E6400 to 2600K?

Hello,

I have been using the same system for quite a while now and it is certainly starting to show its age.

My current setup:
C2D [email protected] GHz
4096MB DDR2-800
Abit IP-35E
Antec 480 Watt TrueBlue 2.0
XFX HD 5770
Couple of 160 GB 7200 RPM HDs
Thermaltake big typhoon heatsink

The system just doesn't play games well anymore and feels very sluggish compared to my sandy bridge laptop.

I certainly want to upgrade the system but am not sure if I should just pick up a 2600k now or wait for Ivy bridge. Also I would like to see a improvement in gaming performance, I know the HD 5770 isn't all that quick but I suspect I'm being badly bottlenecked by the E6400 right now.

I am thinking about getting the following:

Intel Core i7-2600K
ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3
16 GB DDR3
A new power supply?
New heatsink?
Probably some other things I'm forgetting.

I've been out of the game for a long time and I'm not familiar with whats out there. Any suggestions from you guys? My budget isn't too high so I'd like to keep the upgrade as cheap as possible.

Thanks

Well I would consider getting a 2500k and a much better video card. There is a pretty big drop-off from the 58xx to the 57xx series. You did say it doesn't play games very well. The 5770 will be the biggest bottleneck by far.

FramePointer said:

Hello,

I have been using the same system for quite a while now and it is certainly starting to show its age.

My current setup:
C2D [email protected] GHz
4096MB DDR2-800
Abit IP-35E
Antec 480 Watt TrueBlue 2.0
XFX HD 5770
Couple of 160 GB 7200 RPM HDs
Thermaltake big typhoon heatsink

The system just doesn't play games well anymore and feels very sluggish compared to my sandy bridge laptop.

I certainly want to upgrade the system but am not sure if I should just pick up a 2600k now or wait for Ivy bridge. Also I would like to see a improvement in gaming performance, I know the HD 5770 isn't all that quick but I suspect I'm being badly bottlenecked by the E6400 right now.

I am thinking about getting the following:

Intel Core i7-2600K
ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3
16 GB DDR3
A new power supply?
New heatsink?
Probably some other things I'm forgetting.

I've been out of the game for a long time and I'm not familiar with whats out there. Any suggestions from you guys? My budget isn't too high so I'd like to keep the upgrade as cheap as possible.

Thanks

Click to expand...

Unless you have applications that take advantage of Hyperthreading (HTT), back off, get i5-2500K instead, and put your savings toward either a better GPU or power supply or both. i5-K, like any other Intel quad-core, will put serious snap back into darn near anything. I'm currently running an absolutely bone-stock Q6600 (straight replacement of equally-stock E3400, making no other changes), and saw frame rates either double or more than double. It's why although some games are looking forward to i5-K with glee, my eyeballs are looking toward the same CPU with some dread.

I can get the 2600K for about $40 more than the 2500K, so I don't think it makes too much sense for me to drop down to the 2500k. I also like to run VMs and do lots of multitasking/multithreading, I could use HT.

The GPU will need to be upgraded too, but I'd first like to see how much gains I get from just upgrading the rest of the system. After all, it is relatively more up to date than the rest of the computer.

I'm pretty much set on the CPU and motherboard. I'm less certain about RAM, power supply (around $60sih), LGA 1155 heatsink, maybe an SSD. Any suggestions on these?

My old Antec 480 watt has been rock solid, but I'm not sure if its a good idea to reuse it with this new system.

Also forgot to add that I game mostly at 1680x1050, I think the HD 5770 should be able to handle that on most games with a good CPU backing it.

How much are you paying for the 2600k total?

40 dollars is still 40 dollars that could go towards something else.

If you can get the 2600k for $40 more why not?

$40 more for the 2600k is worth it I'd say especially since you're going to be using it's capabilities. For ram just get the cheapest 1333 ddr3 and make sure it's 1.5v not 1.65. Ram speed matters very little with SandyBridge and has no bearing on overclocking. I would encourage you to get a new PSU to use with the new hardware, but that's just my personal preference (I've had a lot of woes with bad PSUs). 5770 is still a decent card. Save up and upgrade when the 7000 series comes out.

Get a better motherboard.... ASRock is a hit'n'miss kinda brand....

