Spend more on cpu or mobo?

charold

charold

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 7, 2011
Messages
314
Im purchasing a new sandy bridge setup seeing as how much I can sell my q9650 for.

I'm trying to keep it as close to $400 as possible for mobo/cpu/ram (8GB RAM). I'm deciding on whether to spend the extra $50 ($50 off mobo's at microcenter with a 2600k) on the core i7 2600k and buy a slightly cheaper motherboard, or purchase the i5 2500k the spend a bit more on the mobo (i'm thinking the asus sabertooth or p8z68v gen 3).

Suggestions?

edit for additional info: I'm using it primarily as a gaming rig, but I do a lot of virtualization using vmware and I plan on installing vsphere soon. I also do a fair amount of video encoding/ripping of dvd's as well.
 
for your use id go with 2600k and slightly cheaper mobo...what kind of o/clock you trying for?
alot depends on what kind of o/clock your wanting to achieve....how cheap of a motherboard are you looking at? which ones....
 
Hyperthreading is overrated. Go for the 2500k and get a high quality motherboard.
 
Yeah which mobos are you looking at? I would not get a cheap motherboard, but if you are looking at a decent midrange board + 2600k vs High end board+2500k, I would go with the 2600k setup.

A good solid, midrange board will be fine.
 
well, if you are using things that can take advantage of hyperthreading that is one thing, but if you are primarly gaming with "work" a second thing, I would go the 2500k route, still one hell of a processor as not "everything" uses hyperthreading well enough to justify its extra cost(overall, not in a cherry picked example)

If you are able to pick the stuff that will, then that maybe the better choice, but that all hinders on the motherboard attached, never good to have something not getting the full potential of what you are using after all.

$100 difference can get you a better motherboard(as you mentioned) it can also get you an aftermarket cooler to help you push up the clock speed and still be at a resonable temperature (much easier with a better motherboard)

2500K
Z68 or P67 such as ASUS z68 V or V-pro or P67 Sabertooth revision B3
hyper212+ with extra fan
Gskill ripjawX or Vengeance memory kit 8gb

It will still be plenty fast no matter what you want to do with it, the better motherboard, well, to me I would prefer balanced, not a sick cpu and decent motherboard but an awesome cpu and very good motherboard, but that is just my opinion. Games dont really benefit overall from a 2600k over a 2500k, they really dont, only a handfull do, same with the "work" tasks, yes there are "some" that do, but the 2500k will do these just as fine, maybe a bit slower, but with an overclock it should bring it close to matching it anways :)
 
Encoding with Premiere and other apps I use will use all cores as well as all the games I play, MW3, BF3, etc...
premiere-test.jpg


I am also going with a 2600K and an Asus board soon, selling my i7 870 and mobo to a friend next week so I can upgrade.
I am looking at this board since it has 8 SATA ports.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...-na-_-na&AID=10440897&PID=3891137&SID=rewrite
 
charold said:
Im purchasing a new sandy bridge setup seeing as how much I can sell my q9650 for.

I'm trying to keep it as close to $400 as possible for mobo/cpu/ram (8GB RAM). I'm deciding on whether to spend the extra $50 ($50 off mobo's at microcenter with a 2600k) on the core i7 2600k and buy a slightly cheaper motherboard, or purchase the i5 2500k the spend a bit more on the mobo (i'm thinking the asus sabertooth or p8z68v gen 3).

Suggestions?

edit for additional info: I'm using it primarily as a gaming rig, but I do a lot of virtualization using vmware and I plan on installing vsphere soon. I also do a fair amount of video encoding/ripping of dvd's as well.
Click to expand...

If you are doing a lot of virtualization and encoding, I would take the $50 off the 2600K and go that route. You aren't going to see any kind of performance difference between a $150 Z68 board and a $200+ one, the only real difference would be in the connectivity options. Something like the Asus P8Z68-V or the Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 would be perfectly fine for your purposes. Or you could go with a P67 board, if you don't need integrated video support, and find a good board for $120 or so.

Zepher said:
I am looking at this board since it has 8 SATA ports.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...-na-_-na&AID=10440897&PID=3891137&SID=rewrite
Click to expand...

I would not recommend an Asus P8P67 board - they had way too many problems with the early versions of those boards. If you want P67 I would get a Gigabyte or MSI instead. Asus Z68 offerings seem to be fine though.
 
