I've got the Sandy Bridge itch...

E

E4g1e

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
May 21, 2002
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Now it's time to re-think my main rig. Since my current i7-950 rig is having some thermal issues at even moderate overclocks. I've decided to sell the core components of that system (details will be posted in a separate thread in the FS forum), and (out of impulse) picked up an Asus P8P67 PRO (the new B3 stepping version). I am planning to pick up an i7-2600K CPU in a few days (since I spend most of the time editing videos). For now, I am taking four of the existing six 2GB sticks of Corsair XMS3 Classic RAM I currently have in my main rig, and then replace all of them with four 4GB sticks of RAM at some later date.

I am also considering selling off the core components of my auxiliary editing rig (mobo, CPU and RAM) since I will not be using it anytime soon.

Most of the other components in my soon-to-be-new SB build will be carried over from my main rig, except that it will have only one optical drive (the Blu-ray burner since I do a lot of Blu-ray video discs) and my Seagate 1TB drives will be moved back into my main rig (making it two RAID 0 work volumes in my main rig). My Samsung F3 that has CCTL enabled by default will be relegated to OS imaging purposes, while the 2TB WD Black that's currently used as my video output drive will be repurposed as my OS drive.

Any other suggestions or suggested replacements? I cannot afford the whole kit and kaboodle if I also get an SSD (since I have more than 128GB filled on my main system drive, an SSD with enough capacity would have cost me more money than the CPU and 16GB RAM combined). Please share your thoughts.

Here are the answers to the questions:

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Video editing (Premiere Pro CS5, Sony Vegas), OTA HDTV recording, Web browsing
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$300 to $500
3) Where do you live?
Chicagoland (Melrose Park), Illinois
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.
CPU, possibly RAM
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
CPU HSF, HDDs, GTX 470, Blu-ray burner, TV tuner card and CM 690II Advanced case; also Antec TP750 Blue PSU. Maybe my existing RAM.
6) Will you be overclocking?
Yes
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
I have a 19" 1440x900 monitor.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within two weeks
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc.
Nothing specific (I already have the motherboard in my possession)
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes (Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit)
 
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Well you've already figured out the CPU so thats good. RAM wise, I recommend this RAM set if you can buy it today:
$100 - G.Skill Ripjaw Series F3-12800CL9S-8GBRL 2 x 4GB DDR3 1600 RAM

The promo code "EMCKGJE69" knocks off $25 off that RAM set so it would be cheaper than many other DDR3 1333 RAM set. Otherwise I recommend this RAM set:
$85 - G.Skill Ripjaws F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM
 
Danny Bui said:
Well you've already figured out the CPU so thats good. RAM wise, I recommend this RAM set if you can buy it today:
$100 - G.Skill Ripjaw Series F3-12800CL9S-8GBRL 2 x 4GB DDR3 1600 RAM

The promo code "EMCKGJE69" knocks off $25 off that RAM set so it would be cheaper than many other DDR3 1333 RAM set. Otherwise I recommend this RAM set:
$85 - G.Skill Ripjaws F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM
Click to expand...

Placed the order for the first kit (two kits for a total of 16GB). Premiere Pro CS5 loves lots of RAM, so I ordered two kits. 16GB for half the price I had paid for two 6GB kits 10 months ago.
 
novadaemon said:
Eagle.... i hope you used the promo code so you got it at $75 per kit.... did you?
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Yes, I did use the code.

By the way, despite having the slowest sequential transfer speed of all HDDs with 500GB platters, the Seagate 7200.12 drives actually perform equally as well as many of the other late-model drives in real-world situations that do not involve large sequential file transfers.

Also, I will not be putting the core components of my i7-950 build FS until after I test (and benchmark) the new RAM on both the old and new systems.
 
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I'm just getting started learning Adobe Preimer, it's really that demanding on ram?, jeez Ill have to upgrade for sure. :eek:
 
shawnmramsey said:
I'm just getting started learning Adobe Preimer, it's really that demanding on ram?, jeez Ill have to upgrade for sure. :eek:
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Your existing 8GB will run Premiere Pro CS5 fairly well. More is always better, however, when it comes to this particular program.

On the other hand, that i5-750/60 does not perform as well as an i7-anything because Premiere Pro takes advantage of more than four threads. Remember, the quad-core i5 CPUs all lack HyperThreading whereas all i7 CPUs have HyperThreading.
 
E4g1e said:
Your existing 8GB will run Premiere Pro CS5 fairly well. More is always better, however, when it comes to this particular program.

On the other hand, that i5-750/60 does not perform as well as an i7-anything because Premiere Pro takes advantage of more than four threads. Remember, the quad-core i5 CPUs all lack HyperThreading whereas all i7 CPUs have HyperThreading.
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Funny that you just mention that, I'm looking at i7's right now. But I don't know if I want to go that route, or just swap over to SB.
 