Nice config thought by you.

For heatsink look at Corsair H80/100.

FramePointer said:

Hello,

I have been using the same system for quite a while now and it is certainly starting to show its age.

My current setup:
C2D [email protected] GHz
4096MB DDR2-800
Abit IP-35E
Antec 480 Watt TrueBlue 2.0
XFX HD 5770
Couple of 160 GB 7200 RPM HDs
Thermaltake big typhoon heatsink

The system just doesn't play games well anymore and feels very sluggish compared to my sandy bridge laptop.

I certainly want to upgrade the system but am not sure if I should just pick up a 2600k now or wait for Ivy bridge. Also I would like to see a improvement in gaming performance, I know the HD 5770 isn't all that quick but I suspect I'm being badly bottlenecked by the E6400 right now.

I am thinking about getting the following:

Intel Core i7-2600K
ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3
16 GB DDR3
A new power supply?
New heatsink?
Probably some other things I'm forgetting.

I've been out of the game for a long time and I'm not familiar with whats out there. Any suggestions from you guys? My budget isn't too high so I'd like to keep the upgrade as cheap as possible.

Thanks

Click to expand...

Okay, I don't really know what is bottlenecking your system, and I don't know your laptop specs so I can't say for sure what your problems are. However, if you want to do VMs on this upgrade, then you really do want to go for the 2600k with the hyperthreading. I also would be more apt to think if its game performance you are after, then your GPU is likely the culprit. But you aren't running high resolution graphics, so its hard to say.

First off, what is your budget for this upgrade, and what things do you want to get? Here are some good questions taken from the General Hardware thread courtesy of DannyBui:

If you're gonna ask us to build/list a PC for you or seek advice about a build, please answer all of the following questions:

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
6) Will you be overclocking?
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?

By answering these questions you help us help you build a PC that's of better quality, better performing, cheaper or all of the above.

Click to expand...

Also your PSU should probably be fine for now, if you want to upgrade there are some good deals on 600W PSUs right now, but you are getting a low power chip, so I don't think you are really adding much power. If you do want to up the PSU, then the Antec Neo Eco 620 is decent and is usually priced low. If you can afford more, I would say the Corsair Performance lines (HX, AX) and Seasonic are great choices.

By new heatsink, do you mean instead of the stock? I would definitely suggest an aftermarket heatsink. The Cool Master Hyper 212+ is a very good heatsink for little money.

Finally I would also suggest going with a different board. The ASRock reviews have not been very good. I would try to go with a similarly priced MSI or ASUS board. Was that ASRock part of a 2600k bundle? If so, could you give us a link or what other choices for boards they gave you?

I am paying under half the retail price for the 2600k via Intel EPP.

I would also like to clarify that although I'd like this system to be able to game, I wouldn't call it a gaming system. The CPU power is more important to me than GPU. The gaming will be occasional.

As of right now I know that my HD 5770 is not what is limiting my performance. Often times I am able to get good frame rates in games at the settings I would like, but I experience stuttering, random drops in frame rates, etc. These all point to the rest of the system being the bottleneck. I experience lag from the hard drive taking forever to fetch files, excessive page file usage,etc.

NoOther said:

Okay, I don't really know what is bottlenecking your system, and I don't know your laptop specs so I can't say for sure what your problems are. However, if you want to do VMs on this upgrade, then you really do want to go for the 2600k with the hyperthreading. I also would be more apt to think if its game performance you are after, then your GPU is likely the culprit. But you aren't running high resolution graphics, so its hard to say.

First off, what is your budget for this upgrade, and what things do you want to get? Here are some good questions taken from the General Hardware thread courtesy of DannyBui:



Also your PSU should probably be fine for now, if you want to upgrade there are some good deals on 600W PSUs right now, but you are getting a low power chip, so I don't think you are really adding much power. If you do want to up the PSU, then the Antec Neo Eco 620 is decent and is usually priced low. If you can afford more, I would say the Corsair Performance lines (HX, AX) and Seasonic are great choices.

By new heatsink, do you mean instead of the stock? I would definitely suggest an aftermarket heatsink. The Cool Master Hyper 212+ is a very good heatsink for little money.

