Is This REALLY A Problem???

[SpaceMilk]

Ok everyone has heard of the new Ivy bridge chips that are coming out. Everyone knows that there is a z77 mobo to accompany it. Personally, I'd take the i5 2500k and z68 over this. What game uses HT anyway? I was going with this build until I stumbled across a forum about how ivy bridge is basically useless. I agree. However one person said that the only real advantage of the ivy bridge products was that you could use 1600mgh ram. And that the others only support 1333mgh. This concerns me because I am getting a Corsair Vengeance CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B which is 1600mgh. This leaves 3 options, 1 get Ivy bridge, 2 underclock ram, 3 overclock cpu. I have never oced and am afraid of doing it. And I definetly don't want my ram downgraded. What should I do??? If its oc then give me instructions to do it.
P.S should I get a SSD?

 

[aicom]

OK, first Ivy Bridge is not "useless." It brings a lower TDP and slightly better performance for the same cost as Sandy Bridge. Ivy Bridge can work in pretty much all Z68 motherboards with a BIOS update. You can use 1600 MHz RAM with a Sandy Bridge CPU (I use 2133 MHz RAM with a Sandy Bridge CPU). The only potential pitfall of that is that you can void your processor warranty but that's really a non-issue since I've never heard of someone having to RMA their CPU as a result of a factory defect. An SSD would boost your performance significantly I'd recommend the M4, 830, or an Intel drive preferably 120 GB or higher,

 

[diellur]

Although we can't rate Ivybridge performance until it arrives, if you're after a gaming platform you're not going to be at a significant disadvantage if you get Sandybridge now. There is zero basis for Ivybridge being useless...it's more power efficient and because of Trigate it will likely overclock more efficiently than Sandybridge.

As aicom said, RAM isn't an issue. I use 1600MHz RAM on my system, and depending upon your motherboard you can go right up to 2133MHz (IIRC). However, for gaming, the difference between 1600MHz and 1333MHz for RAM won't be discernible.

Your options are really to buy now or wait until Ivybridge comes out. I'd recommend heading to the Home Built section of the forum and filling out the form asking for build advice.

An SSD is a good move too...it makes your system a lot snappier.

 

[amuffin]

Sandybridge supports 1600mhz, and above perfectly fine. Intel just "specifies" these numbers, however this is not true.

 

[Motopsychojdn]

On another note, if you are not overclocking, why would you buy a 2500K?
and there is a Sb clocking guide at the top of the overclocking section you can read up on if you wish
Moto

 

[SpaceMilk]

Best answer selected by SpaceMilk.