Need advice 2500k + 560ti OR wait for ivybridge i7 + 680 GTX

[_Brute_Force_]

Approximate Purchase Date: in about 2 weeks or 3 month

Budget Range: $900-$1000 (would be higher if i waited, tho not sure if i can)

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Games, development (visual studio, eclipse,.. etc), some After Effects and video editing

Parts Not Required: Monitor 23" 1080p

Parts Preferences: Intel and nVidia
basically the i5 2500K and the GTX 560ti (most probably gigabyte)
OR the new ivybridge i7 and GTX 680
(everything will be new, just asking about CPU/GPU combination)

Overclocking: No

SLI or Crossfire: No

Monitor Resolution:1920x1080

Additional Comments:

Well, my first thought was to definitely wait, but I'm not sure how much benefit I will get after waiting 3 more months, and spending almost double my budget (tho i know GTX 680 can probably beat 560ti SLI).

I will be playing on my monitor 1080p res, I'm actually upgrading from my old hp laptop (Centrino 2 2.0 and 9200GS), its starting to really get over my nerves. so i'm not sure if i can wait anymore.

So is it a waste of money to go with the old (very soon to be outdated) build, or should I suck it up for a while and wait for a new build?

Thanks in advance

 

[metal orient]

I would just upgrade you'll see a massive performance increase anyway (i came from a laptop as well a few months ago). Unless you really have to have the latest and greatest an i5 sandy and a GTX560Ti/6950 will be good at 1080p for quite a long time.

 

[johnsonma]

No reason to get the i5-2500k if your not going to overclock, also the new graphics cards coming out are insanely faster than what was previously available.

 

[Why_Me]

Ivy Bridge is due out April 29th. What the benchmarks will be is anybody's guess. Also the gtx 680 is only the first of the Kepler cards, more are due out soon that will be cheaper than the 680.

http://www.asrock.com/microsite/PCIe3/overview.html <----- Quick and brief rundown of Ivy Bridge, PCI-E 3.0 cards and the new gen boards.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/index.asp?s=1155 <---- Those are Asrocks Z77 and Z75 board line up so far...although they are going to add more boards here soon. Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI also have their boards ready to go. They all get released with Ivy Bridge.

 

[hotthree]

Here's what I would do..

i5 2500k..then 680. If you wait for the latest greatest you'll always be waiting. Ivy is shown to be only a minor upgrade for SB owners. However the 680 is huge over a 560ti.

And 4gb versions will be out soon apparently if you do end up waiting. Only way you'll ever use or need that is for eyefinity with 30"er's

 

[venur]

Ivy-bridge hss been set bavk to june. grt a i5-3500. The k is for overclocker. Then get a 680gtx or a cheaper gpu but try to get someting faster then a 560ti if you can afford it. Also you have no use for an i7 as a gamer

 

[_Brute_Force_]

thanks for the answers, I see most of u recommend the 2500k now (difference is quite small if I choose the locked version so I think I'll go with the unlocked)
does that mean the PCI-E 3.0 isn't important? ( I know that we barely max the PCI-E 2.0 x8 let alone x16)

as for the GPU, the GTX 680 will be about twice as fast as the 560ti, but its also more than double the price.
and from what I read they stripped its direct compute chips, so less performance in AE and GPGPU.
taking these factors in consideration, made the 560ti look favourable, esp. it will easily max games on my monitor.

what do u guys think?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

A $500 GPU versus a $200 one and the conclusion is it's "probably better" ? You can drop the probably ..... Though it's a safe bet (and yes, I read that ya said SLI: No) that two 560 Ti's for $400 with 2500k will outperform the $500 680 w/ Ivy Bridge with plenty of room to spare.

Ivy Bridge will bring increased efficiency but not all the much is expected in the way of gaming performance. The 2500k w/ 680 should be a 3rd choice

 

[_Brute_Force_]

well, I was also thinking about getting the 560ti as a temp card till I see what is that GK110 everyone is talking about and I said SLI: no because I don't want to invest too much in a very soon to be outdated technology.

 

[dontcrosthestreams]

i5-2400 and gtx 680

 

[Memnarchon]

Hello.
There are a few benchmarks about the ivy's at Anandtech. They used an engineer sample I guess...

And here are the rest of the gaming tests: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5626/ivy-bridge-preview-core-i7-3770k/9

It seems promising for a wait of only a month.
I would suggest from you to wait, it's a free performance boost after all.

ps: The benchmarks are for the i7 you wanna buy

edit: Also by waiting for ivybridge, there will be more custom cooler GTX680...

