Building a system with leftover parts!

[chris_davie]

Hey guys, first post!
I recently built up an i5 2500k system but was offered a few items for a low price (vertex 3 ssd drives, 16gb ddr3 1333 memory and a new motherboard) so I got them, swapped in the new motherboard (asus p8z68 deluxe) and everything is running great. The "problem" I face now is, I have a gigabyte z68ap-d3 motherboard, 8 gig ddr3, a ocz zt 750 psu, a 6790 gfx card and a case all just sitting here gathering dust. I'm thinking I should really build up another pc to either sell or give to my girlfriend who plays a bit of warcraft (her pc is terrible).

I'm thinking, buy a new ivybridge i7 3770k and slot it in my current build and build the other system with my old i5, or buy the 3770k along with a new 7 series motherboard, swapping the asus board into the "new" build. What I want to know is, is the new ivybridge cpus really best suited to the 77 motherboards, or will it work just fine in my asus board? If theres little or no performance boost with the 7 boards I could use the money saved to buy another 7970 gfx card for this pc, for crossfire!

Any advice or other suggestions welcome. I guess I could just sell off these leftover parts in the local classifieds but a build is much more fun!

 

[popatim]

the only thing the 77 series mob brings to the table is pcie3 connectivity which only shows a performance improvement in a few games, and we are talking a 0.1 average to 2 frames per second max improvement.

Do note that I dont beleive anyones tested pcie3 benchmarks with a dual card (in one slot) which is where pcie3 might make a difference.

 

[chris_davie]

Ah I didn't know that, cheers for the info. I can only see myself going dual cards in two slots. I think the asus is 16/8? so should scale decently enough if I go that path. The board I have has all the bits I could want, that's why I was a bit hesitant to upgrade so soon to the 77 board. Do you think I would see much improvement going from my i5 2500k @ 4.4ghz to the i7 3770k? I use my pc mostly for games and photo editing on cs5. I have been known to do a bit of video editing too so I guess the hyperthreading might get some use down the line.