New rig Sandy Bridge vs. Gulftown?
I am putting together a new rig, and for the first time since the Pentium 233 MMX I am looking at an intel based system.
(I do have a laptop with a Core 2 Duo Penryn though but other than that it has been AMD all the way.)
I have narrowed it down to these two:
Core i7 Gulftown 970 3.2 Ghz vs. Core i7 2600K Sandy Bridge, the 980X is ridiculously overpriced.
The Gulftown will be used with an Asus Rampage III Extreme and the Sandy Bridge with an Asus Maximus IV Extreme
I am going to choose a Radeon 6990 4 GB as the graphics card would any of the above processors be the better choice with such a card?
The Rampage III is the most interesting of the two boards since I would really like to have a PCI port. It is for my Asus Xonar sound card.
That is not present on the Maximus IV, unfortunately.
Furthermore I am a bit pressured time-wise I have to order the rig at the end of next week at the latest. That means that I cannot wait for a 6-core Sandy Bridge that should be out soon. This will require another socket so I cannot upgrade later on without swapping the MB as well.
I am mostly satisfied with my current rig, but a couple of things is not good.
First of all it has to little memory in it. 4 GB isn't what it used to be.
I'm am looking at 12 GB for the new rig.
And then there is my dying graphics card. I toss it in the oven every 6 months give or take. After this treatment it works again.
But I do know that some day it will die I cannot keep doing it forever.
And it would be a big investment anyway to buy a new card then I might as well get an entire rig. :bigggrin:
I will be ordering it through my workplace that means that the price will be a bit lower than standard. But you have to order a complete rig.
(I do have a laptop with a Core 2 Duo Penryn though but other than that it has been AMD all the way.)
I have narrowed it down to these two:
Core i7 Gulftown 970 3.2 Ghz vs. Core i7 2600K Sandy Bridge, the 980X is ridiculously overpriced.
The Gulftown will be used with an Asus Rampage III Extreme and the Sandy Bridge with an Asus Maximus IV Extreme
I am going to choose a Radeon 6990 4 GB as the graphics card would any of the above processors be the better choice with such a card?
The Rampage III is the most interesting of the two boards since I would really like to have a PCI port. It is for my Asus Xonar sound card.
That is not present on the Maximus IV, unfortunately.
Furthermore I am a bit pressured time-wise I have to order the rig at the end of next week at the latest. That means that I cannot wait for a 6-core Sandy Bridge that should be out soon. This will require another socket so I cannot upgrade later on without swapping the MB as well.
I am mostly satisfied with my current rig, but a couple of things is not good.
First of all it has to little memory in it. 4 GB isn't what it used to be.
I'm am looking at 12 GB for the new rig.
And then there is my dying graphics card. I toss it in the oven every 6 months give or take. After this treatment it works again.
But I do know that some day it will die I cannot keep doing it forever.
And it would be a big investment anyway to buy a new card then I might as well get an entire rig. :bigggrin:
I will be ordering it through my workplace that means that the price will be a bit lower than standard. But you have to order a complete rig.
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Nice choices on everything else.
You can also pick up a pci-e xonar card for $70, if you'd rather have the board without the pci slot.
It is dual channel vs. triple channel if I am not mistaken.
That should result in a lower throughput but does that effect real life performance?
I was looking at 12 GB of memory since I am quite fond of having several browsers etc. open at the same time. But a 12 GB kit is hard to find when looking a dual channel.
Maybe 2x6 GB kits, but that is more expensive.
Dual for triple really doesn't mean anything. The memory bandwidth of both platforms is already so high that going to a third channel is trivial.
You also don't need 12GB if your main concern is "multiple browsers at the same time." 8GB will do just fine for that.
Both sockets are dead end technologies especially when the socket 2011 comes.
(I hate that Intel changes sockets all the time)
The Sandy Bridge is cheaper and faster at the same frequency except in very specific areas.
Due to circumstances I cannot change I have used a configurator with a limited selection. In some aspects.
That means that in most cases I cannot swap a part for another brand etc.
I would have liked to have picked every single component myself, but that is not possible. I can swap components myself later on but that is another story.
I am not that happy with the selected memory. Would have liked Corsair Dominator instead. And I would have liked 2x4 GB in favor of 4x2 GB that would have made it easier to upgrade later on.
Processor: Intel Core i7 2600K 3.40 Ghz (should be able to OC it to ~4.4 GHz with a good HSF)
Motherboard: Maximus IV Extreme Sandy Bridge
Memory: Kingston DDR3 - 1600 Mhz - 8 GB (4 x 2 GB) HyperX
Graphics Card: Asus EAH6990 3DI4S 4GB
Hard drive: Western Digital VelociRaptor 600GB (2x 300GB
Hard drive: Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB
Optical drive: Plextor DVD recorder / Blu-ray drive
Case: Antec Nine Hundred Two Midi Tower or Corsair Obsidian 650D (dunno if it is possible to get a hold of the Corsair)
PSU: Corsair 1000 Watt Modular
EDIT: Oh dear I forgot the nVidia 590 GTX 3 GB. Would that be a better choice compared to the 6990?
Both of them are supposed to sound like a mix between a washing machine and a leaf blower under load.
The nvidia card is a little bit cheaper but not much.
And it's got CUDA and PhysX... hmm one problem solved another appears.
Only a small handful of titles use PhysX, and nothing you do uses CUDA, I guarantee it.
Well I did fold a bit using CUDA, but it didn't amount to much.
Fix that! Fold more nao!
I only really use Photoshop once in a while.
Would it make any difference there?
I am not using Premiere, Illustrator etc.
That extra 100$ goes a ways towards that second 590 in SLI.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu,2971-4.html
At long last it has arrived. I got my hands on it a couple of days ago.
The long waiting time was due to the fact that the Radeon 6990 practicaly doesn't exist?. After having waited for a very loooong time I swapped it for two Radeon 6970 instead. Can't say I'm unhappy about that descision.
The final config ended up with these components.
Intel Sandy Bridge i7-2600K
Asus Maximus IV Extreme
8 GB Kingston HyperX 1600 MHz DDR3.
2x Asus Radeon 6970
Corsair HX 1000 W PSU
2x 600 GB WD Raptors in Raid-0
2 TB WD Caviar Green for storage
Plextor PX-B320SA optical drive.
Coolermaster V8 HSF (that got damaged during shipping. I am waiting for a replacement. That means I am stuck with stock fan for now )
All housed in a Antec 902. I might swap that for a Corsair Obsidian later. :thumbup
I will be getting a decent sound card later as well. Probably the Asus Xonar D2 with PCI-E interface.
The onboard sound is horrible. ;D