Forceman said:
I would not recommend an Asus P8P67 board - they had way too many problems with the early versions of those boards. If you want P67 I would get a Gigabyte or MSI instead. Asus Z68 offerings seem to be fine though.
Click to expand...

Yeah... and their RMA service doesn't have a great rep.

I went with the Biostar TP67xe and I'm pretty happy with it so far. I would have preferred Intel for the NIC and some more SATA ports maybe, but for the price it's hard to beat.
 
V or Vpro Z68 work well apprently if Z68 features are something that you would like, P67 sabertooth are excellent boards, 2 in my clan have em and they have never had in issue with them.

2600 non k would be cheaper and offer all the cores+hyper thread, only real issue is obviously locked multi but, there should still be at least a good margin for OC headroom if you wanted this route.

Anything in the B3 revision should be fine for an P67 based board, ASUS should be no exception, but its worth looking at reviews and user comments before you settle on something.

2 in my clan with P67 sabertooths B3 revision, 1 using a V pro, one using P8P67 b3 revision, and one using a gigabyte based one for sandy bridge(forget which) all work fine, no real issues I have heard.

I think the major things with Z68 vs P67 was as said some more connectivity options, and possibly some features. Another thing might be better component selection used or pci-e connectivity, but I think the last 2 points is more on the board and not the chipset directly.

Find a board that has plenty of reviews/user opinions, check the driver support, and find the features you want, from what I have heard, at least for multi-gpu use, the Z68 overall are just a better choice(maybe based on the baords available more then anything else though)
 
Id get the 2500K and get the best motherboard you can afford.

Im a big believer in buying the best motherboard you can. Its not only the foundation of your rig but will also determine how much you can upgrade it. Its also the hardest part to upgrade. Thats not to say you need a $300 Rampage board but you need to get something solid. The $170 Maximus IV Gene-Z is a good example or especially the $190 Sabertooth P67. Both are bulletproof and will last you a good long time.
 
for the sabertooth, I would either A)make sure to use the fan for the "thermal armor" or B) take that armor off and use it as a good motherboard, it really is an excellent board, more temp probes and such then I have ever heard of on any previous board it can also handle very solid overclocks among other things.

I know one of my buddies went from P67 to Z68 as even with the same pci-e links the Z68 for one reason or another just got more performance from his dual GTX590s then he had with his previous P67 board, not sure why.
 
Wow, there were a lot of differing opinions. I have an h50 and plan on overclocking. I have overclocked every chip I've ever owned, but don't push it to the max. I'm really only looking to get to 4.6, anything past that is just the cherry on top.

I tried to do some research (limited time though being at work) and had a hard time finding if virtualization (specifically vmware) can take advantage of HT? In the guest OS's obviously you are still limited by application support. That really will be the deal breaker for me. I've bought everything from $100-350 boards, and honestly other than features, and maybe a slightly higher overclock, I haven't really noticed much of a difference. (Asus Maximus II was the last high end board I bought). Obviously, I usually do mid-high overclocks, but never extreme (except a pentium dual core e2120 running at 3.8ghz until it burned up just for fun).
 
This is all it boils down to, if you have apps and such that can truly take advantage of the extra cores i7 any version is worth it, however, as a general rule, "most" things are not seeing a huge advantage behind the extra cores, very few things see much of an added benefit beyond 4 cores, or at least not truly gaining 8 threads worth of increased performance, so is it really worth that what $100 price difference between 2500k-2600k 4 core 4 thread vs 4 core 8 thread. Not to mention the increased heat/power(if this matters to you)

If it was in a professional environment where every second counts, then by all means get the best, but for someone sitting at home, having say threads ripping a movie in 1 min flat compared to 4 ripping it in 1 1/2 minutes but getting equal performance in pretty much everything else, why not save the coin?

From my pick it was bewteen a sabertooth 990FX or M5A99X EVO, almost identical in pretty much every regard, sabertooth slightly better overclocking headroom, and slightly better for multi-gpu performance(with the cards I can afford) I decided to save the extra few $.