Finally I would also suggest going with a different board. The ASRock reviews have not been very good. I would try to go with a similarly priced MSI or ASUS board. Was that ASRock part of a 2600k bundle? If so, could you give us a link or what other choices for boards they gave you?

Click to expand...

My laptop is a Thinkpad X220 with an sandy bridge i7 2620M, 8 GB DDR3, 320GB 7200 rpm HD.


Thanks for the suggestions on the PSU and Heatsink, I'll look into those.
I might be wrong, but I heard the Asrock z68 extreme3 gen3 is very similar to the extreme4 and based on what I have read, they seem to be fine motherboards.
I realize that Asrock is fairly new to the game of performance boards, but I think it will suit my needs. I just want to be able to run the 2600k at 4.5 GHz on a daily basis. The board also has all the features I want for a reasonable price.

Anyway, I think I will upgrade the HD5770 when the next generation of cards come out from nVidia/AMD.

When you upgrade can I have that old piece of junk cpu you are getting rid of?

FramePointer said:

I am paying under half the retail price for the 2600k via Intel EPP.

I would also like to clarify that although I'd like this system to be able to game, I wouldn't call it a gaming system. The CPU power is more important to me than GPU. The gaming will be occasional.

Click to expand...

If you plan to do a lot of VM work, then upgrading to the 2600k may very well be worth it, along with getting as much RAM as you can get. Note thought that not all VM software will make use of hyperthreading, but I know VMWare does support it.

FramePointer said:

As of right now I know that my HD 5770 is not what is limiting my performance. Often times I am able to get good frame rates in games at the settings I would like, but I experience stuttering, random drops in frame rates, etc. These all point to the rest of the system being the bottleneck. I experience lag from the hard drive taking forever to fetch files, excessive page file usage,etc.

My laptop is a Thinkpad X220 with an sandy bridge i7 2620M, 8 GB DDR3, 320GB 7200 rpm HD.

Click to expand...

If your Laptop using Intel graphics is performing better than your desktop with the discrete card and given some of the things you were saying above about stuttering and lag, perhaps there is something wrong with your GPU?

FramePointer said:

Thanks for the suggestions on the PSU and Heatsink, I'll look into those.
I might be wrong, but I heard the Asrock z68 extreme3 gen3 is very similar to the extreme4 and based on what I have read, they seem to be fine motherboards.
I realize that Asrock is fairly new to the game of performance boards, but I think it will suit my needs. I just want to be able to run the 2600k at 4.5 GHz on a daily basis. The board also has all the features I want for a reasonable price.

Click to expand...

It might work fine for what you want, but I would first read this, it is HardOCPs impression of ASrock:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/09/asrock_z68_extreme4_gen3_motherboard_review/6

NoOther said:

If you plan to do a lot of VM work, then upgrading to the 2600k may very well be worth it, along with getting as much RAM as you can get. Note thought that not all VM software will make use of hyperthreading, but I know VMWare does support it.



If your Laptop using Intel graphics is performing better than your desktop with the discrete card and given some of the things you were saying above about stuttering and lag, perhaps there is something wrong with your GPU?




It might work fine for what you want, but I would first read this, it is HardOCPs impression of ASrock:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/09/asrock_z68_extreme4_gen3_motherboard_review/6

Click to expand...

I should have explained the laptop thing better, I was just saying that the X220 absolutely murders my desktop in general performance, but not in GPU performance of course.


I did read that motherboard review and it does sound troubling.

Though I wonder if it was just a bad unit.

Toms hardware gave it the "2011 Recommended Buy" for 200 dollar motherboards.

Here are some other reviews I found:

"The Z68 Extreme 4 keeps up the tradition of good build quality, using first-rate components and stable performance that has come to represent ASRock boards in recent times and having reasonable price tag for a board sporting the latest hardware doesn't do it any harm either."-Tech Radar


"Really, there's not much more that needs to be said about the ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 to be completely honest. It comes in at a really good price point as we've already mentioned, while at the same time looking really good. The bundle is a bit bigger than a lot of its competitors and on the overclock front it does a good job.

If you're thinking that you're going to make the jump to Ivy Bridge when it comes out and a possible HD 7000 series video card which should be PCIe 3.0, but you don't want to break the bank on the motherboard front, then this is a really good option. Paired with something like a 2500k at the moment, you're going to get a nice overclock and just some strong all round performance.

