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Which Ivy Bridge? New build.

F

featsdontfailme

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 14, 2012
Messages
411
I haven't followed the IB releases.

I'm planning a new computer for my daughter.
She is running a Q9450 on a Rampage Formula currently. The 9450 runs at 3.4GHz all day long on air.

I'd like to give her a nice speed boost and obviously faster RAM.
I have a bunch of DDR3 dominator sitting around but it's 1.65V spec?

Which CPU do you all recommend.
Motherboard suggestions also appreciated.

Use is some gaming (she loves Borderlands), video, and the usual kids stuff.....ie Facebook.:D

thanks a bunch in advance.......feats:cool:
 
what videocard (and monitor resolution) is she using now?

If that system needs an upgrade it would likely be a SSD, graphics cards or both.
 
I've been using the 3570k on an Asrock Extreme 4 Z77. Works great, I just built it a few weeks ago no problems so far :D
 
Also if you live by a micro center, they have a deal where If you buy an ivy bridge 3570k and a Z77 mobo, they'll take 50$ off, hope this helps :p
 
needmorecarnitine said:
what videocard (and monitor resolution) is she using now?

If that system needs an upgrade it would likely be a SSD, graphics cards or both.
Click to expand...

She uses a 22' IPS Dell and an XFX 6950 DD at 900/1300. She does alot of schoolwork with multiple windows open, so I may up the monitor to 24" U2410.

JTC428 said:
I've been using the 3570k on an Asrock Extreme 4 Z77. Works great, I just built it a few weeks ago no problems so far :D
Click to expand...

I figured the 3570K would give me some good OC headroom.
I'm thinking some kind of ASUS board, but it looks like they made about a dozen Z77 boards......yikes.:eek:

Thanks for the replies.
More the merrier.:)
 
TroyX said:
your daughter has enough speed with the current system to post on facebook and watch videos.


dont waste your money.


if you still insist then this should do it: http://secure.newegg.com/Shopping/ShoppingCart.aspx?Submit=view
Click to expand...

I completely agree. I think a C2Q to IB upgrade is worthwile for power users, but not for watching videos, facebook, browsing or using office. I just went from a Q9550@3.6 to a 3570k@4.2, and there are only two scenarios I can substantially tell the difference. The first is because I have more RAM, I can run more than two virtual machines at once, and the second is when I'm playing Shogun Total War II which is a single core resource hog. On the 3570k I can play STWII plus rip a DVD while watching another DVD and run as many virtual machines at once whereas on the q9550 I could maybe do that for an hour tops before it would blue screen. Yea, my DVD and blu-ray rips are a bit faster, but nothing to get hot-an-bothered about.

The only way this upgrade makes any sense to me is if you have a real need to repurpose the C2Q system or will immediately sell it to take advantage of the fact that there is still some market value there. Otherwise there has to be better use of your $$$.
 
Her current system must easily max out Borderlands with high AA? I remember running it maxed out on a Q6700 3.3GHz with a GTX 280.

Unless she is video editing, dropping in an SSD (biggest upgrade for user experience) and ensuring she has 8GB of RAM will be more than enough (plus a clean format/install of Windows).

If you just want to build a new rig, I'd go 3570K/mid range mobo/8GB DDR3-1600 1.5V. Timings and higher speed RAM have zero impact on common user experience on Ivy Bridge/Sandy Bridge and barely even move benchmarks.
 
TroyX said:
your daughter has enough speed with the current system to post on facebook and watch videos.


dont waste your money.


if you still insist then this should do it: http://secure.newegg.com/Shopping/ShoppingCart.aspx?Submit=view
Click to expand...

I happen to agree with this statement but I would advise that you to add an SSD to give your daughter the speed boost that she is looking for. Add a SSD like the Intel® SSD 330 120GB this will give you about the biggest visable boost in performance.
 
JTC428 said:
What is your budget?
Click to expand...

It costs what it costs. Her beimg happy is worth it.:D

grambo said:
Her current system must easily max out Borderlands with high AA? I remember running it maxed out on a Q6700 3.3GHz with a GTX 280.