I still sat exactly that, if you "can find use for it" with what you will be using, not what you may be using, then spring the extra few $ for the 2600 non k or if overclocking to the upper limits then get the K variant. It is better to have the better motherboard though. motherboard manufacturers are not stupid, they will keep their best motherboards, the one with the most features, stability, and headroom a little above what most are willing to pay, there are exceptions, but generally this $ point seems to be around the $140-$190 mark at least for motherboards.

single gpu and not using the extra sata ports or whatever, P67, if you will at some point use multi-gpu or the extra features then it might be better to go with Z68, after all, they are gauranteed to be the newest revision Intel speced out, and in a very simplified sence, that may make or break any other difference. That and there is a much better chance(with the right board) that it will support Ivy bridge when it releases, Z68 are "more" likely to do so then P67, if that matters to you of course :)
 
Really, with the IMC and the first 16 PCIe lanes on the CPU, there isn't really much for the motherboard to do anymore, except provide decent power - and pretty much any mid-range ($130-180) board is going to do that just fine. The Asus P8Z68 series, for example, all use the same power configuration, even through the price range from the -V to the Deluxe covers almost $100 - the extra money is just buying you extra connectivity in the form of extra SATA 6GB, 1394, or LAN ports. Really no need to spend more than $150-175 for a board unless you have to have that connectivity.

Edit: I would add that if you want to save money, I would do it by getting a mid-range P67 motherboard, not by dropping down to a budget Z68 board like the Asus P8Z68-V LE or LX (which may have fewer power phases and limited CrossFire/SLI support).
 
Last edited:
MacLeod said:
Id get the 2500K and get the best motherboard you can afford.

Im a big believer in buying the best motherboard you can. Its not only the foundation of your rig but will also determine how much you can upgrade it. Its also the hardest part to upgrade. Thats not to say you need a $300 Rampage board but you need to get something solid. The $170 Maximus IV Gene-Z is a good example or especially the $190 Sabertooth P67. Both are bulletproof and will last you a good long time.
Click to expand...

after building computers for since 2001. I to agree. Yesterday i just bought a Asus Gene-z/Igen III with PCIe 3.0 support and a 2500k .. I will just sell this chip and get a IVY in 4-5 months. In the mean time with my vengeance memory kit and a xigmatek heatsink and fan i should hit 4.5-4.7 no problem. Also i got my chip at newegg which you are more than likely will get a newer stepping or manufacture date than microcenter. I am retiring my Q9550 at 3.61 after 3 years. The 2600k is overated and not worth the extra loot , with the new ivy just 3-4 months away i wouldnt spend more than 270.00 on a processor unless you are going to see a huge difference, just due to the fact the cpu will be dropping in price once the ivy chips are released in april.. However Since i dont plan on upgrading after IVY for at least 1.5 years i do plan on jumping into a IVY with HT. Maybe the thread starter should just get an 8 core amd chip. Also he is talking about running 8gb ram lol.. I think a guy who wanted to run multiple OS's in a virtual environment would want at least 16+ gb ram. I bought the 16gb kit for only 82 bucks
 
Define high-end.

You should be able to get this for about $350 or so.
  1. 2500k
  2. Asus Z68 V or V-Pro
  3. 8GB g.skill from newegg.
  4. Hyper 212+
 
Haiku214 said:
Lol that is $200 + $200 + $40 + $30 = $470 + tax
Click to expand...

after several hours of research this is the best bang for your buck on newegg.com
Got free 2 day shipping , newegg has some smart shopper deal, signed up for a free 30 day trial which gives me free 2 day shipping on anything on the store ... kinda like amazon prime.. also got a 20 dollar rebate on the heat sink fan

Item Number: Item Description: Quantity: Price:
N82E16835233081 CPU COOLER XIGMATEK| LOKI SD963 R 1 28.99
N82E16813131806 MB ASUS|MAXIMUS IV GENE-Z/GEN3 X79 1 189.99
N82E16820233143 MEM 4Gx4|CORSAIR CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9 1 82.99
N82E16819115072 CPU INTEL|CORE I5 2500K 3.3G 6M R 1 219.99


so like 501.00 grand total no tax.. After i sell all my parts q9550/9800GT/8gb ram/asus p5q/
should come out only spending about 200 for this upgrade.

the thread starter should just go with this setup and spend the extra money.. Forget the 2600k not worth the extra 100.00
 
Forceman said:
Why not just get the P8Z68-V Gen 3 for the same price, and avoid having to deal with the mATX space constraints?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131792

If you want 16GB, why not get this G.Skill kit for $72 after promo?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231497
Click to expand...



The Asus Maximus Gene-z/III is a better board overall, due to overclocking and onboard features i.e. sound SupremeFX X-Fi 2, 2 ESATA ports, better onboard troubleshooting. Republic of Gamer boards are the best out there. Well worth the money.. I personally have no need for PCI slots , and are just a waste of space.


