Coming Back from the Dark Side (AMD -> Intel Migration)

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Napoleon85

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Sep 20, 2013
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I'm fed up with my AMD rig. I've seriously spend hundreds of hours troubleshooting it over the last two years and have just come to terms with the fact that it never has and never will work properly, with no clear cause.

That said, I'm slowly going to be migrating from my sig rig to the following. I'll probably get the CPU/MB tonight, and the other parts throughout the following months.

I will be re-using my Corsair H100, hopefully getting me to 4.0GHz before investing in a proper WC setup.

Short Term:
Motherboard - http://www.microcenter.com/product/386887/P8Z77-V_PRO_LGA_1155_Z77_ATX_Intel_Motherboard

Processor - http://www.microcenter.com/product/388577/Core_i5_3570K_34GHz_Socket_LGA_1155_Boxed_Processor

Long Term:
Case - http://www.microcenter.com/product/...s_ATX_Super_Tower_Computer_Case_-_Matte_Black
RAM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231625

GPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130945
(single card at first, second down the road if necessary or price drops)


Any feedback on the above selection? I'm pretty set on Asus for a MB and EVGA for GPU, even if it's going to cost me extra. My solid experience with those brands is unshakable. I'm flexible on the DRAM, but don't want to spend much (any) more money on it if possible.

This rig is primarily used for 1080p gaming, no heavy CPU lifting on things like folding, video editing, etc - at least not often enough to justify the upgrade to a Core i7. It's a $60 difference at Microcenter.

I can get the other variants of the P8Z77-V for less, but I chose the Pro for the 12 phase CPU power design of the 8 phase of the former. The 16 phase variants (Premium and Deluxe) are not available. I still wonder if this is a "snake oil" feature, since major review sites use a standard P8Z77-V in their tests at speeds well over 4GHz. Any thoughts on this? I can save $20 by dropping the PRO variant. I dont the the loss of the Intel NIC is worth the step down to the -LK or -LX models.

I'm also open to suggestions on the case. I like this one because of its clean design and ability to hold two 120x3 rads. I will eventually be running two loops, one for GPU(s) and one for CPU/NB.
 
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Not sure if it's just my work pc but your microcenter links aren't displaying.
 
Your gpu link is also not working.
Thank you for visiting Newegg.com. We apologize for your inconvenience. The page you requested is unavailable.

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Fantastic choices though, you should be wery wery happy.
 
Kai said:
Fantastic choices though, you should be wery wery happy.
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Some on another forum have suggested that I go for an i7, since a lot of newer games are starting to be heavily multithreaded. Thoughts? If I go i7 should I just go Haswell since I'm blowing up my budget anyways. (money didn't matter to a certain point, that couldn't really be busted on an i5 Ivy Bridge).
 
I would probably go for an i-7 as well. You can never have "too much" CPU. :)

If your going to overclock, obviously snag a "K" series. I would probably go for a Sandy or Ivy Bridge chip as well, not a Haswell. From what I've seen so far the Sandy's and Ivy's overclock much better and easier then their Haswell counterparts.

As far as the rest, I'd stay clear of Asus motherboards. This is personal preference, but I've had bad luck with them in the past and Asus's RMA absolutely sucks.

The video card is an absolute BEAST though. I just bought the same card myself. It will go good with either an i5 or i7 chip.
 
Pitbully said:
I would probably go for an i-7 as well. You can never have "too much" CPU. :)

If your going to overclock, obviously snag a "K" series. I would probably go for a Sandy or Ivy Bridge chip as well, not a Haswell. From what I've seen so far the Sandy's and Ivy's overclock much better and easier then their Haswell counterparts.

As far as the rest, I'd stay clear of Asus motherboards. This is personal preference, but I've had bad luck with them in the past and Asus's RMA absolutely sucks.

The video card is an absolute BEAST though. I just bought the same card myself. It will go good with either an i5 or i7 chip.
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Sory you've had back luck with them, but I've been using ASUS boards for ~15 years and the only problem I ever had was that I was pumping so much voltage through my old P4 to keep it stable at 4GHz that I blew a cap off the board. ASUS accepted the RMA and replaced it with no questions asked. I've never heard of widespread problems with an ASUS board, and I suspect that's why all their products have 4-5 star/egg reviews everywhere. Like I said, I'm set on that, but thanks for your feedback.

It does sound like the consensus is to go with an i7 though, but I'm now on the fence between Ivy Bridge and Haswell. With performance being equal, the Ivy Bridge MB offerings seem a lot better than the Ivy Bridge ones. It's only a $35 difference at Microcenter between a 3770K + P8Z77-V and a 4770K + Z87 Pro (Asus boards).
 
I'd go Haswell, personally. Latest and greatest type of thing, ya know?