Unless she is video editing, dropping in an SSD (biggest upgrade for user experience) and ensuring she has 8GB of RAM will be more than enough (plus a clean format/install of Windows).

If you just want to build a new rig, I'd go 3570K/mid range mobo/8GB DDR3-1600 1.5V. Timings and higher speed RAM have zero impact on common user experience on Ivy Bridge/Sandy Bridge and barely even move benchmarks.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice.:)

IntelEnthusiast said:
I happen to agree with this statement but I would advise that you to add an SSD to give your daughter the speed boost that she is looking for. Add a SSD like the Intel® SSD 330 120GB this will give you about the biggest visable boost in performance.
Click to expand...

Thanks.
I guess the old Rampage Formula has more life in it than I gave it credit for.:eek:
 
featsdontfailme said:
It costs what it costs. Her beimg happy is worth it.:D
Click to expand...


You're a nice dad :)


That videocard is still really good (even if she upgrades to 1920x1080). Consider just getting a SSD and a new Windows install. If she doesn't already have 8GB of ram, that too. Its been a while but I think 1.65V is fine for S775.
 
SSD & maxing out memory is the best bet here. SSD will remove the largest bottleneck most modern PCs have. I'm going to be waiting to upgrade my system once the Win8/PCIe 3.0/USB 3 releases flesh out next year. Secondly a better monitor & video card could make a great improvement to the user experience.
 
It costs what it costs. Her being happy is worth it.
Click to expand...

Well if cost isn't a problem, I think that the Maximus V Gene would be a good choice. Its fast and it overclocks better than anything out there (Also It's 20$ off on Newegg as of right now). Or if you wanted something more like an extended ATX and could wait maybe the Maximus V Formula.

Gene:
http://rog.asus.com/motherboard/gene/maximus-v-gene/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131830

Gene Reviews:
http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/asus_maximus_v_gene_review,1.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/Maximus_V_Gene/

Formula:
http://rog.asus.com/motherboard/formula/maximus-v-formula/
 
Last edited:
Thank you all.

I am a SSD noob, so I'll have to look into that a bit.

The Rampage Formula is an X48 based chipset, so DDR2 is all I can do. I think I'll have to evaluate whether that board would like 4 x 2GB. I'm not sure I could find 4GB modules at this point in history?

I can run an SSD from the SATA II port, no? Or do they prefer SATA III, which this board doesn't have.

Secondly, I'd load the OS on to the SSD and then use a bigger platter for storage, correct?

thanks for the suggestions so far. I honestly appreciate it.
 
featsdontfailme said:
Thank you all.

I am a SSD noob, so I'll have to look into that a bit.

The Rampage Formula is an X48 based chipset, so DDR2 is all I can do. I think I'll have to evaluate whether that board would like 4 x 2GB. I'm not sure I could find 4GB modules at this point in history?

I can run an SSD from the SATA II port, no? Or do they prefer SATA III, which this board doesn't have.

Secondly, I'd load the OS on to the SSD and then use a bigger platter for storage, correct?

thanks for the suggestions so far. I honestly appreciate it.
Click to expand...


A new computer built without an SSD is built wrong.

They can go into SATA2 just fine... will not go as fast as SATA3 but will significantly better than a spinning HDD.
 
I am a SSD noob, so I'll have to look into that a bit.

The Rampage Formula is an X48 based chipset, so DDR2 is all I can do. I think I'll have to evaluate whether that board would like 4 x 2GB. I'm not sure I could find 4GB modules at this point in history?

I can run an SSD from the SATA II port, no? Or do they prefer SATA III, which this board doesn't have.

Secondly, I'd load the OS on to the SSD and then use a bigger platter for storage, correct?

thanks for the suggestions so far. I honestly appreciate it.
Click to expand...

Install windows on the SSD, then use your existing HDD for storage.
I don't know all that much either. :p
 
Zangmonkey said:
A new computer built without an SSD is built wrong.