On the other hand, if you're just looking for a well-priced Z68 motherboard that looks good to handle the current crop of Sandy Bridge CPUs, then it's also a really good option that is worth considering."-Tweak Town

Of course I'm not looking at the extreme4, but the extreme3 is quite similar.

Anyway, I am willing to also look at other boards. Any suggestions for $115-130 boards?

HardOCP has done a few reviews of ASrock and none of them have been favorable. That said, that is just one review, if you feel confident in the other reviews, go with it.

Personally, I would probably go with this at that price point:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131773

If you can spare an extra $75-$100, a 64GB SSD drive would make a huge difference, too. I upgraded from a similar setup, and it screams. But, adding the SSD as a boot drive really made a huge difference. Put it all together, and it's a kick ass machine.

I didn't think going from a C2D at the same speed to the 2600K would be a big difference, but it really is.

I moved from the Q9650 to i7 2600K, both overclocked to 4.0GHz, and barely noticed an increase in gaming performance. It was more smooth and less stuttering, but in everything else like encoding, compressing and everything CPU intensive, Sandy Bridge was twice faster, I wasn't expecting that much of an improvement, but my jaw dropped!!

K1tty said:

$40 more for the 2600k is worth it I'd say especially since you're going to be using it's capabilities. For ram just get the cheapest 1333 ddr3 and make sure it's 1.5v not 1.65. Ram speed matters very little with SandyBridge and has no bearing on overclocking. I would encourage you to get a new PSU to use with the new hardware, but that's just my personal preference (I've had a lot of woes with bad PSUs). 5770 is still a decent card. Save up and upgrade when the 7000 series comes out.

Click to expand...

All too true - especially the *lower end* Sandies (those below i3 actually underclock the faster RAM speeds). If you can get decent-latency DDR3-1333 (MicroCenter's *house-brand* DDR3-1333 is all of $40 per 2x4GB pair every day, and it's 9-9-9-24 CL9), why overpay for the fancy stuff? It's due to the extremely low impact of lower-latency/faster-speed RAM when paired even with the Sandy Ks that led to my going with the above RAM with my i5-K. My experience with Q6600 has been driving the point home with a jackhammer (and that's even with said Q6600 being utterly stock).

NoOther said:

HardOCP has done a few reviews of ASrock and none of them have been favorable. That said, that is just one review, if you feel confident in the other reviews, go with it.

Personally, I would probably go with this at that price point:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131773

Click to expand...

Looks like a good choice.

I just went from a Q9550 at 4.0 to a 2600k at 4.6 with 16GB of RAM and the difference is unbelievable. I know it was late in the life of a GTX 580 to pay what they are still charging for them but I do not regret it in the least. Gaming is smooth and I haven't run one that it can't handle easily. This is finally the build that makes all other machines seem too slow to me. It's painful to use my laptop now.

Get a new power supply no matter what happens. The Truepower series used absolutely crap components. I'd be very surprised if there are no bad capacitors in there already.

Get the 2600K, throw in an ASUS Z68 mobo (see sig), 8 Gigs of ram, a 6950/GTX 570 with a 750w or higher PSU and you are set. :up:

MAYTe!!! I think this has all got overcomplicated - YES, you will see a terrific performance boost going from c2d to SB. Your choices are ok, except for the mobo, @ least get a Gigabyte board - the top tier mfgs have been making mobos for our sector for ages and support them with accumulated experience, Asrock cannot claim with that - and a H80 cooler for the chip. PSU is important, check the SB rig in my sig for a good PSU for your build.
As xxEIEIOxx attests,even late in the cycle, you won't care when you see how much better everything runs. Just don't go using any 10yo OS to run it, win7 64 will serve you well. Gl

Despite recommendations against the Asrock board, I've decided to stick with it after reading reviews of the extreme3/4 on other sites and boards. I don't need the extra features of the higher end boards, and don't need the highest OCs. A daily 4.4-4.5 Ghz 2600k is sufficient for me and the extreme3 seems to be able to handle that fine.


