Building a 2600K machine

[alkemyst]

I currently have a AMD 955 (@3.75GHz) and 6870 video card, mixed ram and a 990FXA-UD3 motherboard, Full details are at http://www.30moons.com/pc_chiapet.php

I was hoping to build a 4790K or 6700K system, but right now as a family of 6 with a stay at home wife to watch our 2 year old I can't just blow that kind of cash. I was then looking into just adding a FX8350 to my board, but it looks like the 2600K is still a better chip.

I got a great price on a 2600K and Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD4 combo. It came with a nice set of 2x4GB RAM and I plan to sell my 16GB (4x4GB) of unmatching DDR3 to offset my new Trident 2x8GB 2133Mhz ram. I am looking to find a 7970 for video. I picked up a 4GB HGST to update my data/backup storage.

I currently have a Thermalright TRUE for cooling with a couple Gentle Typhoons in push-pull. I have the 1155 bracket on order.

I still want to get an SSD eventually and the Mushkin Reactor looks like a great bang for buck.

Is there anything I should change above (different motherboard or a different video card)? Is my cooling going to be fine.

The 2600K still looks like a great performing chip and was what I really wanted when I bought my 955 years ago. I ran intel back in the day and then upgraded to the AMD boosted x86 chips, then to the Celeron 300A and Tualtins and then back to AMD here and there along the way. I am not a fanboy of either chip.

I am hoping to get 4.5Ghz on the new chip and call it a day. I don't really game so much anymore, but I like a snappy system and to handle good game play when I do. I game at 1920x1200. I do open large spreadsheets and esp. Visios. I also fire up VM's time to time (network engineer). 16GB is handling that well and now I have the option to go to 32GB if I need too. If I have to give up some overclocking running 4 sticks in the future I will, the 16GB sticks are still not available in the best clockings.

Thanks, and if anyone has a 7970 (looking for a GHZ or PCS+ model) let me know.
Å

 

[sinisterDei]

I'm a tiny bit confused - you already have 16 GB of RAM, and you plan on selling it to recoup a portion of getting 16 GB of RAM? I realize you plan on moving to 2133 MHz from 1600 MHz and down to 2 sticks instead of 4, but performance wise you'll likely not feel a thing. If you want 32 GB for your VM work then fine, go with 8 GB sticks, but otherwise you're probably fine with the memory you've got. Additionally, you cannot use 16 GB sticks on the Z68 platform - the consumer Intel chips max out at 32 GB (8 GB DIMMs max) until you hit Skylake or better, and then they go up to 64 GB (16 GB DIMMs).

Your 6870 is definitely your limiting factor for any gaming - even prior to the 2600k upgrade. You can look for a used 7970/R9 280x (they're the same) or just aim for something like the RX 470, which can be had for under $150 and beats the pants off a 7970 while using less power/generating less heat/noise. Even a GTX 1050 or RX 460 will beat the crap out of the 6870, so it's all a matter of cost and expectations.

If your primary usage is 'business' type things, a SSD will be of value. Hell, a SSD is the most important part of making a computer feel 'quick' these days for me. My advice, make sure you buy a big enough one; there's not a whole lot of fun having a SSD not big enough to have more than just a few things installed on at any given point. New games are 50 GB+ in size, so those 250 GB SSDs fill up fast.

 

[horrorshow]

those 250 GB SSDs fill up fast.

Yeah they do

 

[serious]

First, congrats to your new family members.

The problem nowadays isn't on the speed of the CPU, but the speed of PCIe. Sandy Bridge only supports PCIe x 2.0, where Ivy Bridge and up supports PCIe x 3.0. While this won't be a bottleneck for your GPU, it will bottleneck your NVMe SSDs. No, you may not get one this month, but you may get one eventually down the road, and you don't want to replace your system when you do.

I suggest you to wait just a little longer as Ryzen is around the corner and people are holding on their new purchase. When it comes out, then a sea of used PC will flood the market regardless of how Ryzen performs.

 

[doug_7506]

Good advice as mentioned. My $0.02.

-Use the ram you already have. As mentioned the speed won't make a difference you'll feel.
-buy a cheap/used ssd. They are tons of great deals of them on eBay. The mushkin reactor is a great bargain even at new price. Even if you get a used 240gb ssd, buy a cheap 1tb or 2tb platter drive and stick all your games on there. An SSD is the best upgrade when it comes to everyday task. Just makes everything feel faster.
-7970/280x will be a huge upgrade. But what kind of power supply do you have? The 7970 is a power hog. I would probably try to grab a gtx 1050 or 1050ti if you can swing it. Probably only 20-40 more than a used 7970 and you'll also have warranty piece of mine, a quieter card, and a card that sips power instead of chugs it (which might add a few years to your aging psu).

 

[alkemyst]

I'm a tiny bit confused - you already have 16 GB of RAM, and you plan on selling it to recoup a portion of getting 16 GB of RAM? I realize you plan on moving to 2133 MHz from 1600 MHz and down to 2 sticks instead of 4, but performance wise you'll likely not feel a thing. If you want 32 GB for your VM work then fine, go with 8 GB sticks, but otherwise you're probably fine with the memory you've got. Additionally, you cannot use 16 GB sticks on the Z68 platform - the consumer Intel chips max out at 32 GB (8 GB DIMMs max) until you hit Skylake or better, and then they go up to 64 GB (16 GB DIMMs).