I would of went with GSKILL and i am a big fan of them. However if you go on the asus website the asus maximus gene3/III was tested with 4x4 16 gb corsair vengence not gskill.. 10 bucks more isnt a big deal to me as long as i get the recommend ram that could possibly keep the same overclock or better. I am sure i could of gotten 2133mhz ram for my board but i did not want to run 4 or 8 gb ram, i am sure though i will overclock the corsairs to 1866 on this board with no issues.

The board i just purchased was released 2 days ago and is the best asus board out right now that is future proof. Unless you have mad loot and get a 2011 socket. If there was a p8p7 or p67 chipset with PCEe 3.0 support i would of went that route. But from what i am hearing z68 is more stable and reliable than the p67 chipsets. If you look at the benches though the p67 is a very slightly better mobo in benching but you would be stuck at pcie 2.0 why get that when all video cards being released in the future are pcie 3.0
So for the money you are better off getting a Maximus Gene-z /III , made for gamers and overclockers. I should have my computer built by thursday night so i will report back with my 2500k . I will most likely get 4.5-4.7 stable . I will be surprised if it gets higher.
 
Last edited:
I will end up buying ivy next year anyways, so I've decided on 2500k for now.
 
Last edited:
More on the Mobo for sure. You should buy a really good mobo and a cheaper CPU then down the road upgrade the CPU and have a super solid system. Thats my 2 cents...
 
I myself would have went with a hyper 212+ in push/pull excellent low cost cooler, better then H50, and almost as good as an H70(yeh I know ppl will say bs, but many reviews that cut to the mustard point this out)

Not that the H coolers are bad, but they are kind of pricey for what they give in a performance standpoint, and from my understanding, when they need to ramp up they can get awfull loud, though a 2500k doesnt get as hot as a 2600k either.
 
dragonstongue said:
I myself would have went with a hyper 212+ in push/pull excellent low cost cooler, better then H50, and almost as good as an H70(yeh I know ppl will say bs, but many reviews that cut to the mustard point this out)

Not that the H coolers are bad, but they are kind of pricey for what they give in a performance standpoint, and from my understanding, when they need to ramp up they can get awfull loud, though a 2500k doesnt get as hot as a 2600k either.
Click to expand...

i just went with a 29 dollar xigmatek heatsink and fan.. 20 dollar rebate.. I really dont see the benifit of buying a h100 or h80 for 100 bucks. You are only going to net maybe a 300-400mhz overclock if you are lucky.

I bet i will get to 4.7 stable with my 2500k and ROG gene 3 board. You are better off just putting the money into a video card or 2700k
 
So you got a $9 heatsink, thats awesome :O

I would put it into a better gpu or a better cooler such as D14 over a corsair unit(not that they are bad, just $ fro what they do) for not much more you can get a smaller custom loop that will put an H or Antec unit to shame, O and if you were thinking of 2500k-2600k-2700k the 2700k is so not worth the extra cost vs the other 2, be better just to spend the extra chunk for a Sandy-E and make them all look silly :p

After all, a good cooler will net you a better overclock(couple hundered mhz at best for air or liquid for the most part) the difference being small for the extra cost compared to most decent but low end coolers hyper212 or hyper 212+ as examples, very excellent, take an i7 920 original, they put out alot of heat, the difference in temps, clocks, voltages are really not worth the extra cost for the better coolers, maybe 50mhz or so and maybe 5c or so if setup correctly. Huge price difference though.

Either way, hope you enjoy your bvuild, and hope it does well for you, if you are using a sabertooth(thats the one with thermal armor correct?) you would be best off to get the extra fan designed for it or take the armor off, it looks cool, and works well, but without that fan the temps do go up, and with the armor on, there are certain "traits" about it, anyways, enjoy :)
 
Given what you can achieve on most quality motherboards with a 2500k or 2600k I am going to disagree with the crowd here. You can get badass overclocks with simple boards like the ASUS P8Z68-V or the MSI Z68A-GD65 G3. ASUS even uses the same voltage hardware for the entire P8x6x line and uses the same UEFI options with all of them as well. This means that the cheapest boards are capable of everything the high end boards are capable of in terms of overclocking and stability. Buy the board based on what features you need or think you are likely to use down the road. If you aren't going to use a ton of SATA ports, SLI, dual NICs etc. then spend the money you saved on the cheaper board on a better CPU.

