Thinking about jump to Intel for the first time...

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FireBean

Gawd
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Apr 12, 2010
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I have never owned an Intel chip mainly because when I built my first PC, it was during the Athlon64 era. I've never had the chance to jump to intel because of the cost invulved. What are something things that I need to look out for? AMD boards have always accepted what ever kind of ram I throw in it weather it be on the compatible list or not. Also, how does a 2500k overlock on water? I know that they can do 5Ghz on air from what I have heard, but what about water? for a 24/7 overclock.
 
5 to 5.4 ghz on water. Most chips hit a wall anywhere inside that range, and just won't go higher. And many actually hit a wall around 4.8 on air.

1155 will also accept whatever RAM. Intel initially announced compatibility with only 1.5v RAM, then later said 1.65v RAM is also "okay."
 
Tsumi said:
1155 will also accept whatever RAM. Intel initially announced compatibility with only 1.5v RAM, then later said 1.65v RAM is also "okay."
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No we haven't. I continue to hear from people who used the 1.65v memory who have run into problems because of it. While some boards will auto drop it down to the 1.5v if you are buying new don't risk buying the 1.65v memory.
 
Interesting. Well, others have said that Intel did say it was okay in the memory subforum, so idk.
 
If you are looking at water cooling for OC potential only, I would skip it. I'm running my i7-2600k at [email protected] and under prime95 I haven't topped 73C. Either way, you'll be extremely pleased with your new Intel rig.
 
FireBean said:
I have never owned an Intel chip mainly because when I built my first PC, it was during the Athlon64 era. I've never had the chance to jump to intel because of the cost invulved. What are something things that I need to look out for? AMD boards have always accepted what ever kind of ram I throw in it weather it be on the compatible list or not. Also, how does a 2500k overlock on water? I know that they can do 5Ghz on air from what I have heard, but what about water? for a 24/7 overclock.
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Just do it *swish*

I went intel i7 for my laptop and I do not regret it. 2.6Ghz with Throttlestop running, and it is stock @ 2.0 (all 8 cores running free)

Annoyance
 
You probably ought to wait for the SB-E release that is supposed to happen in 2 weeks.
 
Ultima99 said:
You probably ought to wait for the SB-E release that is supposed to happen in 2 weeks.
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Will that be a smart choice for gamers though? And won't the prices be too high to make any improvements worthwhile?

Or, are you saying that the other products will be cheaper once SB-E is released?
 
SolidSnake3035 said:
Will that be a smart choice for gamers though? And won't the prices be too high to make any improvements worthwhile?

Or, are you saying that the other products will be cheaper once SB-E is released?
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Prices MAY get cheaper for regular 2600k i7s.
As for whether its better for gamers to have quad channel memory and 3 way SLI is up to you.
Reviews in a couple weeks will tell.
Im waiting.
 
Honestly, the biggest "cost" associated from Intel chips is that if you ever want to upgrade, you will probably end up needing to also get a new motherboard with your new chip since they don't like to recycle sockets (difference this time is that Ivy-bridge will be 1155 compatible). This is what kept alot of people away from Intel, where as AMD, you can go two, sometimes ever three, generations with the same motherboard.

Aside from that, its not hard to pick out 1.5v ram, but you definately want to wait 2-3 more weeks for SB-E to come out, cause it MAY lower prices down a bit.
 
Tsumi said:
5 to 5.4 ghz on water. Most chips hit a wall anywhere inside that range, and just won't go higher. And many actually hit a wall around 4.8 on air.

1155 will also accept whatever RAM. Intel initially announced compatibility with only 1.5v RAM, then later said 1.65v RAM is also "okay."
Click to expand...

I don't know if they've said it was "OK" but it's always worked fine for me. Otherwise your estimates are about right. 4.8GHz-5.0GHz on air, 5.0-5.4GHz on water. I tend to hit the wall with the 2500k around 5.1GHz or 5.2GHz.

IntelEnthusiast said:
No we haven't. I continue to hear from people who used the 1.65v memory who have run into problems because of it. While some boards will auto drop it down to the 1.5v if you are buying new don't risk buying the 1.65v memory.
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I've never had any problems with 1.65v RAM that I can recall with Core i5 2500k and i7 2600k CPUs.
 
get the 1.5 memory, its safer for overclocking.

and i dont think SB-E will lover the prices of 2500k, you can blame AMD for that one.
 
Thanks for the heads up you guys. I plan on water-cooling it anyways since I already have everything. but 5.4Ghz seems to be the max period, huh? Sounds good to me. Also, is the HT feature really all the much of a performance boost? I do a lot pf Photoshop and 3D Rendering getting these things done quickly is a must. I use rent a server farm to render the final products though. It's take weeks on this thing!
 
HT does make a difference, yes. Most people building gaming machines (including me) will recommend the HT-less models because it sacrifices almost no everyday and gaming performance while costing 100+ dollars less. But in all rendering and PS benchmarks, HT proves its worth.
 
If you haven't already, check out the comparison with focus on the rendering and 3dsmax results. Will at least give you a baseline if the added cost of HT is worth it or not to your pocketbook.
 
hmm... the HT does help, but not the degree to warrant and extra $100. Besides, don't you have to turn off HT to get maximum overclocks? I still think it's amazing that you can get close to and extra 2Ghz out of the chips!
 
FireBean said:
Thanks for the heads up you guys. I plan on water-cooling it anyways since I already have everything. but 5.4Ghz seems to be the max period, huh? Sounds good to me. Also, is the HT feature really all the much of a performance boost? I do a lot pf Photoshop and 3D Rendering getting these things done quickly is a must. I use rent a server farm to render the final products though. It's take weeks on this thing!
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Good golly, sounds like you are working on projects of a scale that actually WOULD benefit from SB-E.

You may well want to wait just because.
 
FireBean said:
Thanks for the heads up you guys. I plan on water-cooling it anyways since I already have everything. but 5.4Ghz seems to be the max period, huh? Sounds good to me. Also, is the HT feature really all the much of a performance boost? I do a lot pf Photoshop and 3D Rendering getting these things done quickly is a must. I use rent a server farm to render the final products though. It's take weeks on this thing!
Click to expand...

Indeed, what dderidex said. Besides, if it's a business cost, the several hundred dollar difference doesn't matter if your saving that in your render times. Besides, several hundred isn't hard to come up with if you budget for it.
 
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