Help me decide! Help me enjoy building stuff!

[sram]

First of all, let me tell you that my current hardware is sufficient for what I do. It is just the upgrade bug kicking in again. My main rig is in my sig. I have another machine based on Athlon 3200+ for the kids. It is good for what they do, but they always complain it is slow because they compare it to mine.

I recently bought a QX9650 for a good price. It will go to my main machine. What I'm thinking to do is to use the Q6600 for the kids. I want to get a Mobo that is not expensive but will still enable me to overclock the Q6600. As you can see it is running at 3.5 GHz now and I don't want to lose these extra MHz. I also want to reuse all hardware I can from the old kids machine. The video card is the most important part. Is there a mobo that can take a Q6600, have an AGP 8x slot and can do overclocking?

For my main machine, I want to install the QX9650 and see how far I'll get it with water cooling this time! I want to try the corsair H100. It is going to be my first water cooling system and I think it will be enjoyable.

There is also the option of just selling the kids machine as it is now, give them my machine and buy myself a new sandy bridge rig . It might be a bad decision though since Ivy bridge is coming soon, right? Will Ivy bridge have a cpu targeted at overclockers at launch? Also what is the best overclockable sandy bridge CPU? 2700k ? or maybe 2600k since there is no big difference in speed. Will there be others?

Money isn't an issue. When it comes to computer hardware, I'm the kind of person who buys what he wants and not what he needs because I enjoy buying/building computers.


There might not be a real point to this thread, since it all depends on my decision, but you guys might have some valuable comments.

If I must answer the questions in the sticky, here are they:


1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Web browsing + little RPG gaming + photoshop + autocad(little) + video editing.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Budget is no problem. You can say it is $8000
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
I'm not in the US currently, but I only buy from the US. I have an address there.
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.
Well, it will a new build so I will need everything except for the monitor which I already have. Since you don't like the word everything, I'll just say I need :
Mobo
CPU
RAM
Storage
Optical drive
Video card
PSU
Case
Cooling system
Mouse/keyboard
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
No reused parts.
6) Will you be overclocking?
Of course.....that's my joy in life.
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
The monitor I already bought is dell 2701 I believe it is called. Anyways it is 27"
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
After one Month.
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.
RAID, SLI, USB 3.0, Sata 6Gb/s.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Windows 7 64-bit

 

[belmicah]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASRock-775I...=310331599190&ps=63&clkid=5737068360966455576

 

[Suprfire]

I would say go for the SB build and let your kids have the QX9650, because when your kids start complaining about that, well, you know what to do

I read your post and i noticed you didn't make any mention of an SSD.
I also see you currently run raptor raid, you might as well run an SSD on both your and your kids computers. and let the raptors be for non-essential applications.


grab:
2500K or 2600K [ w/ H100: 4.8ghz+ ]
an SSD or two, and one for the kids.

People on a tight budget would not make these choices, but this isn't heavily weighted on budget anyway, you seem like quite the enthusiast who would enjoy such upgrades.

 

[Dangman]

Belmicah's solution won't work because that mobo isn't compatible with the Q6600. However, yes Ivy Bridge is supposedly due out in Q2 2012. As for what's the best SB CPU to get, go for either the Core i7 2600K if you're doing a ton of video or 3D editing/rendering or the COre i5 2500K if you're not doing either. Both CPUs will OC about the same.

I say just buy yourself a new SB system, give your kids your current system, and sell off the old PC and the Q6600.

 

[sram]

Hmmmmm. Sounds like SB is the way to go. And yes, I enjoy building, upgrading, and overclocking systems. I like to brag about my system and win benchmark tests.

I'm in a little hurry now, will come back later.

 

[sram]

By the way, how does the 2600k compare to the i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz ? Will I be missing much if I don't go with the SB Extreme? I'm interested in seeing how an overclocked 2600k will compare to it.

Thanks.

 

[Maplehamwich]

You might be interested in this article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-3930k-3820-test-benchmark,3090-14.html

If the amount of money I make is affected by those performance numbers, or if I do a lot of video work, or if I’m even applying threaded filters in Photoshop, paying an extra $280 for the -3930K is worth it.

If you’re gaming with one (or even two) high-end graphics cards in your system, doing a lot of desktop productivity work, or simply on a more constrained budget, the -2600K is a better bet. Shoot, at that point, I’d still say step it on down to a -2500K.

We’ve seen a ton of variance in the overclocking headroom of C0, C1, M0, and retail Sandy Bridge-E-based chips, so it makes little sense to crank our engineering sample as high as it’ll go to compare against this store-bought -3930K. What I can say, though, is that at 4.5 GHz and 1.36 V, you can’t do much better from a single-CPU daily-driver platform.

And that’s why I’m pleased to hand out my first ever Best of Tom’s Hardware award to Intel’s Core i7-3930K. Obviously, this isn’t something you see very often. It’s a distinction reserved for the best of the best, price be damned. Except, in this case, the price (relative to the flagship that just launched ahead of it), actually isn’t obscene.