I picked up the CPU today from MC.

I still have the RAM left to be shipped (it is in transit right now). I will wait until the RAM arrives before I rebuild the main rig.
 
An update:

My originally planned migration from the 1TB F3 to the 2TB Black proved to be a bit more difficult than I had expected: The Acronis software that I downloaded from the WD website does not support hard drives larger than 1.5TB. So, I had to download a third-party freeware imaging program to complete the migration.

And yes, I am still on my current i7-950 main rig. I wanted to make sure that the 2TB boot drive works properly before I proceed with the CPU/mobo switch.

I also have a 1TB WD Black FALS drive with three platters that I could have also used as the OS drive on the completed new build.

One more question:

I have three CPU HSFs on hand (read: already in my possession) to use on my completed new 2600K rig:
  • Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
  • Cogage TRUE Spirit with Thermalright LGA 1156 Rev. B bolt-thru kit
  • Noctua NH-U12P SE2
Which of those three would be the best choice?
 
If going for world records in overclocking, then definitely the Noctua. If going for a 4.2Ghz OC, you should be fine with the Coolermaster
 
Danny Bui said:
If going for world records in overclocking, then definitely the Noctua. If going for a 4.2Ghz OC, you should be fine with the Coolermaster
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Thanks. All three of my HSFs are darned good values. It's just that the TRUE Spirit is trapped somewhere in between the Cooler Master and the Noctua.

And I now have to learn how to properly secure those higher-end HSFs with bolt-through kits: I used to pretty much tighern all of the screws until they completely stop. That could have curved the board at the CPU socket, causing the HSF's base to not sit flat against the CPU.
 
One more thing:

I currently have a 140mm Scythe SlipStream fan mounted on the side panel. I installed it after putting in my current GTX 470. It might have affected the stability of the GPU at low loads. And, the 140mm SlipStream is fairly loud to boot, especially when it is connected directly to the PSU's Molex connector.

I am considering removing it or leaving it disconnected since it is noisier than its cooling performance justifies.
 
Haiku214 said:
Hmmm...should've waited for LGA2011...
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Unfortunately, based on current trends, the least expensive LGA 2011 CPU will cost more than $1,000 each. This is because the LGA 2011 CPUs will likely be sold only as Core i7 or i9 Extremes, which will always carry $1,000+ price tags. Plus, motherboards for that socket are expected to cost $500 or more. That makes the total cost of even a modestly configured system based on an LGA 2011 CPU nearly $3,000, if not more. And Intel has had a history of never lowering the prices of its top two CPUs of each line until it is superceded with an even "faster" model or discontinued entirely.

And the reason why I'm switching now because I have been having thermal issues with my current system. In fact, my current CPU runs significantly hotter than it should be even when its clock speed is locked down to 1.6GHz and undervolted to 0.5V (at which setting combination the CPU temperature at full load still reached the upper 60s°C). And doing both resulted in the CPU temperatures no cooler than at stock speed and voltage.

The other reason why I'm doing the switch right now is that the mobo that I'm currently using is a bit flaky in terms of stability. The system occasionally locks up when booting into Windows. And while in Windows, the display occasionally blacks out for no apparent reason (and I have the Windows settings set to never power down the monitor). Sometimes, the system switches to the backup BIOS which is the version that was originally installed on the motherboard, which can mess up everything that I installed while running a newer BIOS version. The trouble with RMAs is that I would be with no video-editing or DVR system at all whatsoever for several weeks while the mobo gets replaced.
 
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Danny Bui said:
If going for world records in overclocking, then definitely the Noctua. If going for a 4.2Ghz OC, you should be fine with the Coolermaster
Click to expand...

My 212+ is handling 4.5ghz like a champ. Under load, cores are only hitting low-mid 50s. Then again it depends on your room temp, pretty damn cold during the winters up here in the Great White North ;)
 
E4g1e said:
Unfortunately, based on current trends, the least expensive LGA 2011 CPU will cost more than $1,000 each.
Click to expand...

Where did you get the info that LGA2011 CPUs will cost $1000? Based on my research, the cheapest LGA2011 CPU (quad core) will cost $300, just like the i7 920 when it came out. The main reason for me to wait for LGA2011 is PCIe 3.0. There is a big possibility that the next gen GPUs will be PCIe 3.0, although it is backwards compatible. I only upgrade every two years, and so if I upgrade now to LGA1155, then I will still be using a PCIe 2.0 slot for the next two years.
 