Your 6870 is definitely your limiting factor for any gaming - even prior to the 2600k upgrade. You can look for a used 7970/R9 280x (they're the same) or just aim for something like the RX 470, which can be had for under $150 and beats the pants off a 7970 while using less power/generating less heat/noise. Even a GTX 1050 or RX 460 will beat the crap out of the 6870, so it's all a matter of cost and expectations.

If your primary usage is 'business' type things, a SSD will be of value. Hell, a SSD is the most important part of making a computer feel 'quick' these days for me. My advice, make sure you buy a big enough one; there's not a whole lot of fun having a SSD not big enough to have more than just a few things installed on at any given point. New games are 50 GB+ in size, so those 250 GB SSDs fill up fast.

Well I am getting more into VMs and they are getting more resource intensive. I could have skipped the memory, but the OCD thing with mix RAM was bugging me and now I have the option to pick up 32GB total (it may hurt my OC a bit I know).

I am debating the 7970 (better pricing than the 280x) vs RX 470 or going to a GTX 1060, I haven't used a Nvidia card in a long time and them seem impressive on paper/benchmarks.

I want to eventually get a 1TB SSD. My C drive is 1.27TB right now mostly due to my dropbox backup with tons of work data and my baby pics/videos. The 4TB drive I purchased will solve that somewhat. I am just hoping for the budget Mushkin Reactor drive.

To Serious, thanks, yeah...always another product and used rig hits, I got some good deals and decided to go with it. This system will be a stop gap until I have my wife working and everything is steady again.

To doug_7506, I totally understand what you are saying. The first thing I tell my friends with nicer older laptops is to replace the HDD with a nice SSD. They usually can't believe the difference (these are not gamer types), it's like my email opens so face, my video loads instantly, etc. My rig is in the link above, but I have a Corsair 750HX Gold certified. My rig is aging and in the past I spent good money on things. I was looking into the 1050ti, but think the 7970 usually does better. I have updated quite a few components over the years. If you look at my link you can see a 10+ year evolution of my rig at the bottom.

Thanks everyone

 

[sinisterDei]

Your signature actually isn't loading, so we can't see anything at the bottom

The 7970 is likely around the same speed as the 1050, but both are way faster than the 6870 and the 1050 doesn't even use an extra power connector from the power supply. We're talking an actual power draw difference greater than 150W between the two cards, which isn't nothing since all that power has to go somewhere. The 1060 or RX470 cards would be faster than any of them, obviously. As for Nvidia vs AMD, I have a mixed household (I have Nvidia, wife has AMD, I was AMD too prior to this generation) and my opinion is that both brands play games.

If I may make a suggestion, and maybe this doesn't fall in line with your plans, but depending on how "more into VMs" you get, you possibly should just have two PCs- one to run the VMs and do work stuff, and one to game on. That's a division of labor I have at my house - my gaming PC is my "main" PC, while my server PC pulls double duty as my media storage server, PLEX server, and VM host. 100% of the stuff on the server PC is accessed via remote desktop, which includes my "work PC" which in reality is just a VM hosted on that box. It lets me keep things in separate buckets with little bleed over to the rest of my network, since I've gotta run specific antivirus and policies on my work PC I wouldn't want on the rest of my stuff.

 

[alkemyst]

Your signature actually isn't loading, so we can't see anything at the bottom

The 7970 is likely around the same speed as the 1050, but both are way faster than the 6870 and the 1050 doesn't even use an extra power connector from the power supply. We're talking an actual power draw difference greater than 150W between the two cards, which isn't nothing since all that power has to go somewhere. The 1060 or RX470 cards would be faster than any of them, obviously. As for Nvidia vs AMD, I have a mixed household (I have Nvidia, wife has AMD, I was AMD too prior to this generation) and my opinion is that both brands play games.

If I may make a suggestion, and maybe this doesn't fall in line with your plans, but depending on how "more into VMs" you get, you possibly should just have two PCs- one to run the VMs and do work stuff, and one to game on. That's a division of labor I have at my house - my gaming PC is my "main" PC, while my server PC pulls double duty as my media storage server, PLEX server, and VM host. 100% of the stuff on the server PC is accessed via remote desktop, which includes my "work PC" which in reality is just a VM hosted on that box. It lets me keep things in separate buckets with little bleed over to the rest of my network, since I've gotta run specific antivirus and policies on my work PC I wouldn't want on the rest of my stuff.

My details were mentioned via a link in the first post: http://www.30moons.com/pc_chiapet.php

I really don't have room to do an extra machine here with a family of 6 in a modest sized home space is a luxury.

 

[sinisterDei]

Makes sense to me! Well, your new PC should be great Even a few generations old, those 2600k's kick ass. I wouldn't sweat the overclock too hard- get the best OC you can get without having to fuck with the voltage too much would be my recommendation - be that 4.3 or 4.4 or 4.5, wherever it lands. With any of them the OC will put you into the range of current-gen performance and should blow the Phenom II out of the water (speaking from experience - I've got a Phenom II X6 in the closet that I used to use)!