New build for approx. £1700 (~$2500)

Dovetailed

Honorable
Mar 21, 2012
7
0
10,510
Hi All,

I am planning a new build to be bought on April 1st (end of the fiscal year over here in merry England, and also a day for fools) and was wondering if such wise folks as yourselves would care to share your thoughts? It's going to be an upgrade from a Intel Q6600 build with 2 Nvidia GT 8800 s in SLi built back around the end of 2007. I am giving the old computer, along with peripherals and monitor, to my girlfriend and so basically I'll need a new everything.

At the moment my current plan goes a little something like this:

CPU: Intel Sandybridge i7-2600K
MOBO: Asus P8Z68-V/GEN3
RAM: 16GB G-Skill Ripjaws X (4x4GB DDR3-1600 PC3 12800)
GPU: 1 x ATI Radeon HD 7970 (3GB GDDR5)
PSU: OCZ 850W ZX Series (80+ Gold Rated)
SSD OCZ Vertex 3 120GB
HD: Western Digital 2TB SATA
CASE: Fractal Design Define R3
FAN: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2

MONITOR: ASUS VE278Q 27" LED

Most of the peripherals don't really matter too much to me (aside from the monitor) so I'll be getting relative standard 5.1 speakers, and a microsoft keyboard/mouse set I imagine. I'll also be buying a copy of windows 7 and a basic optical drive within the budget.

The final key point is that I would like to leave the option open of upgrading to Crossfire HD7970s at some later date.

So, thoughts? And thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
 
If this is for gaming, drop the i7 for the i5-2500k. You won't see any difference once overclocked and HT is useless for games atm. Same with RAM. Drop down to 8GB because nothing in gaming needs more than 8GB. Everything else is great!
 

g-unit1111

Titan
Moderator
I wouldn't get a 2600K - go X79. It will be far more future proof and be able to take full advantage of the 7950 and 7970 out of the box without the Sandy/Ivy bridge upgrade problem. I'd probably scrap most of that build and get this - but I do like Fractal Design cases.

Here's what I would suggest without monitor/keyboard/mouse/OS:

Case: Corsair Carbide 500R - £87.00
PSU: Seasonic X760 Gold - £138.91
Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth X79 - £249.35
CPU: 3.6GHz Intel Core i7-3820 - £231.80
Cooler: Akasa Voodoo Venom - £39.95
RAM: 16GB (4 x 4GB) Corsair Vengeance Quad Channel RAM 1600MHz 1.5V - £81.79
SSD: 128GB Crucial M4 - £119.94
HD: 2TB Seagate Barracuda Green - £96.24
Optical: LG BD-R Burner - £63.95
Video Card: Power Color Radeon HD 7950 - £347.75

Total: £1,466.27

Use the difference for monitor/keyboard/mouse/OS.
 

Dovetailed

Honorable
Mar 21, 2012
7
0
10,510


Primarily for gaming and some mathematical simulation/numerical analysis (although there's a grid on campus that I use for the big stuff). I'm also one of those people that upgrades like once every 5 years, stuff such as HT which may be adopted in the next few years is a tempting gamble for me. Is the 2600k definitely just a white elephant?
 

flossbandit

Distinguished
Jan 11, 2012
222
0
18,690
the 2500k and 2600k are both going to be replaced in April. the performance isn't going to be all that much better, but you just won't have the latest and greatest.
 

g-unit1111

Titan
Moderator


The 2600K is a more multimedia friendly CPU - if you're using rendering applications, Adobe CS5, and things of that nature it's great. If you're working with big stat analysis programs, and anything that requires multi-monitor setups - I'd recommend going X79 as the multiple extra threads and large RAM capacities will allow you get through those big spread sheets and things like that quickly.
 

Dovetailed

Honorable
Mar 21, 2012
7
0
10,510


OK, so from the retailer I was looking at switching to the i7-3820 and Asus Sabertooth X79 and keeping everything else the same for the sake of comparison works out at around £100 extra (I could possible squeeze to this) is it worth it?
 

g-unit1111

Titan
Moderator


I'd definitely say so - you have to take a look at what your primary use for this PC is going to be - if it's business applications with gaming on the side, X79 is more than worth the cost. If the primary use is gaming with business apps on the side, that's where you go with the 2500K.

The thing is though is that the X79 platform is going to be around a far, far greater time after the dust settles between Z68 and the AMD FX-8150, and you'll be a lot better off with that high of a budget investing in the X79/3820 setup in the long run.