Upgrade Q6600 or Buy New i7 920? - Page 2

you are not listening to me. are you? do not buy stuff unless you need it. buy it individually if you find a very very good deal. Otherwise, buy it altogether. You can save on shipping fees. also, it is easy to return. save the money first. buying is easy. Ok?

After looking at the prices I can get for all this stuff for $630 including shipping and rebates...

Newegg:
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 (open box item) -$200
Corsair 850TX PSU -$119

Microcenter:
i7 920 -$230
Corsair XMS3 6GB DDR3 1333-$70!

I may just have to put my order in right now...

@one-shot
Can you elaborate? I'm saving over $70 if I get it open box... I can get an open box from microcenter for $215 plus tax, which would be easier to return in the event there is a problem, but they both guarentee it to work 100%

I know it's a little bit of a risk, but it's quite a bit of money I could save... What are your reasons for me not buying it?

if you will be overclocking to 4.0 with i920, you should change your ram as well. Get this ddr3 1600 ram. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820227381

That way you do not need to oc your ram.

Get this motherboard.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128374

and this is very good cooler. Make sure it fits in your case. That cooler is awesome.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835608007

These are the parts i am using now. My 920 i7 is running happily at 3.8g. very easy to oc. clean bios layout.

a final tip. Get a cooler like i mention you above.

You are correct, the non Deluxe version does have smaller heatsinks, but it can still overclock a good CPU to 4.0Ghz which says that they are more than adequate. Htoonthura is also right about the 1600Mhz ram. I mentioned it in one of my earlier posts as a must have. The board he recommended is also very good. I'm trying to decide if I want the Asus P6T Deluxe V2 or the Gigabyte UD4P he posted. Either is great and the Asus P6T is a very good board despite the "smaller" heatsinks.

There are many benchmarks that show there is a very very small if any benefit of having 12GB of RAM. 6GB is great and some can get by on only 3GB. Don't let the 12GB memory limitation scare you off. I have 4GB in my current system and have come nowhere near using all my memory and that's running Crysis and another game minimized switching back and forth.

EDIT: The i7 920 is not limited to 1333Mhz ram. So get the 1600Mhz kit and you'll be happy.

you are right. 1600 ram will have no stress at all since they are tested at that speed. if you go with 1333, you have to oc the ram to reach 4 g. So, get the 1600 ram.

yes, 1600 ram will work even if you do not oc at all.

If he wants to overclock his CPU without overclocking his RAM, he will then need 1600MHz DDR3. Have you missed every other post besides the ones you type? If he gets 1333MHz ram and it doesn't overclock well, then it limits the full potential of his PC. Is the $20< difference really worth it. SIGH.........

SIGH.....................................I didn't say 1333MHz RAM will not clock well. I said "({[- IF -]})" he gets 1333MHz ram, AND it doesn't clock well, he will be forced to user a lower Base Clock. The lower base clock on an i7 920 will give him an overall lower CPU clock speed. AGAIN, you did not read the post, but instead displayed your inability to comprehend a post that is trying to help the OP. 1600MHZ RAM will not have to be overclocked since the freq of the RAM may never reach 1600MHz with relation to the CPU multiplier and Base Clock speed. 1333MHz ram will have to be overclocked when he overclocks his CPU to a high freq. Read, reread, then read again, because you obviously do not get it.

you could always try software to overclock your CPU.

Yes, again I get it that I don't get what the damn hell are you talking about. Again: I do not need your posts to know does 1333MHz overclock well. And why the f**k would he want to overclock RAM??? Okay if it was DDR2 667 MHz, but man, 1333 F'ing MHz!!!

Keep one thing in mind, he has to have, mobo, CPU, RAM, PSU and a GPU if he doesn't have one, X58 have no on boards, all at the same time so that he can make sure everything works and that he doesn't need to get an RMA. None of the stuff in his old set up will allow him to test the new stuff. He will have to spend about $700 at once.

Have you decided already? I am hardly waiting to see what have you bought and have you chosen the right path

I am where you are at, I am about to go X58. I have a couple of PCI GPUs which will work to make sure that everything works, I bought an Antec EA750 PSU which I have put into this PC to make sure it works? Well sort of? This system cannot put but a teaspoon of stress on this PSU. Anyway on my next expenditure I will have to bleed out.

Curently I plan on getting a Gigabyte X58, not sure which, 920, 6GB of RAM and some cooler none of which have I narrowed down to what brand model. Mid grade GPU and PCIe SSD can be added latter.