They can go into SATA2 just fine... will not go as fast as SATA3 but will significantly better than a spinning HDD.
Click to expand...

Well, I don't know about wrong.:eek:

I have not had the opportunity to need one since they have come down a little in price.

I'm happy to use platters, but something new and different would be fun.
I just don't know if it will make that much difference with this particular motherboard......but what the hell.:D
 
featsdontfailme said:
Thank you all.

I am a SSD noob, so I'll have to look into that a bit.

The Rampage Formula is an X48 based chipset, so DDR2 is all I can do. I think I'll have to evaluate whether that board would like 4 x 2GB. I'm not sure I could find 4GB modules at this point in history?

I can run an SSD from the SATA II port, no? Or do they prefer SATA III, which this board doesn't have.

Secondly, I'd load the OS on to the SSD and then use a bigger platter for storage, correct?

thanks for the suggestions so far. I honestly appreciate it.
Click to expand...

There are 4gb sticks of DDR2, and the Rampage Formula will use them. so you could goto 16gb. I have 4x2gb in my P45 and G43 boards, I can't imagine why the X48 wouldn't do it.

If you got a Cache SSD (Crucial Adrenaline, OCZ Synapse, Corsair Accelerator) They come with software to let them work in conjunction with your platter drive. get the best of both worlds.
 
I agree with pretty much everyone, get an SSD and see how that does.. Samsung 830, Crucial M4, or Plextor M3. Check the Hot Deals subforum.

I'll give a testimony... I've got a single platter 1TB 7200RPM HDD and Win7 would boot in about 1m 45s. That's from pushing the power button, watching the Win boot screen, and everything loading like all the task bar tray icons and desktop gadgets. With my SSD, it all takes 23s after pressing the power button. Sleep mode fully resumes ready for me to do anything I want in about 4-5s.
 
Being that money doesn't seem to be a large object the first thing I would do is get a 256 GB for around $200. The Samsung 830 was on shell shocker for 190 today I believe. Other 256 GB drives go on sale in the 180-200 range fairly often now.

See how much that improves the experience. Don't worry about the RAM or anything else until you do that first. If the SSD isn't enough then it's time to evaluate whether you replace the rest of the system or whether an upgrade in the amount of RAM would suffice. The SSD is usable in both the new or old build, but since a RAM upgrade would be DDR 2 it would suck to do the SSD and RAM together and then find out you still want more power.
 
TroyX said:
your daughter has enough speed with the current system to post on facebook and watch videos.


dont waste your money.


if you still insist then this should do it: http://secure.newegg.com/Shopping/ShoppingCart.aspx?Submit=view
Click to expand...

The issue is Borderlands - not Facebook.

While everything else would run quite happily on a dual-core CPU (any dual-core), throwing a relatively-recent game into the mix (especially if you have other tasks running in the background, as even most light gamers tend to do), pushes toward a quad-core.

Since you brought up Ivy Bridge in particular, I would suggest the i5-3450. While it's *not* a K series Ivy (that would be the i5-3570K), it can still be overclocked to an extent.

The bigger issue is that for a mere $40 more (MicroCenter) you can get an i5-3570K.

Because of that niggling lack of real price difference between non-K and K when it comes to i5, I find it hard to recommend a non-K CPU - either Sandy *or* Ivy.

If you also need a motherboard, the situation gets even worse for non-K CPUs (and especially at MicroCenter) as CPU/motherboard bundleage can utterly erase any price advantage a non-K CPU has over the K-series brethren. (My own planned build - BridgeWalker - has been revised twice in the past month entirely due to the impact of price drops and bundle deals; as it stands, it is now based around i5-3570K and the ASUS P8Z77-V - which, thanks to bundle savings, is priced identically to the no-bundle P8Z77-V LX, and undercutting the P8Z77-V LE Plus - and I had a K-series i5 in mind from the start.)
 
This is an example of what's wrong asking advice here for casual/non-enthusiest. A girl who post on facebook and does homework is ending up with a high end quad core, SSD, and a bunch of other stuff that's not necessary. I posted a few years ago about how people here suggest quad core CPU's for grandma's solitare machine and what I said obviously hasn't changed.