Stick with DDR3-1600 <= 1.5V, as 1866 and above is an absolute waste of money nowadays since the only difference you'll see between them is in synthetic benchmarks. At the price point of the 1866 RAM you linked, I'd much rather go with the LP RAM in my sig. If you want to save some money, there's this set, but the sale+code ends on the 14th, so buy it asap.

Nice selection of everything else, especially the GPU.
 
DejaWiz said:
I'd go Haswell, personally. Latest and greatest type of thing, ya know?

Stick with DDR3-1600 <= 1.5V, as 1866 and above is an absolute waste of money nowadays since the only difference you'll see between them is in synthetic benchmarks. At the price point of the 1866 RAM you linked, I'd much rather go with the LP RAM in my sig. If you want to save some money, there's this set, but the sale+code ends on the 14th, so buy it asap.

Nice selection of everything else, especially the GPU.
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Agreed on the RAM, the GSKILL I posted has the same timing and voltage as the Team, just a bit more $$. I might pick that Team up.

What if you had to choose between a Haswell i5 (4670K) and an Ivy Bridge i7 (3770K)? Would you still go Haswell? The 4770k + MB is just a bit out of what I want to spend, and it's $110 more than my original plan. I can do the 4770K if I step down to the Asus Z87-A MB, and I've seen some decent reviews on it. I just worry about the smaller heatsinks on the NB, VRMs, and MOSFETs. Since I'm WC there isnt a ton of airflow in this case, and the rear fan died. I can always grab another cheap fan while I'm at microcenter though.

newegg review said:
Other Thoughts: First time buying Asus motherboard after doing hours of research and I'm never buying any other brand ever again. I was able to OC my I5 4670k to 4.8Ghz @ 1.20v from the start with aftermarket cooling and the temps only reach around 65 to 70c with full stress load. The AI suite 3 that comes with the board pretty much did all the work for me, and even optimized my voltages and my case fans for better cooling. Thank you Asus for making a quality product at a great price. Fan For life.
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newegg review said:
The BIOS is amazing, very detailed (some grammar mistakes :)), and fast. One of the best I've ever used!
You can change so many settings, and you can even 'favorite' certain parts of the BIOS so they show up on the main 'favorites' page.
I favorite-ed my CPU temps, voltages, LCC settings, voltage, and more all onto the front so I can get right into what I need if I ever just need to edit my over-clock quick and easy. Overclocked my 4670K to 4.5ghz @ 1.20V!
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http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/06/03/asus_z87a_lga_1150_motherboard_review/7#.UliAHBD67K8 said:
If you&#8217;ve read anything about Haswell you probably already know that synthetic stress tests like Prime95 load the CPU much harder than most real world applications do. Using Prime95 I was still able to get a solid 4.6GHz overclock out of the CPU using a 1.2v VID. Memory loading is a bit different than it was in previous generations. The IMCs and attainable clock rates on these CPUs seem to vary as much as the attainable CPU clocks do. So some CPUs can be run with DIMM frequencies above 2,000MHz and some can barely do DDR3 1600MHz. I didn&#8217;t get faster RAM in time to test this CPU beyond DDR3 1866MHz. However I had no trouble with DDR3 1866MHz speeds at any clock rate using this board or CPU. That is dropping back to a DDR3 1333MHz clock never gave me better CPU core overclock resutls.
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http://www.overclockers.com/asus-z87a-motherboard-review/ said:
When I attended the ASUS Haswell gathering in Fremont, CA this past May, the folks at ASUS made a point of telling us to expect a wide range of overclocking success based on how lucky you are with the CPU you end up getting. Even with the engineering samples Intel provided ASUS, they had some overclock as low as 4.3 to 4.4 GHz, while some went substantially higher. The consensus seemed to be anything that will overclock to the 4.6 to 4.8 GHz range was considered a decent CPU. The i7 4770K I&#8217;m using for this review topped out at 4.6 GHz, while still keeping the temperatures under control. After finding the 24/7 stable CPU speed, I was able to get the memory stable at 2400 MHz and still keep the CPU at 4.6 GHz.
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In short, it doesn't seem like this "budget motherboard" will limit my OC, but rather how lucky I get on the CPU lottery.
 
Napoleon85 said:
I'm fed up with my AMD rig. I've seriously spend hundreds of hours troubleshooting it over the last two years and have just come to terms with the fact that it never has and never will work properly, with no clear cause.
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If you cant get your Amd rig to function properly after several hundred hours of troubleshooting (that would be 12 straight days of troubleshooting if you didnt stop to eat or sleep) and still cannot zero in on a possible cause, im seriously questioning your ability to build any computer properly and have it function correctly regardless of the brand of CPU.
Unless you are interested in a performance increase over your current gear, your reasoning to replace your stuff is questionable.
 
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