Sandy bridge or Ivy bridge

sluipmoord

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Jan 16, 2012
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Hello, I'm looking to upgrade my current pc.
Witch is a core 2 quad q6700, gforce 9500 512mb ddr2 and 4G DDR2 memory
This upgrade should last me about 3years before i need to upgrade again majorly like i'm doing now.
The purpose of the computer is for gaming and suitable for multimedia. Since i'm studying multimedia degree.
I live in South Africa.
I do not require any I/O devices for the upgrade.

But my only problem is i'm not sure if i should wait for the ivy bridges to come out in Q2.
The build that i had in mind is as follows


DVD = Sony AD7260S-OB 24x Sata Black (DW-S24So) = R167.58
PSU = Corsair TX750M 750W Eps12V with Modular Cable Management PSU (PS-C750TXM) = R1393.08
RAM = Corsair CMZ12GX3M3A1600C9 Vengeance 12GB (3 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (ME-C4G3V16X9x3) = R964.44
GPU = Club 3D HD 7970 3GB AMD Radeon HD7970 GPU (CGAX-7977) = R6154.77
MOB = ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Intel Z68 Chipset ATX (Z68 Extreme4 Gen3) = R2299.15
CPU = Intel Socket 1155 Sandy Bridge i7-2700K Quad Core 3.5GHz CPU With Fan (CP-iS2700K) = R3569.34
Case = Corsair Graphite Series 600TM with Meshed Side Panel No PSU (CH-C600TM) = R1546.98
Cooling= Corsair H60 Hydro Series CPU Water Cooling (WC-CH60) = R737.58
HDD = Seagate ST2000DL003 Barracuda Green 2TB Sata 6G 5900RPM 64MB Cache (HD-S2000S6G64) = R1393.08

Witch is a total of 18226.00 in ZAR or 2 240 USD

I know that even though i'm using a pci 3 GPU it will only run at pci 2 speeds. because of the sandy bridge architecture.
So my question, do i wait for the ivy bridge supposedly to come out in April or do i just sell the 2700k and upgrade to a ivy bridge later this year?

 

rvilkman

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You should be using an even amount of ram sticks. So either 2x4GB or 4x4GB.

I would probably wait for Ivy bridge, but if you need the computer now, it is not a bad time to upgrade.
Just make sure your Mobo supports Gen3 PCIe.

Check for the price difference between i7 2600k and 2700k, if you can get the 2600k for a good amount cheaper just go ahead and get that. The difference is very minor between the 2 CPU's. Also if you intend to upgrade to Ivy bridge when it comes out, you might even consider the i5 2500k. Probably easier to get rid of that than the i7 2600k or 2700k.

You might also want to consider Asus P8Z68-V Pro for example. Has better warranty and seems to have better quality than the Asrock boards that seem to have some QC issues as of late.

But it does seem just fine for your use.

As for your video card it will work just fine with the 16x PCIe Gen2. Unlikely that the bandwidth will be an issue.
 

AdrianPerry

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I would possibly recommend just buying an i3-2100 for now. It will still provide plenty of performance for gaming alongside that 7970 and you should be able to re-sell it later on with minimal loss. Certainly do no shell out for i7-2700k, i5-2500k at most.

RAM - 12GB is a no-no. You need Dual Channel RAM not triple. 8GB, 1600MHz, 1.5v, CL9 is the "sweet spot" for price-vs-performance.

HDD - 2TB Green drive isn't really going to be the best in terms of speed. You would be better off with a 7200RPM drive, and possibly even x2 1TB drives in a RAID-0 set up.

You seem to have a fairly decent budget, id probably recommend getting an SSD in there somewhere, either 60/64GB or 120/128GB.
 

sluipmoord

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Jan 16, 2012
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I was only thinking of getting the i7, because if i don't upgrade it is going to last me a while. Do you think that 8GB is enough to last me a while. I don't really want to repurchase a 16 GB set if I don't find the matching modules anymore.

I only went for the 2TB because of a higher cash mem and SSD are way to expensive where I live. I just wanted a 6gbs hdd to go with the 1.5tb 3gbs 7200rpm seagate i already have.

@rvikman there is only a 8dollar difference between the 2600k and 2700k, The ASrock bord looked promising, a lot cheaper than the Asus with mostly the same features
 

sluipmoord

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Jan 16, 2012
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I was only thinking of getting the i7, because if i don't upgrade it is going to last me a while. Do you think that 8GB is enough to last me a while. I don't really want to repurchase a 16 GB set if I don't find the matching modules anymore.

I only went for the 2TB because of a higher cash mem and SSD are way to expensive where I live. I just wanted a 6gbs hdd to go with the 1.5tb 3gbs 7200rpm seagate i already have.

@rvikman there is only a 8dollar difference between the 2600k and 2700k, The ASrock bord looked promising, a lot cheaper than the Asus with mostly the same features
 

AdrianPerry

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6gbs will be no faster than a 3gbs HDD. Neither are fast enough to actually utilize this speed. SSD's are the only place you will see the SATA3 6gbs advantage.

i5-2500k will provide the same gaming performance as the i7. Unless you have any applications you KNOW will take advantage of Hyperthreading, the i7 just isn't worth the extra cost.

8GB RAM is plenty. Games currently wont use more than about 2-3GB due to them being designed with 32-bit Windows in mind.
 

sluipmoord

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Jan 16, 2012
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I know that i'm going to use 3ds max and i know that is a relatively a high stress program. I just wish that a sdd of 60gb didn't cost the same as that 2tb hdd lol.