The Conundrums?

[sarinaide]

Good day Forumers

After a good number of years (2006 was the last upgrade) I have decided that it is time to spoil myself and this time build a new rig for myself

Here is the conundrum, like all and I am myself no different have a certain amount of capital which is consumed over the coarse of the month for living costs, so while I may have a sum of money very capable of doing this upgrade, I don't want to force myself into a potential pickle.

Background facts:

I am from South Africa so our currency trades at R7.2 to $1, but there is absolutely no corrolation between US stock prices and our distributors pricing, so as an example, what you get for $800USD you have to spend substantially more here to get the same due to the extent of distributors mark ups.

Anyways I am needing a new Motherboard, RAM and CPU, as it stands I have decided on GSkill RipJawsX 12800CL8D RAM so that is not the issue, the issue comes in the trading off between a motherboard and CPU.


From our local stocks this is the list of boards available or of interest to me ranked from most expensive to cheapest;

Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD4 (R2800)
GA-Z68X-UD4
ASUS P67 Sabertooth
GA-Z68XP-UD3
Asus P8Z68 V Pro
Asus P8P67 Pro (R2000)
ASUS Maximus GENE Z Z68 M-ATX
Asus P8Z68 V
MSI P67A-GD65
ASUS P8P67
GA-Z68P-DS3
Biostar TZ68A+ (R1100)

In this country Gigabyte are more expensive than ASUS, the GA-P67A-UD3 is roughly 200 more than the ASUS P8P67 PRO and the UD4 is about 300 more.

The CPU's of interest to me;

i5 2500K
i3 2100

QUESTION is in a situation where I cannot go for both at the high end what is better to trade off, is it better to get a 2500K with a lower cost Mobo, or to get a i3 2100 with a better motherboard and upgrade later?

For the record I will have R3500-R4000 to spare although I prefer to keep it as low as possible, and the RAM costs R730.

What would you do?

Interesting

 

[Outlander_04]

get the 2500k and a motherboard with the features you need

 

[sarinaide]

AND for the record in terms of AMD reference prices:

ASUS Maximus ROG AM3/3+ (R2200) is the highest priced MOBO from AMD and drops right down to R1200 for a 890-990 chipset motherboard (ASUS and Gigabyte)

The Phenom 2 X 4 955 BE comes in at R950 while the Phenom 2 X6 1100T comes in at R2200.

 

[sarinaide]

get the 2500k and a motherboard with the features you need

That has kinda been the position I was leaning to, going for the big prize. The ASUS P8Z68 V has sufficient amounts of goodies, bells and whistles, while the TZ68A+ just about makes it on features but I still don't have enough data on Biostar to make the leap of faith. I had recently done a Biostar Z68 build and like everything it did perform well but it is not like I pushed it in the oc side of things. While it does make an attractive savings proposition, you kinda get the "stay away" sentiment about it. I also don't see why I should pay R400 more for the GA-Z68XP-UD3 over the Z68 V when the Asus board is superior to that particular gigabyte board.

 

[sarinaide]

In case it was not made clear, this is open invite for all suggestions and experiences. I feel like learning something new. Intel and AMD alike.