Haiku214 said:
Where did you get the info that LGA2011 CPUs will cost $1000? Based on my research, the cheapest LGA2011 CPU (quad core) will cost $300, just like the i7 920 when it came out. The main reason for me to wait for LGA2011 is PCIe 3.0. There is a big possibility that the next gen GPUs will be PCIe 3.0, although it is backwards compatible. I only upgrade every two years, and so if I upgrade now to LGA1155, then I will still be using a PCIe 2.0 slot for the next two years.
Click to expand...

Maybe so. But the desirable LGA 2011 CPUs will cost $1,000 and higher. The cheaper LGA 2011 CPUs might get permanently locked to stock speed with no Turbo at all, and their BCLK might get permanently locked to 100MHz as well (meaning that the BCLK cannot be manually set at all even if the mobo allows for such setting).
 
E4g1e said:
Maybe so. But the desirable LGA 2011 CPUs will cost $1,000 and higher. The cheaper LGA 2011 CPUs might get permanently locked to stock speed with no Turbo at all, and their BCLK might get permanently locked to 100MHz as well (meaning that the BCLK cannot be manually set at all even if the mobo allows for such setting).
Click to expand...

I really confused with the intel socket changes. After further research, LGA2011 is indeed used for $1000 CPUs. However, I realized that there is another socket, LGA1356, which is the true successor of LGA1366. So this LGA1356 is what I'm waiting for.
 
The RAM finally arrived Saturday morning. I spent the better part of that evening rebuilding the system.

I must have gotten a dud CPU, unfortunately: I hit an overclocking brick wall at between 4.1GHz and 4.2GHz. The system would not even POST at above 4.1GHz. Still, I'm happy about the performance at the 4.1GHz speed - faster than I could ever extract out of my previous i7-950 while still running barely 60°C at full load. This is in contrast with my old 950, which often exceeded 80°C at 4.0GHz and approached 80°C at even 3.8GHz due to that CPU's use of the older 45nm process (the 2600K uses the 32nm process).
 
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Any chance of trying a different motherboard to see if that CPU is indeed a dud?
 
I'm having other issues with this new system:

1) The power issue: When I power the system off, and let it rest for one minute or longer, the system refuses to power back on until I unplug and re-plug in the system.

2) Using the Asus EFI overclocking feature resulted in a no-POST.

3) 4.1GHz proved unstable: The system either locked up or reset itself in the middle of certain video encoding sessions.

When the system failed to POST, the red light next to the graphics card slot lights up red, meaning that the video card might be to blame.

So, it might not be a mobo or CPU issue - but maybe an issue with the graphics card I have installed in the system.
 
Danny Bui said:
My money is on the motherboard.
Click to expand...

I purchased the mobo from Fry's. But I called them today, and they're out of stock, and won't be getting any new stock until Friday (four days before the 15-day return period). As a result, I'm stuck running the system at 3.8GHz maximum for a few days.

By the way, I did attempt to run Prime95 on that mobo. At even stock speed, the system reset itself and rebooted. It's definitely the mobo.
 
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Yeah I'm gonna have to start removing that Asus mobo from my recommendations list. It seems like Asus really missed it this round.
 
I'm actually chalking this up to quality control, not the design or the BIOS.

Or is that maybe the problems began when I simply moved the HDD that contained an installation of Windows 7 that was done on my previous X58 setup? Maybe some of the driver entries were left over from that install. To check this possibility, I am going to perform a new clean install on another spare hard drive.
 
E4g1e said:
I'm actually chalking this up to quality control, not the design or the BIOS.

Or is that maybe the problems began when I simply moved the HDD that contained an installation of Windows 7 that was done on my previous X58 setup? Maybe some of the driver entries were left over from that install. To check this possibility, I am going to perform a new clean install on another spare hard drive.
Click to expand...

Okay, the power and restart issues were solved by simply reducing the memory speed from DDR3-1600 to DDR3-1333 manually. The RAM somehow got auto-detected as DDR3-1600. I also had to manually set the timings to 8-8-8-20 at this DDR3-1333 speed. This also solved the stability issues that I initially had.

Still, I could not get my system to even POST at speeds faster than 4.1GHz... :(
 
E4g1e said:
Okay, the power and restart issues were solved by simply reducing the memory speed from DDR3-1600 to DDR3-1333 manually. The RAM somehow got auto-detected as DDR3-1600. I also had to manually set the timings to 8-8-8-20 at this DDR3-1333 speed. This also solved the stability issues that I initially had.

Still, I could not get my system to even POST at speeds faster than 4.1GHz... :(
Click to expand...