 

[loops]

I just got my system finished in the last month or so. I was waiting too. From what I have gathered from waiting (it took me almost 6 months) is that there is truth to the waiting game being silly as things will always get better from when you jump in.

That said, I'd wait for the 560ti to go on sale. Once it does compare to others and see what is coming out and when. Make the call at that point. I have seen the 560ti go bellow 200.00 w/ MIR. That would be my line in the sand. My hunch is that a sell will hit, other cards will be out. It may be something like this 560ti at 180ish vs new card at 225ish.

Also, do add the cost of SLI and PSW when looking at total price.

 

[Why_Me]

<---- More Kepler cards due out soon.

 

[_Brute_Force_]

It seems promising for a wait of only a month.
I would suggest from you to wait, it's a free performance boost after all.

ps: The benchmarks are for the i7 you wanna buy

edit: Also by waiting for ivybridge, there will be more custom cooler GTX680...

there 2 things here that worth mentioning
1) it isn't much of a free upgrade since I'm going for the 2500k, not the 2600k, so I'll still have to pay around 60% more for that processor.

2) I can't base a decision like this on a single game benchmark!

 

[_Brute_Force_]

http://static.vizworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/NVIDIA-600-1-595x411.jpg <---- More Kepler cards due out soon.

thx for the reply, but I don't think these are correct, since the GTX 680's die size is 294mm2, 1006 clock and 1536 cores(actually nothing is right in that table lol)
this seems to be an old rumer, don't think I can use it to decide.

 

[Why_Me]

there 2 things here that worth mentioning
1) it isn't much of a free upgrade since I'm going for the 2500k, not the 2600k, so I'll still have to pay around 60% more for that processor.

2) I can't base a decision like this on a single game benchmark!

I have no idea what a 2600K and 2500K have to do with Ivy Bridge. Ivy Bridge comes in i3 (dual core), i5 (quad core), and i7 (quad core w/hyper threading). The 2500K is an i5 (quad core w/no hyper threading) just like the Ivy Bridge i5 cpu's.

The cost for a Ivy Bridge i5 should be about the same as the 2500K...in fact it should be cheaper seeing how it's on a smaller die (22nm) than the Sandy Bridge cpu's. Smaller dies = less cost.

 

[Memnarchon]

there 2 things here that worth mentioning
1) it isn't much of a free upgrade since I'm going for the 2500k, not the 2600k, so I'll still have to pay around 60% more for that processor.

2) I can't base a decision like this on a single game benchmark!

First of all you said about going for i7 ivy. You can just go with i5 Ivy and it will be a free performance boost.

Second, this is not a single game benchmark, its a benchmark that uses a lot of cpu thats why I linked that.

Third, after the picture you can see a link to 10 gaming benchmarks.

Its your call after all. We are just suggesting.

 

[Why_Me]

there 2 things here that worth mentioning
1) it isn't much of a free upgrade since I'm going for the 2500k, not the 2600k, so I'll still have to pay around 60% more for that processor.

2) I can't base a decision like this on a single game benchmark!

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Nvidia-Kepler-GPU-GeForce-600-Series,14642.html <---- That's the entire Kepler line up according to Toms Hardware. You have google search and you can easily look up the entire Ivy Bridge line up along with the entire Kepler line up. But instead of us trying to convince you to wait, maybe you should just stick with the Sandy Bridge cpu and older vid card technology. Google search is easy enough to use. Just type in your question and start clicking links. No rocket science involved.

 

[_Brute_Force_]

I appreciate all the advice, but it seems you are trying to answer which is better instead of their performace in relation with their prices which was my original question.
without a doubt i7 ivy will be better, but will it be the same case with i5, there is no benchmarks, so is it worth it to wait to find out?
its quite obvious the older build is cheaper, but will it retain its value? (I just don't want to regret buying something)

 