Ordered the following:

Intel i7 2600k
ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB 4x4GB DDR3 1600
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus Cpu Cooler
Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W Continuous Power
Antec Three Hundred Illusion ATX Case
NZXT Fan controller


Still need an SSD to use as a boot drive since my mechanical drives are all slow and ancient now.

FramePointer said:

Despite recommendations against the Asrock board, I've decided to stick with it after reading reviews of the extreme3/4 on other sites and boards. I don't need the extra features of the higher end boards, and don't need the highest OCs. A daily 4.4-4.5 Ghz 2600k is sufficient for me and the extreme3 seems to be able to handle that fine.


Ordered the following:

Intel i7 2600k
ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB 4x4GB DDR3 1600
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus Cpu Cooler
Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W Continuous Power
Antec Three Hundred Illusion ATX Case
NZXT Fan controller


Still need an SSD to use as a boot drive since my mechanical drives are all slow and ancient now.

Click to expand...

Isn't about features, is about component quality, ASRock is known to skimp on some quality components like VRM. Gigabyte and Asus usually uses the best solid capacitors for their VRM, hence more stable overclock and durability. Of course I doubt that someone will hold onto a mobo like that for over 5 years, but who knows how much a midrange mobo will last with such high clocks for Sandy Bridge.

FramePointer said:

Despite recommendations against the Asrock board, I've decided to stick with it after reading reviews of the extreme3/4 on other sites and boards. I don't need the extra features of the higher end boards, and don't need the highest OCs. A daily 4.4-4.5 Ghz 2600k is sufficient for me and the extreme3 seems to be able to handle that fine.


Ordered the following:

Intel i7 2600k
ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB 4x4GB DDR3 1600
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus Cpu Cooler
Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W Continuous Power
Antec Three Hundred Illusion ATX Case
NZXT Fan controller


Still need an SSD to use as a boot drive since my mechanical drives are all slow and ancient now.

Click to expand...

You have 2 options for that now with the Z68. You could get a 40GB drive cheap and use it as a cache, or you can maybe get a slightly bigger one to put the OS on and your favorite applications. If you want to save money, I would suggest the cache. If you really want better performance all the time, I would put out a bit more money and get a full SSD to load as much as you can on. It all just depends on what you want to do and what you want to spend.

If you are going to be utilizing VMware, it might be worth saving a few dollars and just going with the 2600 instead of the K as you gain VT-d support. That is to say, if overclocking is not on your agenda but even then, the 2600 can be slightly overclocked from 3.4 to 3.8 with all cores loaded.

Then again, it looks like you already ordered the configuration. Oh well, a day late and a dollar short but something to keep in mind.

As far as the SSD, I would limp along with an old HDD until some good deals come up again like on BF, with the Intel $120-130 rebate on the 160gb 320 model. No EPP deals on Intel SSDs?

If you have a lot of spare cash, I like my Vertex 3 240gb, but it is not really noticeably faster in every day use compared to my old Intel X25M 80gb. The extra space on the newer bigger drive just lets me keep more VMs open at a time.

skizzled said:

If you are going to be utilizing VMware, it might be worth saving a few dollars and just going with the 2600 instead of the K as you gain VT-d support. That is to say, if overclocking is not on your agenda but even then, the 2600 can be slightly overclocked from 3.4 to 3.8 with all cores loaded.

Then again, it looks like you already ordered the configuration. Oh well, a day late and a dollar short but something to keep in mind.

Click to expand...

Hmm, I did forget that the 2600k lacked VT-d. That does suck but I guess I'd rather have the unlocked multiplier. Luckily my i7 2620m in my Thinkpad X220 does have VT-d.




As for my problem with storage, I thought about sticking with mechanical drives, but my old SATA I era disks are painfully slow. 35-50 mbps sequential reads/writes is pretty sad these days.

I ended up buying a crucial M4 64 GB SSD which will be used to store the OS and commonly used apps.

I'll put the old mechanical disks into raid (4x160GB disks in raid 0) to be used for storing games and data that's not important (since a bunch of old and worn drives in raid 0 is probably a recipe for disaster).

I also have a fairly new 320 GB 7200 rpm disk to act as a reliable storage disk.

When I get more funds, I'll probably throw in another crucial M4 64gb for a raid 0 SSD setup.