I honestly don't see why what she has not is not 'good enough', let alone have any performance issues at all. If the computer feels slow, a free OS re-install can get you back a lot of performance. That's what we would recommend in the old days at least.

My advice is save your money for something more important, like college.
 
featsdontfailme said:
Thank you all.

I am a SSD noob, so I'll have to look into that a bit.

The Rampage Formula is an X48 based chipset, so DDR2 is all I can do. I think I'll have to evaluate whether that board would like 4 x 2GB. I'm not sure I could find 4GB modules at this point in history?

I can run an SSD from the SATA II port, no? Or do they prefer SATA III, which this board doesn't have.

Secondly, I'd load the OS on to the SSD and then use a bigger platter for storage, correct?

thanks for the suggestions so far. I honestly appreciate it.
Click to expand...

SATA2 vs SATA3 doesn't matter if you only have one SSD in the system. The only bottleneck with SATA2 is sequential transfers (3GBit/s max which fast SSDs can exceed), but copying to/from a hard disk is only going to hit 100-125mbyte/s anyway, and read/write from RAM is not a large sequential operation for desktop use. 4K random I/O performance and low latency (seek time) is what makes SSDs "feel" faster than hard drives.

You are correct, install OS, applications and games on the SSD. Personally, I don't bother moving documents etc. to storage drives, my storage drives only contain media (music, movies, pictures), backup, temp/scratch files etc.

8GB of DDR2 is plenty for desktop use and will remove any potential bottlenecks, although 4GB is probably fine for her (I found Battlefield 3 and a few other games required me to close down large browser sessions beofre playing or I'd run out of memory with 4GB). 16GB is a waste for her use case.

Bigdog: his daughter already has the system, so we are suggesting reasonably priced upgrades to improve her user experience (SSD, maybe more memory, bigger monitor etc). I agree the people suggesting 3570K's and 16GB RAM are nuts and do not understand the concept of value.
 
As far as CPU's go, (and I know I might get crap for this) I've always found the i5 model to be superior when it comes to gaming. That's just my own experience! I've noticed I have a lot more control over heat and stability when overclocking with the i5's. And to be completely honestly, i7's are a little overboard when it comes to how much is actually being used during gaming. Now, if you were decoding or running AutoCAD or something, I would suggest the i7, hands down.
 
Also, the Crucial M5 SDDs and their current $/GB price point. You can't get much better.
 
bigdogchris said:
This is an example of what's wrong asking advice here for casual/non-enthusiest. A girl who post on facebook and does homework is ending up with a high end quad core, SSD, and a bunch of other stuff that's not necessary. I posted a few years ago about how people here suggest quad core CPU's for grandma's solitare machine and what I said obviously hasn't changed.

I honestly don't see why what she has not is not 'good enough', let alone have any performance issues at all. If the computer feels slow, a free OS re-install can get you back a lot of performance. That's what we would recommend in the old days at least.

My advice is save your money for something more important, like college.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice.
We have college covered, both by serious savings and her academic excellence......the kid has a 97.75 grade average, all advanced placement courses; and scored near perfect on her SAT math segment. (I'm kind of proud of her)
Not only that but she rarely asks for anything. The computer she has now is a cobbled together machine from stuff after I upgraded for myself and my son. She's never really had anything "new"......although I did buy her HD 6950 new. It replaced a used 4890 I bought off the forums.:D

When she asked if I could "possibly" upgrade her computer, because it was "lagging" a little bit in large scenes in Borderlands...........well what can you say. I'm also thinking ahead a little for her college, so she has a beefy desktop for her work.

BTW......I recently reformatted her HDD, less than a month ago.:D
 
Relativist said:
Starting school eh? Maybe a portable is in order... Macbook?
Click to expand...

Oh absolutely......she has a laptop already purchased for school. they had a very short list of laptops they recommended, so we scoped them all out and decided on the best one for her needs.....plus one that could be upgraded if needed.

