Upgrade advice

Zorachus

Zorachus

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Dec 17, 2006
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Hello, I would like to get some [H]ard opinions on upgrade advice for me please. I typically only upgrade my CPU/Mobo like once every 3 years, where with VideoCards I will upgrade roughly every 18 months.

Anyways, I am still running the Intel X48 chipset, with the Q9650 CPU, and old school DDR2 memory. But this system has been very good to me, with my Solid State drive and Windows 7-64, it runs pretty damn snappy. But is soon time to upgrade for future gaming, looking forward to Guild Wars 2, Diablo ]l[, and will get BattleField 3 finally, was waiting for computer upgrade before playing BF3. I currently game on 3 - Dell 27" monitors in Eyefinity res of 5760x1200. Might be changing to a single 30" display of 2560x1600.

Is the X79 motherboard with LGA2011 socket i7-3820 a good upgrade ? What is more "future proof", which is a silly word I know, but will the X79 mobo last longer if I plan to keep for 3 years ? Or the other option would be the X68 mobo w/ i7-2600 ? Or there is a third option, wait for Ivy Bridge this Spring ?
 
drescherjm said:
There is no x86 platform that is more future proof than lga2011.
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So there will be newer LGA2011 processors down the road, that will work in the X79 ? What is the pin count for Ivy Bridge CPU's ? 2011 as well ?
 
That is not what I mean. I mean that lga2011 is the most future proof platform you can buy today. Although there is no proof on what future processors will work with lga2011 it is expected that IB-E processors will be available late this year if not that early next year.
 
What is the pin count for Ivy Bridge CPU's ?
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The ones that come out in April to June will be on lga1155 after that the lga1155 socket will be replaced.
 
So I am thinking of getting this motherboard Asus Sabertooth X79, what are your opinions ?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1498753&CatId=7381

But the DDR3 memory totally confuses me, as to which speed to get ? I like this set, is 1866mhz good way to go ? Would this match well with that motherboard ? 16gb in 4 sticks sounds crazy :)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1586699&CatId=4534

And for CPU, get the i7-3820 ?

Would this upgrade be pretty noticeable over my current X48 + Q9650 ?
 
But the DDR3 memory totally confuses me, as to which speed to get ?
I like this set, is 1866mhz good way to go ?
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There is very little real world benefit for going over DDR3 1600. And remember whatever set you purchase 1.5V is the maximum recommended ram voltage for all Intel CPUs SB and beyond. So do not get the 1.65V dimms.


16gb in 4 sticks sounds crazy
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There are now 8GB unbuffered non ecc DDR3 dimms available so you can get that in 2 dimms.

Would this upgrade be pretty noticeable over my current X48 + Q9650 ?
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It depends what you do however I would expect you to see a large jump in performance. IPC is 30% to 50% more clock per clock between core2quad and SB-E.
 
That is fine. I am not sure that is the best price (compared to recent newegg deals) but the ram is good stuff. Also look for GSkill ripjaw kits.
 
I went with the Asus Sabertooth x79 and the i7 3820 trying to get into the socket 2011 build "on the cheap". No problems so far but I strongly suggest that you make sure and download the qualified vendor list for the motherboard and choose memory that is absolutely recommended by Asus. After my third Asus build I have seen way to many problems caused by people trying to use memory that simply doesn't work with Asus boards. There weren't a lot of 16 Gb kits on the list and some seemed outdated but I used a G Skill 1866 XMP set. It runs great at XMP settings but might go ahead and reduce it to the default 1600 setting just to have some headroom. Like you and many others, am hoping that IB-E will be a simple drop in solution down the road. Not sure I can trust Intel on that but here's hoping.
 
I would like to do three different upgrades this year, but can only afford one at a time, and each upgrade I want costs around the same approx $650. Over the course of the next 12 months which of these three would you recommend first ? My main rig is in my sig, you can see everything I am currently running down there.

So of these three upgrades, which is first ?

- X79 Mobo / i7 3820 CPU / 16gb DDR3
- ATI 7970 VideoCard
- Dell 30" Monitor used off Craigslist ( thinking of dumping my 3 Dell 27" Eyefinity )
 
30" monitor is going to be there for a limited time only. If you really want it, that should be your first priority.

7970 would be second.

I highly recommend not going the x79 route if all you're doing is gaming. Get the i5 2500k or the upcoming Ivy Bridge equivalent. They are more than powerful enough for gaming today, and probably would be more than enough for the next 2-3 years.
 
I was rocking the x58 but switched to p67 when it came out cause all I really do is gaming. Microcenter has some good deals on 2500k and mobo combos if your near one. They just recently had a 2550k for 159 deal, but I think that's gone. Since your rocking that fricken huge monitor you'll want to spend money on the cards. A 2600k, which you can easily OC over 4 with little voltage increase can feed high end sli or crossfire setup pretty nicely. Plus you can get a 2500k now, enjoy it and upgrade to ivy bridge later. Most popular mobos should support Ivy with a BIOS update.For gaming I really feel P67 is where it's at.
 
If all your planning to do is game then there's really no reason to go x79 over waiting for z77 1155 ivy bridge in a month and a half. It really doesn't offer anything useful besides the option to buy cpus with more cores. 2011 will last longer but that's only because 2011 cpus seem to come out 8 to 10 months slower then 1155. Intel will most likely dump both sockets when Haswell arrives.
 
Would the X79 last longer than the P67 ? Meaning I only upgrade my CPU/Mobo maybe every 3 years or so, and the X79 has PCIeX-3.0, has more memory slots, has the newest SATA for 6GB/sec solid state drives. Does the P67 have those same features ?
 
Z68 has SATA 6, X79 and Z68 both share the same southbridge (so same USB, SATA, etc). The upcoming Z77 has integrated USB 3.0 ports, which no other chipsets have. Currently, all USB 3.0 is implemented through 3rd party controllers.

Whether or not Z68 and Z77 have PCI-E 3.0 depends on the CPU. If you use a Sandy Bridge CPU, then you get PCI-E 2.0. If you use an Ivy Bridge CPU, you get PCI-E 3.0.

Z77 and Z68 are mainstream boards. Therefore, they will only have dual channel memory with a maximum of 4 RAM slots. However, with 4gb sticks being readily available and extremely cheap, 16gb is the more than you'll ever need in a regular desktop.

Z77 and Z68 also have the advantage of being at least $200 cheaper to an equivalent X79 setup. However, Z77 and Z68 (LGA1155) are scheduled to be replaced next year by Haswell/LGA1150. On the other hand, Sandy Bridge CPUs are powerful enough and can overclock high enough that they can easily last almost all gaming needs for the next few years. This would most likely include Ivy Bridge CPUs as well, but we'll see in a few weeks when it is released.

2011 has the rumored Ivy Bridge-E upgrade for it at the end of this year or early next year. This still remains unconfirmed.
 
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