And this one:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sandy-bridge-overclocking-efficiency,2850.html

1. Sandy Bridge overclocks well

It certainly didn’t take this article to find that Sandy Bridge overclocks very well, at least as long as we’re talking about the K-series processors in Intel's Core i5/i7 portfolio. Going beyond 4 GHz is easily possible, even without a voltage increase, and our processor sample scaled reliably all the way up to 5 GHz on the standard Intel cooler.

2. Overclocking no longer trades efficiency for performance

While all previous processor generations caused an increase in power consumption that was always more substantial than the added performance (especially at higher, more difficultly-achieved frequencies), Sandy Bridge is the first processor architecture where clock speed and power consumption scale almost linearly.

Effectively, this means that your overclocking attempts are neutral to total power consumption. If you speed up the processor, you will consume more power, but the workload will terminate quicker, which in the end saves time. Stock speeds and the overclocking settings both require a very similar amount of total power. This is made possible through persistently low idle power consumption paired with great performance per clock.

3. Overclocking can be fool-proof now

There is a paradigm change going on, as performance is no longer strictly defined by clock rate, but by the defined processor power limit. Once you understand that this power limit is a neat way of keeping a K-series Core i5/i7 processor within a thermal envelope, you understand that overclocking governed by the power control unit is like adding a safety net to your overclocked setup. Provided that your CPU cooler is aligned to your selected power limit, you can crank up clock speeds and you will typically get a very reliable configuration that automatically decreases clock speeds once it fully utilizes the defined power limit.

Intel’s next architecture step will be a shrink of Sandy Bridge into 22 nm, code named Ivy Bridge. We don’t expect it to introduce fundamental architectural changes, but I’m definitely curious if Intel can continue to improve power efficiency. Will the 22 nm Haswell architecture, to follow Ivy Bridge, possibly ignite a new clock speed race because it might make sense again from an efficiency standpoint? What’s your opinion?

 

[Dangman]

By the way, how does the 2600k compare to the i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz ? Will I be missing much if I don't go with the SB Extreme? I'm interested in seeing how an overclocked 2600k will compare to it.

Thanks.

Nope, not missing much at all unless you're doing a ton of 3D or video editing/rendering

 

[sram]

Okay, it is decided then. I'll go for the 2600k. Next question will of course be : what mobo?
Let me tell you this: I have been a gigabyte user for the last 10 years or so. This time I want to go with ASUS. And to me ASUS Maximus IV Extreme seems like the mobo to get here. Unless you guys have some other better suggestion. I think I'll just pull the trigger.

Many thanks to all.

 

[Dangman]

My main issue with that Maximus mobo is its price to performance. I don't see what exactly justifies the extra ~$100 over comparable Asus mobos like theses if you're only using two GPUs:
$185 - Asus P8Z68-V/GEN3 Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard
$205 - Asus P8Z68-V Pro/GEN3 Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard

However if you're planning on using 4 single slot GPUs, then yeah definitely go for the Maxiumus mobo.

 

[sram]

My main issue with that Maximus mobo is its price to performance. I don't see what exactly justifies the extra ~$100 over comparable Asus mobos like theses if you're only using two GPUs:
$185 - Asus P8Z68-V/GEN3 Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard
$205 - Asus P8Z68-V Pro/GEN3 Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard

However if you're planning on using 4 single slot GPUs, then yeah definitely go for the Maxiumus mobo.

Thanks Dan. By the way, do we know if this mobo with its P67 chipset will perhaps support Ivy bridge? 1155 Ivy bridge maybe?

 

[Dangman]

Thanks Dan. By the way, do we know if this mobo with its P67 chipset will perhaps support Ivy bridge? 1155 Ivy bridge maybe?

In theory, all H67, P67, and Z68 mobos are capable of supporting Ivy Bridge. However, it's up to the motherboard manufacturer to provide updated BIOs to their motherboards to support Ivy Bridge. As such, there's the possibility that whatever mobo you buy today will not work with the IB CPUs because the motherbaord manufacturer hasn't released a BIOS update for that CPU. It's definitely happened before.

With that said, since that's one of Asus' high-end mobo, it probably has a higher chance of getting IB support than other motherboards. But again, no guarantee.

 

[djgizmo]

Personally, I recommend an Asus Max Gene-z. matx, but man it has all the needs anyone could want, especially if you're going to spend $150 or more on a mobo.

Like others have said, pass on your old 775 rig and build something you like. Everyone wins.

 

[sram]

Personally, I recommend an Asus Max Gene-z. matx, but man it has all the needs anyone could want, especially if you're going to spend $150 or more on a mobo.

Like others have said, pass on your old 775 rig and build something you like. Everyone wins.

I'm actually now undecided between the Asus P8Z68-V Pro/GEN3 and the maximus IV since Dan's post. I'll have to give it a good thought.

 

[Dangman]

I'm actually now undecided between the Asus P8Z68-V Pro/GEN3 and the maximus IV since Dan's post. I'll have to give it a good thought.

Good luck.