It's ridiculous to buy a P8Z68 Deluxe and a Core i3 2100 when you could have purchased a P8Z68V Pro and a Core i5 2500K instead. (Just a rough example.) The The LGA1366 days were really about the last era where you could basically buy whatever board you wanted and a really cheap CPU and get the same performance you'd find with the $1,000 CPU for less than 1/3 the price. These days Intel doesn't allow that. Cheaper CPUs tend to lack features you might find important or lead to more performance. Performance you can't necessarily get by increasing the clock speed alone.

I'd say the Core i5 2500K is the best mid-range CPU and the Core i7 2600K is the best value for mid-range and high performance systems. Especially if you mess with VMs, fold or encode video. If you want high end workstation performance on a decent sized budget without going all out with a $1,000 CPU plus all the goodies, then the 3930K is where it's at. Though the price of admission goes up on the motherboard and memory.
 
dragonstongue said:
So you got a $9 heatsink, thats awesome :O

I would put it into a better gpu or a better cooler such as D14 over a corsair unit(not that they are bad, just $ fro what they do) for not much more you can get a smaller custom loop that will put an H or Antec unit to shame, O and if you were thinking of 2500k-2600k-2700k the 2700k is so not worth the extra cost vs the other 2, be better just to spend the extra chunk for a Sandy-E and make them all look silly :p

After all, a good cooler will net you a better overclock(couple hundered mhz at best for air or liquid for the most part) the difference being small for the extra cost compared to most decent but low end coolers hyper212 or hyper 212+ as examples, very excellent, take an i7 920 original, they put out alot of heat, the difference in temps, clocks, voltages are really not worth the extra cost for the better coolers, maybe 50mhz or so and maybe 5c or so if setup correctly. Huge price difference though.

Either way, hope you enjoy your bvuild, and hope it does well for you, if you are using a sabertooth(thats the one with thermal armor correct?) you would be best off to get the extra fan designed for it or take the armor off, it looks cool, and works well, but without that fan the temps do go up, and with the armor on, there are certain "traits" about it, anyways, enjoy :)
Click to expand...

Actually the heatsink fan was on sale for 29 with a 20 dollar rebate..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&cm_mmc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel-_-Content-_-text-_-

The 2011 socket is a waste of money .. It wont run circles around my 2500k when its overclocked. I dont do photoshop or encode, i can wait a min longer to encode a movie. Also having 16gb ram is enough for me to have several programs open or windows. IDC about Virtual M, i just game. I purchased the asus maximus gene-z version III for 199.00 . With all that money you are putting into cooling i could still net a good overclock with my board and purchase another GTX 570 to go SLI and destroy a 3930k socket 2011 for the money you spend on a 6 core +watercooling. in games you have no advantage at all except maybe running 4 different games in the background and not taking a cpu hit. Watercool kits are good for a 3930k ,i970 or the new bulldozers but really dont do much for 2500-2700k processors since they are already energy efficient. I used to do high end air cooling, watercooling, phase change back in the day.. I am well verse that spending 100-200 dollars on cooling is throwing money down the tubes unless you just want to get a few points higher on benches to brag that you got 10 FPS higher or 2k 3dmarks higher . I guess i have better things to waste cash on, i just dont do extreme overclocking anymore as a hobby. Now if it was possible to overclock to 5.5+ gigahertz on a intel chip with water yeah totally worth it. But i highly doubt you are going to get a chip that will do it. oh 6 cores or 8 cores are just a waste of cash until games uses all the threads which probably wont be until 2013. So by then i will most likely upgrade again and be 2 generations ahead of todays processors. I would jump into it now and get a 6-8 core if you like to run servers, VM, Encode 20 million blu-rays a month while gamming. Spend the extra 300.00
thats just my personal opinion for today computing. Hopefully one day video cards will catch up to cpus and so netting a high overclock will actually help alot.

cu power is not going to help you todays games its the video cards. I could run a average heatsink like i bought for my cpu overclock it to 4.2 Ghz and went with 2 GTX 570s and destroy a 3930k overclocked with a single GTX570 watercooled cpu. So anyone reading this just get another video card first and dont wast your money anything over 50 bucks on a cooler.
 
Last edited:
I agree on the cooling side, now with the cpus we currently use it is nowhere needed as much as it may have been, well unless you have that $1k cpu that eats fire and spits nuclear holocaust.

