaddev's suggestion.
Changed proc to i3-2120.
Open to GTX460 and core i5 proc (not added yet)

Build comes out to be $540.

500W Antec Earthwatts is out of stock @ newegg. Can wait.
 

neon neophyte

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2500k performs near on par with ivy. also. i think prices are low right now because they are trying to move out the sandybridge stock before ivy arrives. so you might find a 2500k for 170 now, but something comparable will probably be in the 200-220+ region after ivy drops.
 

adgjlsfhk

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we have no idea about how the I5 2500k will compare to ivy. They are trying to clear a lot of the stock, but you still will be able to get the 2500k after ivy is released and it will be cheaper than it is now.
 

sanirudh

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I found i5-2500K for 180 at micro-center, 2 hrs away. I am not keen on waiting for ivy bridge, benefits are not expected to be tangible for the applications I run. (surfing, movies, photo editing, some gaming, programming)
 

Ryuudou

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I found i5-2500K for 180 at micro-center, 2 hrs away. I am not keen on waiting for ivy bridge, benefits are not expected to be tangible for the applications I run.

That was a bad choice unfortunately so close to Ivy. 15-20% increase per clock is very tangible, and the Ivy version of the 2500k will be the same price as the current one.

2500k performs near on par with ivy.

Entirely false. The i5 3550/3570K will be considerably faster than a i5 2500k based on i7 3770K reviews.
 

sanirudh

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I am not keen on going for a Z77 motherboard immediately at launch as I don't know its quirks yet. I wonder how an Ivy Bridge proc would behave on a Z68 motherboard. The PCI slots could come in handy for a sound card or something.
 

sanirudh

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I don't think I will replace CPU once I install it. As for motherboard, I would like to get 3-4 yrs of use with it. You suggest go with SB at IB launch or go for IB at IB launch?
 

devBunny

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If you have the budget and don't have tremendous urgency, I can't think of any reason why purchasing a Sandy Bridge is better than waiting a few weeks for the Ivy Bridge model that succeeds it. That gets stronger with every passing day. I'd hate to be someone who felt forced to purchase Sandy Bridge now, just before Ivy comes out.

benefits are not expected to be tangible for the applications I run.

You may well be right - a page load that's 40 milliseconds faster isn't going to impress - but future needs and interests may change.

If you're going to replace your computer in a year or two rather than in four or five years, maybe you won't really miss what Ivy Bridge has to offer but if you anticipate the longer time span then in those later years I suspect that you'd be glad of the extra oomph that Ivy Bridge has over Sandy Bridge.
 

sanirudh

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You mean 170 bucks for SB 2500K is tempting , right? If I buy IB, I will have the satisfaction of having the latest proc for about 6-9 months. Not sure when Haswell will release, not waiting for it.