[Tavo_Nova]

i5 2500K (for now this is all you need for gaming) you don't have to buy ivy bridge, just stick with i5 2500K then upgrade to whatever comes after ivy bridge, it should be better and a bigger boost from an i5 2500K

why i5 2500k compared to non K
-it's better since for just a few more bucks you can overclock it in the future if you so ever desire. (note if you live near a microcenter go grab those 180$ i5 2500K they are a steal price)

if you can go with a gtx680, evga if a must if you live in US or something that you can live up with it's step up something program.
or go with msi/asus(msi/asus gtx680 is going to be released in my country at a price tag of 687$ each it's such a $%^&* over priced) so if you can find them at 400-520$ then go grab it a single one of those should last you ver~~~~~~~~Y long. until games catch up to it's behind unless game developers goes bushido on gpu's and make minimum requiremet a gtx580/amd 7870 then that's bad.

as much as possible i do really recommend buying a single 680 it's such a great card at least that way you don't need to worry about sli problems and just play great with really playable FPS.

for PSU go with a x-660 or a x750 from seasonic 80plus gold. (IMO 680 consumes less power than 580) and with 750w 80plus gold you got all the room to spare to whatever you do with your rig.

for case any case with nice ventilation is great.

if you plan to buy any aftermarket cooling at the same time which is not really needed but it would be for the best as it helps make the case temp go lower go with the CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO or if you have a plan on getting a big case then a noctua nh-d14 is your best bet as to not make it look stupid with something small. (I had a i5 2500K with a cm hyper 212 evo on a Corsair 800D lol it looks drawfed inside but too lazy to change something inside so yeah i kept it that way)

hdd go with seagate 500gb 7200rpm or some good samsung HDD

 

[Why_Me]

I appreciate all the advice, but it seems you are trying to answer which is better instead of their performace in relation with their prices which was my original question.
without a doubt i7 ivy will be better, but will it be the same case with i5, there is no benchmarks, so is it worth it to wait to find out?
its quite obvious the older build is cheaper, but will it retain its value? (I just don't want to regret buying something)

The 2600K and 2500K trade punches in every gaming review w/benchmarks that Iv'e ever read. One comes out on top in one game, the other in another game. The only game I know of atm that takes advantage of hyper threading is FSX although there may be other games that do, I just can't think of any atm.

With Ivy Bridge...here's what to wait for. Benchmarks of course. Over clocking...it's on a 22nm die and should eat up and spit out Sandy Bridge in that dept. along with running cooler, using less juice along with other goodies you will most likely never use. But the big question (at least for me) is PCI-E 3.0. Will games take advantage of it right away, what will the benches be like with PCI-E 3.0? You only get PCI-E 3.0 with Ivy Bridge. No other cpu out there other than Ivy Bridge supports PCI-E 3.0

Again it's your call. Buy now or wait for the benchmarks to come out. If Ivy Bridge tanks than you know what to get. If it's better than Sandy Bridge then you know what to get. Every Sandy Bridge cpu (i3, i5, i7) has a "doppelganger" with Ivy Bridge.

 

[_Brute_Force_]

The 2600K and 2500K trade punches in every gaming review w/benchmarks that Iv'e ever read. One comes out on top in one game, the other in another game. The only game I know of atm that takes advantage of hyper threading is FSX although there may be other games that do, I just can't think of any atm.

With Ivy Bridge...here's what to wait for. Benchmarks of course. Over clocking...it's on a 22nm die and should eat up and spit out Sandy Bridge in that dept. along with running cooler, using less juice along with other goodies you will most likely never use. But the big question (at least for me) is PCI-E 3.0. Will games take advantage of it right away, what will the benches be like with PCI-E 3.0? You only get PCI-E 3.0 with Ivy Bridge. No other cpu out there other than Ivy Bridge supports PCI-E 3.0

Again it's your call. Buy now or wait for the benchmarks to come out. If Ivy Bridge tanks than you know what to get. If it's better than Sandy Bridge then you know what to get. Every Sandy Bridge cpu (i3, i5, i7) has a "doppelganger" with Ivy Bridge.

I totally agree with you about the PCI-E 3.0, actually its the only thing thats making me think twice, on some level I'm ok with sacrificing 10-15% of the performance and probably the difference between the 2 processors will not be much more than this, especially most of my work doesn't really need/utilize the hyperthreading.

Its also funny how everyone is recommending the GTX 680, I know the 560ti will be missing the multi-monitor support and the adaptive v-sync, but from my point of view its an entirely different class of GPU.
you see it will be pretty much half the power in games (which i'm ok with since my monitor isn't that big and i'm not planning an upgrade anytime soon), however in direct compute, the 680 is only 10-40% better than the 560ti (according to the anandtech review).
So actually even if i wait, on some level, 560 ti might still be a better option for me.