Don't sweat it, just sell it as a chip that runs good at 4.0-4.1, and get another one from a different batch. Maybe you will get a shining star.
 
shawnmramsey said:
Don't sweat it, just sell it as a chip that runs good at 4.0-4.1, and get another one from a different batch. Maybe you will get a shining star.
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I spoke too soon. My board still has power issues (it still won't power back on after one minute in soft-off mode unless I unplug and re-plug the system in) although stability has improved. I am going to return the board on Friday and exchange it.
 
E4g1e said:
I spoke too soon. My board still has power issues (it still won't power back on after one minute in soft-off mode unless I unplug and re-plug the system in) although stability has improved. I am going to return the board on Friday and exchange it.
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An update on this:

The power issues were my own fault. I had the CMOS CLR jumper positioned incorrectly. No wonder why the system wouldn't turn on until the power is drained from the board.

Though the system still ran a bit unstably with the RAM running at its full 9-9-9-24 timings @ DDR3-1600 speed: Prime95 locked up the system at between 15 and 25 minutes into the test. (Now testing at the JEDEC DDR3-1600 timings of 9-9-9-28, which by default the P8P67 Pro sets the RAM to.) This is possibly because I am running four double-ranked sticks of RAM since the advertised 9-9-9-24 timings at the 1600 speed are applicable if I were using only one stick of RAM per channel. And I have not yet attempted another try at 4.2GHz since I repositioned the jumper correctly.
 
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I took it back to Fry's - not for a refund or exchange, but to have them diagnose the board. They had only an i5-2400 on hand to test it out with - and it came out working even with the multiplier set to the CPU's maximum of 38x (3.8GHz). Then, when I took it back home, I put in one component at a time.

Guess what? It was a PCI-e x1 Firewire 800 card that's incompatible with the P8P67 Pro. Unfortunately, all PCI-e Firewire 800 cards use an Agere/LSI chipset. So, I pulled out the card, and now I'm running Prime95 at my new overclocked speed of 4.5GHz.

Another update @ 6:15 p.m. CST: My CPU is now at 4.7GHz! YAY! I will try 4.8GHz to 5.0GHz next...

Now that's more like it! :D
 
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Whoa!

Seriously? A Firewire card held back your OC? Goddang. Never thought that would have an effect.

Anyway, nice to see your OC is so high!
 
Danny Bui said:
Whoa!

Seriously? A Firewire card held back your OC? Goddang. Never thought that would have an effect.

Anyway, nice to see your OC is so high!
Click to expand...

I tried 4.8GHz, and while it worked, the CPU temps exceeded 83°C on one of the cores, so I pulled back to 4.7GHz. I just like to keep the full-load temps at least 15°C below the CPU's throttle-down point.

I use a Cogage TRUE Spirit with the LGA 1155/1156 bolt-through kit because this cooler worked so well for the price on my previous i7-950 (better than the Noctua NH-U12P SE2) when I used its stock push-pin installation kit. And as of now I have only one other add-in expansion card in my current main rig: an ATi TV Wonder 650-based PCI-e x1 card (plus the GTX 470).

By the way, when overclocking an Intel CPU, BSOD code 124 can mean "Incorrect QPI/VTT voltage" on Nehalem and Westmere CPU-based systems or "Not enough Vcore" on Sandy Bridge CPU-based systems.
 
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E4g1e said:
I took it back to Fry's - not for a refund or exchange, but to have them diagnose the board. They had only an i5-2400 on hand to test it out with - and it came out working even with the multiplier set to the CPU's maximum of 38x (3.8GHz). Then, when I took it back home, I put in one component at a time.

Guess what? It was a PCI-e x1 Firewire 800 card that's incompatible with the P8P67 Pro. Unfortunately, all PCI-e Firewire 800 cards use an Agere/LSI chipset. So, I pulled out the card, and now I'm running Prime95 at my new overclocked speed of 4.5GHz.

Another update @ 6:15 p.m. CST: My CPU is now at 4.7GHz! YAY! I will try 4.8GHz to 5.0GHz next...

Now that's more like it! :D
Click to expand...

Nice work diagnosing that! I'll have to remember that about Firewire 800 cards.
 
One final update:

When I first started up the system, I had USB issues: Specifically, the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon did not function properly, hanging the system. But then I discovered that some of the Windows configuration settings were incorrect, so I re-adjusted them. Now it's working properly.
 
Danny Bui said:
What were the incorrect settings?
Click to expand...

You see, I had some Windows services disabled in an attempt to "optimize" performance. Then I discovered that same Web page of tweaks to track down the Microsoft default settings, and reverted those tweaked settings to those Microsoft defaults. Before the reversion, I had to completely shut down my system just to disconnect a USB 3.0 hard drive from the system. Now, I can simply use the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon to disconnect that same drive.
 
Ahh.

Sure helps prove the adage "Leave Windows 7 alone!" :D

Anyway, glad to see that your system is now a-ok!
 
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