As far as the motherboards, a good chunk of the ASUS Z68 boards are similar, but the higher end boards are there for a reason, why would anyone give you all the exact same specs more or less at a fraction of the price. From my understanding example Z68 LX and LE do not use same Vregs nor as good heatsinks and such as the V or V-pro. I did recomend these for a reason, they also do tend to have a much higher tolerance for a higher overclock then the aforementioned LX or LE among other things like sata ports, multi-gpu wiith full speed, onboard sound, better nics and such but most of this is "features" as you have said, agreed. Though like you pointed out, there is no real need for the avergae person to have these $400 motherboards that are really only catered to the extreme users and offer features not really a bump in the performance side, example in my case M5A99X EVO-Sabertooth 990FX-Crosshair V, spec wise not much different, only real difference is a couple of connections(sata and such) better mulit-gpu ability, and a slight headroom for overclocking(100-200Mhz on average with a very good chip)

Also, obviously having a fast cpu with an equally fast gpu makes a world of difference, try declocking them and watch what happens to your gaming performance, better to have "meshed" parts then stuff that massively overpower them(bottlenecks) but this is fact, few games use beyond 4 threads as it stands, some are starting to, but its the exception, not the norm.

Most everything is limited by the amount of memory it is using and the speed of the processing be it gpu or cpu, having a 50core cpu running at 3.2Ghz will not make a hug whack of difference until they can get said cpu to pur all of its power into single threaded performance, or at least, use all its resources on a common function, something that is changing, but is most certainly not there quite yet.

The biggest performance boosts you can usually see, is a faster cpu overclocked or more powerfull, faster gpu be it overclocked or a more powerfull one, a good amount of ram being utilized properly, and things such as SSD which make the cpu not have to wait as long to do things. I know just overclocking the cpu/gpu can make a huge difference, more in Nvidias case though(they are more reliant on raw clockspeed)
 
Might a bit late posting this to the thread, but I give a shot anyway:

I do not understand the talk about the 2500K and 2600K here, all xxxx-K CPU's from Intel are crippled regarding virtualization due to the lack of direct contact to the hardware (VT-d). Maybe it is to avoid companies to exploit the overclockability, but only the non-K variants of 2500 and 2600 supports VT-d
 
Aslund said:
Might a bit late posting this to the thread, but I give a shot anyway:

I do not understand the talk about the 2500K and 2600K here, all xxxx-K CPU's from Intel are crippled regarding virtualization due to the lack of direct contact to the hardware (VT-d). Maybe it is to avoid companies to exploit the overclockability, but only the non-K variants of 2500 and 2600 supports VT-d
Click to expand...

Most people couldn't give a crap about virtualization in their processors. They'll trade VT-d for overclocking any day of the week. If I'm building a gaming machine, it seems like the right call. If I build a server for virtualization then yeah, VT-d matters. I also wouldn't be as interested in overclocking the server. Different market segments for different products for people with different priorities based on their needs. That's why these products exist.
 
?? never heard about this, but I pulled a post from a different forum, do not know if it is fact or nor, and I doubt it has anything to do with the overclockability
-----------------------------------
--------------
The description of what VT-d is exactly is blown a little out of proportion. It's not that ALL virtualization capabilities are not present. In fact, VT-d isn't even an option in some of the original Sandy Bridge models, although they still supported VT-x

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/t...-2100-tested/2

VT-d is really just starting to be taken advantage of in some of the popular virtualization options. Sure, at the enterprise level there are more virtualization options, but I can tell you that the enterprise level customers are highly unlikely to be the ones jumping immediately to SBe.

Who knows. There might just be a better CPU choice for virtualization in the near future anyway.
--------------------------------------
--------
This was regarding Sandy-E btw, but it points it out. Also isnt VT-D a type of Virtualization as is VT-X, I assume, it depends on the VM used or something? I have no experience in this regard but I don tknow.

I guess point being, if one were concerned about errats, bugs and such as much with Intel as they seem to be with AMD, no one would be using any modern processor :p

All the current chips are very good, and very fast, of course they cannot do it all for various reasons, time, cost to develop, architecture used, something that needs a different stepping, or to aovid competing with thier own product lines. Needless to say, servers rarely rely on pure clockspeed, why do u think most "work" chips are clocked low, have lots cache, lots of memory channels and such, I would assume, using them the way they should be used, its more about efficeny, and overclocking/high clocks, most certainly do not help in this regard.