She's not a sheeple, so really didn't care who made it as long as she could do her work.:)
 
If this is to be a gift, more or less, then I say go ahead and do the full blown upgrade. I'm actually looking forward to this kind of thing myself in 10 years when my daughter graduates high school. :D
 
bigdogchris said:
This is an example of what's wrong asking advice here for casual/non-enthusiest. A girl who post on facebook and does homework is ending up with a high end quad core, SSD, and a bunch of other stuff that's not necessary. I posted a few years ago about how people here suggest quad core CPU's for grandma's solitare machine and what I said obviously hasn't changed.

I honestly don't see why what she has not is not 'good enough', let alone have any performance issues at all. If the computer feels slow, a free OS re-install can get you back a lot of performance. That's what we would recommend in the old days at least.

My advice is save your money for something more important, like college.
Click to expand...

Blame Intel for pricing a high-end quad-core like a mid-range quad-core.

While college tuition and other expenses (thank you for that example) continues to rise, CPU pricing (in terms of computing power per dollar US) has been dropping. Intel has not priced high-end quad-cores like high-end quad-cores since, arguably, the Great Kentsfield Fire Sale. Q6600 *new* (in fact, at the time of the GKFS) is literally the same price that i5-3570K sells for today, despite that i5-3570K would absolutely roast Q6600 (which is itself amazing, since IB has *less* on-die cache than Q6600). To put it bluntly, i5-K is a *bargain*.

Also, I am thinking of her college workload - what is her planned major? If she plans on going into computers, a quad-core would be solid for anything relating to IT - that can't be said for a dual-core.
 
If you don't already know about it, take a look at what Intel Smart Response Technology (SRT) does.
It is baked into current Intel systems.
If you want to minimize possible maintenance, this might be easier than SSD + HDD.
I recently installed this on a system used for daily office tasks and was very surprised at how well it works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Response_Technology

I'll also make 2 more points.
1) Multiple monitors. More screen real estate makes everyday computing more efficient - BUT it can be impossible if desk space is limited ... not to mention $$$.
2) 16:10 vs 16:9 monitors I find that for my usage 16:10 with its larger vertical space is better for me, although more expensive. Look at the Dell 2410
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...e_bnrank=1&baynote_irrank=0&~ck=baynoteSearch
 
winkyeye said:
Can I have a dad like you? :D
Click to expand...

I have two daughters.
That is about all I can take.

PGHammer said:
Blame Intel for pricing a high-end quad-core like a mid-range quad-core.

While college tuition and other expenses (thank you for that example) continues to rise, CPU pricing (in terms of computing power per dollar US) has been dropping. Intel has not priced high-end quad-cores like high-end quad-cores since, arguably, the Great Kentsfield Fire Sale. Q6600 *new* (in fact, at the time of the GKFS) is literally the same price that i5-3570K sells for today, despite that i5-3570K would absolutely roast Q6600 (which is itself amazing, since IB has *less* on-die cache than Q6600). To put it bluntly, i5-K is a *bargain*.

Also, I am thinking of her college workload - what is her planned major? If she plans on going into computers, a quad-core would be solid for anything relating to IT - that can't be said for a dual-core.
Click to expand...

Her major is likely science......she has wanted to be a veterinarian since she could talk.

tombew said:
If you don't already know about it, take a look at what Intel Smart Response Technology (SRT) does.
It is baked into current Intel systems.
If you want to minimize possible maintenance, this might be easier than SSD + HDD.
I recently installed this on a system used for daily office tasks and was very surprised at how well it works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Response_Technology

I'll also make 2 more points.
1) Multiple monitors. More screen real estate makes everyday computing more efficient - BUT it can be impossible if desk space is limited ... not to mention $$$.
2) 16:10 vs 16:9 monitors I find that for my usage 16:10 with its larger vertical space is better for me, although more expensive. Look at the Dell 2410
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...e_bnrank=1&baynote_irrank=0&~ck=baynoteSearch
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info.
She uses a dell 2408 currently.:D
 
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