My current Pooter is something that someone put out on the curb to be taken away, a HP with a 3.06 ghz celron D, 160GB IDE HDD, DVD-RW w/LightScribe, multi card reader, 512 DDR which I replaced with 2 sticks of Corsair value ram.

In my case I see it as better to go I7 as most of my stuff has very little viability left in it (that's what I tell my self so that I can relapse into my addiction of getting the trill of the build).

Well, I DID make a decision a little while ago, and decided it would be best to upgrade to i7.

This is what my computer looks like right now:

Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz
ASUS P6T Deluxe X58
3x2GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333
1x WD Caviar Blue 500GB (for OS) and 2x WD Caviar Black 500GB (Raid 0, for applications/storage)
Corsair 850TX
EVGA 8800GT
Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro

The observent individual will notice that everything is different from my OP except for the video card, and the HDD's.


For your listening pleasure, I will now tell my fairly amusing purchasing experience...

I bought the PSU and sound card through newegg. The sound card was literally a last second decision, as I noticed newegg was again offering a combo deal that included a really nice headset, and I had to have it. The PSU is great, and the sound card/headset is actually really awesome. It's quite immersive for games (FPS's in particular) and for rocking out to music. I might just have to pick up Guitar Hero on PC to experience what it's like with EAX effects and those bells and whistles I paid for. I paid about $280 before rebates for these items.

I bought the three major components (CPU, Mobo, RAM) from my local Microcenter. Everything had just recently been marked down tremendously, and I think I would have paid several hundred more dollars if I had shopped even a few weeks earlier. I DID opt to purchase a open-box mobo from them, and I am sorry to say that it may not have been worth the $50 or so that I saved. The first one I picked up with the rest of the parts had several bent pins in the CPU socket. I returned it the next day after work, but as luck would have it, it wasn't merely raining, but it was POURING rain and I think there was a tornado warning, but I was determined damn it! I got another open-box mobo, and not one to be fooled twice, I told the guy behind the returns desk that I was going to inspect it in front of him to make sure everything at least LOOKED ok this time. No bent pins, no broken ports, nothing out of the blue, and just as I was about to put it back in it's anti-static bag, I noticed the CMOS battery was absent. (I later found that it had fallen out and was still in the box) I got him to give me the one from the board I had just returned, wrapped my new board up in my coat, (Yes, I cared more about keeping my new hardware out of the pouring rain more than myself) and drove home soaking wet. I think I paid about $560 before rebates for these items.

The new board works fine, and I haven't had any problems with it at all. I'm happy with my decision. It was awfully expensive, but I am confident now that everything I've got is pretty top-of-the-line, and I shouldn't have to upgrade anything for at least several years. (my video card being the exception) I plan to overclock at some point, but for now I'm still breaking in the new hardware.


I created a post in the graphics card forum requesting help on what video card would be a good replacement, but it got very little attention.
LINK HERE

Thanks again to everyone that helped to educate me, and thanks for all the opinions and suggestions.

Great system AMD. I decided to go with the for the replacement of my current board/CPU/RAM

i7 920
P6T
6GB DDR3 1600MHz

What cooler did you get for the 955? Also, 2 4890s would look great in Xfire.

WOW, that cooler costs way too much. I would highly recommdend the Xigmatek HDT-S1283. It is relatively inexpensive and works very well. I'm using the same one on my i7 as I did on my last CPU. It will also cool better than that Zalman despite the massive difference in price.

What are you thinking of getting for GPUs?

The Xigmatek HDT-S1283 is for CPUs. It's one of the best CPU coolers. IMO I think it's the best price/performance of any cooler.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835233003

It looks to be on sale with MIR for around $26. I got mine last year for 36.99 + 6.99 for the socket 775 retention bracket. It comes with an AM2 bracket so I assume it should work for AM3.

EDIT: I mean to say what kind of GPUs are you thinking of getting? Dual 4890s? or 4870s?

Ah sorry, stupid of me, but it just sounded like that GPU... I'll probably be happy with one 4890 for quite some time, because getting 4870x2 seems pointless. DX11 cards are coming at the beginning of 2010, so getting a faster dual DX10 card will be a waste of money. Same for Crossfire. Two cards would be a waste of money... If my 9800GT satisfies all my needs and runs a great portion of the games at maximum (with AA, except Crysis, of course), then there's really no need for more.