Anyways. The original post was cpu or motheboard, there was no direct question for anything else :)
 
I'd get the 2500k and spring for a better mobo. I see no reason to get the 2600k over the 2500k. Spending an extra $100 for what exactly? It only preforms a step better, if that. I also see no need for a $200 motherboard, $150 seems like a good price. which will keep you well under your $400 budget.
 
Dan_D said:
Given what you can achieve on most quality motherboards with a 2500k or 2600k I am going to disagree with the crowd here. You can get badass overclocks with simple boards like the ASUS P8Z68-V or the MSI Z68A-GD65 G3. ASUS even uses the same voltage hardware for the entire P8x6x line and uses the same UEFI options with all of them as well. This means that the cheapest boards are capable of everything the high end boards are capable of in terms of overclocking and stability. Buy the board based on what features you need or think you are likely to use down the road. If you aren't going to use a ton of SATA ports, SLI, dual NICs etc. then spend the money you saved on the cheaper board on a better CPU.
Click to expand...

I had no idea about that. I always thought that the cheaper the board, even with the Asus P8 line, that it would use cheaper hardware than its more expensive big brothers. So the $125 P8Z68 LX is no different in terms of its durability of caps and other components as a $270 P8Z68 Deluxe? I always thought a board like the Deluxe would have components that would handle so much voltage that you could weld with them where the less expensive boards would use cheaper and less durable components as you went down the price range (to a point obviously. I know a $60 H61 board will have bargain basement stuff).

I know youll get more cool features like extra SATA ports, NIC's and maybe even a good sound card but for somebody like me that just games and overclocks and just wants the most stable, durable and abuse proof motherboard I can get, I can get away with the $125 board?

Have to say that my humble little midrange ASRock board I bought for $90 sure seems to prove your point. I bought it because while it lacks features, its 140 watt CPU rated with solid high end caps and its been a champ. Ive abused the shit out of this thing with voltages as high as 1.6 and more crashes than I could possibly count over the last 3 years and 4 CPU's and its never so much as whimpered and fired up after every crash like nothing happened.
 
The P8Z68 LX does not use the same components as the rest of the line - well, it might be the same components, but it doesn't have as many power phases and it doesn't support x8x CrossFire/SLI. The P8Z68-V, -V Pro, and Deluxe are all the same. the LE and LX are different.
 
Reading says Gigabyte has put out boards that are being recalled because of power problems, there is supposed to be a video on You Tube of one failing spectacularly. People not wanting recall can get protective/restricting firmware for the boards involved.
MSI has been known to cheap out on their power VRMs without protective monitoring on some of their boards. Do not know if this is still current.

Asus has been using quality over a very wide range of boards.

Wish everyone got that right all the time. Or the VRM heatsink issue.
 
The type, the amount of caps/phases, as well as certain limitations in bios, even the heatsink present for the caps and such.

I would do a side by side comparison of the spec difference of the Asus Z68 lineup, I know the z68-m might be a little different, But I very honestly doubt, and almost know for a fact that there will be differences on the overclocking headroom and stability, not to mention changes in some of the chips being used or at least the pinouts for certain things such as ethernet, sound, sata/usb and such.

I think of the intitial lineup LE-LX were closer to the same, and the rest being V-V pro-Deluxe and that maximus or whatever it was called were close to being the same, the amount of things I stated above applies.

Example, my M5A99X EVO is much close to the sabertooth 990FX in terms of everything, but even then, the sabertooth has a hair better feature set, slightly better component selection, and it can overclock better on average.

ASUS of all companies is anything but stupid, they are excellent engineers, not sure if that means they put artifical limitations on things, but, at least in terms of the AMD 900 motherboards
M5A97-M5A97 EVO-M5A99X EVO-Sabertooth 990FX-Crosshair, the crosshair bar none had the most of every feature stuffed on it, but was also very $ for it, sabertooth is a little more pocket freindly not as many bells and whistles but close, 99x EVO cut a few more things, and on average overclocking headroom wasnt quite as good, A97 both boards are not close to the same in almost ever regard, they are ok boards, nothing wrong with them directly, but, if compared to thier more $ brothers, the sata performance, overclocking, temperatures, pci-e performance etc, then its kind of silly to go less then I would say A97 EVO and even then.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top