And it's all coming this wednesday

No, it doesn't work like that for me. It won't be a problem to RMA because I'm not ordering from Newegg or something. Instead, I'm buying it from a local shop for a much higher price than on those sites. Why? Because I live in a trash dump called Serbia, which has so much taxing that you can't imagine (except you live in it, of course). And because of that, anyone can put thrice the price on any component, and anyway it will be cheaper to buy from him than order from America. Sigh... At least they are testing the configuration before they give me, so there are no worries. And, even if something happens after all, the store is ten meters away from me and they usually got everything stocked.

PS: I am curious... How does Crysis work on your system? Are you able to max out everything (on 1680x1050) with a little Anti Aliasing? I saw a video on youtube with same graphics card but with a Phenom II 920, and it ran as smooth as hell on enthusiast. And I don't think it's a problem that you don't have a quad, because this game is highly optimised for Intel and doesn't benefit so much from 2 more cores. And do you think the game will run as smooth on 4890? My 9800GT handles 1680x1050 maxed out with 2xAA in multiplayer. In Singleplayer I have to drop the AA, but the game still runs fine (not nearly as smooth, of course).

I usually play with everything on high except ultra high shaderr, water, and physics @ 1920x1200 with no AA. I usually get right around 30fps with my single GTX 260 C216

Haha I already have 30 posts! Hehee... lol

Thank you mate.

Haha, I hate waiting for things in the mail, especially computer parts. I just ran Crysis @ 1680x1050 @ all very high no AA. My i7 920 is overclocked to 3.6GHz and the GTX 260 Core 216 is mildly overclocked. I don't think the CPU speed changes much because the game is more GPU limited. My average FPS with the resolution was about ~30FPS. I usually run it at 1920x1200 with all high and very high shaders, water, and physics. The max FPS at the tested resolution was 58FPS and the lowest I saw was 25FPS using FRAPS. I prefer running the higher resolution with lowered graphics versus lower resolution and higher graphics in this case.
I hope that helped.

Haha, Good morning. I actually just got done feeding my i7 some PIIs for breakfast. A 4890 is a little bit better than a GTX 260 Core 216. I'd say 4890=GTX 275 and GTX 260 Core 216=4870 1GB.

I had a 20", 22" and 24" in the past 17 months and I love my 24". I don't plan on trading it off like the others. Except the Samsung 22" died prematurely. After we compare Crysis we can compare some rendering and encoding, too! haha

EDIT: Also, when we do the benches. I think 1024x768 and medium quality on everything tested with the included Crysis benchmark in the game folder. Four runs and paste the results like I have shown below. This way it'll be CPU limited instead of GPU limited at the resolutions we normally game at. I can run the 64Bit test, but I can only get the results after running a set of the 32Bit tests for some reason. The 64Bit results are a little higher. I also overclocked my GPU for the test even though it shouldn't matter much at all because of the low resolution.

When you get yours ran through I'll post my scores up so we can compare.

Also, if you could copy and paste your results directly off of the Command Line. It should look something like this

Running CPU benchmark 1
Results will depend on current system settings
Press any key to continue . . .
Running...
==============================================================
TimeDemo Play Started , (Total Frames: 1500, Recorded Time: XX.62s)
!TimeDemo Run 0 Finished.
Play Time: XX.07s, Average FPS: XX.03
Min FPS: XX.70 at frame 875, Max FPS: XXX.03 at frame 717
Average Tri/Sec: XXXX332, Tri/Frame: XXXXX
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: X.07
!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
Play Time: XX.31s, Average FPS: XX.00
Min FPS: XX.81 at frame 895, Max FPS: XX.73 at frame XX
Average Tri/Sec: 663X84, Tri/Frame: 6XX51
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: X.06
!TimeDemo Run 2 Finished.
Play Time: XX.04s, Average FPS: XX.73
Min FPS: XX.81 at frame 895, Max FPS: XX.73 at frame 354
Average Tri/Sec: 67X232, Tri/Frame: 67X18
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: X.06
!TimeDemo Run 3 Finished.
Play Time: XX.25s, Average FPS: XX.37
Min FPS: XX.81 at frame 895, Max FPS: XX.73 at frame 354
Average Tri/Sec: 66X36, Tri/Frame: 67X18
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: X.06
TimeDemo Play Ended, (4 Runs Performed)
==============================================================
Press any key to continue . . .

I'll say this in Serbian now:

Phenom II стиже сутра! Ура! Lol... Phenom II is coming tomorrow! Horray!

Oh, I'm losing myself... Better go and watch South Park.