Author Topic: Best cheap(ish) upgrade path? (Read 6514 times)

Bacon · **Reply #30 on:** March 21, 2012, 11:44:21 AM

Re: Best cheap(ish) upgrade path?

Reply #30 on: March 21, 2012, 11:44:21 AM

Quote from: Serious on March 21, 2012, 07:28:12 AM

I'm considering a second I5 2500K and I'm also waiting to see what Ivy Bridge offers, retail availability should start in April.

TBH in a fit of total rationality I actually bought the motherboard that bacon suggested, it works great given the minor limitations I stated . As put in my thread it has a 2500K CPU and 6870 graphics. I was going to buy the AMD one, honest

You know, if this continues, Bacon won't be able to get his head through the forum doors and you will have to enlarge them?

Its a good motherboard, i just don't want to see people buying rubbish.

Its what i would buy if i were to build a system now.

XEntity · **Reply #31 on:** March 21, 2012, 18:00:44 PM

Re: Best cheap(ish) upgrade path?

Reply #31 on: March 21, 2012, 18:00:44 PM

Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on March 20, 2012, 03:01:49 AM

Quote from: XEntity on March 20, 2012, 00:19:02 AM
Looks quite slow compared to the OCZ Vertex and others around that price?

The others seem quite a bit more money and as far as I've seen its only slower on writes, which don't matter so much? The firmware is more reliable than Sandforce anyway I think. If you can point out a better deal though I can cancel I think.

edit: Seems decent enough according to Bit-Tech!
Quote
Sadly, I couldn't find a fancy picture that has all the in-depth specs like I could with the Vertex 3. Although the M4 isn't as fast as the Vertex 3, it has a much higher IOPS count for 4kb files. Just like the Vertex 3, the M4 was also awarded by Tom's Hardware as a 2011 recommended buy, as well as claimed to be the best 2.5" SSD on the market by SSD Review.

In fact its peeing all over it according to these benchmarks?
http://www.destructoid.com/review-ocz-vertex-3-vs-crucial-m4-solid-state-drive-213810.phtml

Yes knighty I should be although I already told the bloke that's been working on my car I might do him a deal on it as he was asking, but we'll see

My bad, I did have a look for the IOPs on the link you posted but they missed it off and I couldn't be buggered to look harder

Clock'd 0Ne · **Reply #32 on:** April 16, 2012, 17:34:22 PM

Re: Best cheap(ish) upgrade path?

Reply #32 on: April 16, 2012, 17:34:22 PM

i5's are going pretty cheap at the moment, I'm guessing this is because Ivybridge and the Z77 boards are coming out soon, so is it worth holding off another month or so to get the new tech?

Oooh this is interesting: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-cuts-desktop-ivy-bridge-cpu-pricing-ahead-of-launch/15557.html

Last Edit: April 16, 2012, 18:02:51 PM by Clock'd 0Ne #187;

Clock'd 0Ne · **Reply #33 on:** April 26, 2012, 11:18:58 AM

Re: Best cheap(ish) upgrade path?

Reply #33 on: April 26, 2012, 11:18:58 AM

Right, I've decided Ivy Bridge is a waste of time (i.e not great value for my needs) and I'm going to get my components in the next couple of weeks hopefully:

Can someone reccommend a decent cooler that is not too bulky to complete the setup, I want something that will fit around the socket without affecting the 3/4 DIMM slots for when I eventually go up to 32Gb RAM.

Ahh, just realised that's a Retail CPU, I'll have to order elsewhere. In fact I'll get a 2500 or 2600, I didn't realise how poor value the 2550k was

Last Edit: April 26, 2012, 22:04:39 PM by Clock'd 0Ne #187;

Clock'd 0Ne · **Reply #34 on:** May 10, 2012, 12:38:58 PM

Re: Best cheap(ish) upgrade path?

Reply #34 on: May 10, 2012, 12:38:58 PM

In a complete departure from my previous post I've gone for a monster Ivy Bridge setup

1 x Asus P8Z77-V PRO, Intel Z77, S1155
1 x LN 42833 - Intel Core i7 3770K S1155 Retail
2 x Corsair 16GB (2 x 8GB) LP Vengeance 1600MHz DDR3 240-pin DIMM CL10
1 x Noctua NH-C14 Top-Flow Flexible CPU

It was worth paying £6 more for the retail CPU for the extra 24 months warranty (and it wasn't on pre-order like the OEMs).

Benchmarks to come!

matt5cott · **Reply #35 on:** May 10, 2012, 13:07:52 PM

Re: Best cheap(ish) upgrade path?

Reply #35 on: May 10, 2012, 13:07:52 PM

Clock'd 0Ne · **Reply #36 on:** May 20, 2012, 12:45:53 PM

Re: Best cheap(ish) upgrade path?

Reply #36 on: May 20, 2012, 12:45:53 PM

Benchmarks!

Not bad considering I've not overclocked at all. I can't seem to get CPU temp up over 45C either

One thing puzzling me though is that I can't seem to get my IGP on the i7 detected, anyone know how to check/enable it in the ASUS UEFI? The overclocking options make no sense to me either, all this ratio per core business. What is the purpose of the economy/normal/extreme modes in the basic BIOS too, should I just leave it on normal? I thought things would be dead easy to setup in there but it all seems needlessly complicated now

Last Edit: May 20, 2012, 12:52:19 PM by Clock'd 0Ne #187;

Serious · **Reply #37 on:** May 22, 2012, 22:53:19 PM

Re: Best cheap(ish) upgrade path?

Reply #37 on: May 22, 2012, 22:53:19 PM

The 3770 as with other similar CPUs boosts it's own clock speed when a heavy load is put on the CPU. IIRC the clock is nominally 35*100 but can boost a good bit higher.

It is also reputed to run slightly hotter than the Sandybridge processors.

I also note you followed that Serious' idiotic suggestion to go for the 37xx series processor rather than the 25xx one

Last Edit: May 22, 2012, 22:56:25 PM by Serious #187;

Clock'd 0Ne · **Reply #38 on:** May 22, 2012, 23:06:59 PM

Re: Best cheap(ish) upgrade path?

Reply #38 on: May 22, 2012, 23:06:59 PM

I've clocked it up to Turbo boost of 40x (4Ghz) and made sure the BIOS doesn't do silly things with the core voltage like it was doing, still hard pressed to get the CPU hotter than 45-50C and it absolutely sh*ts all over anything I throw at it. If I could be bothered I reckon I'd easily get 4.4/maybe 4.5Ghz out of it, but its powerful enough as is so I'll keep her stable

It was a good suggestion

Shaun · **Reply #39 on:** May 23, 2012, 12:51:30 PM

Re: Best cheap(ish) upgrade path?

Reply #39 on: May 23, 2012, 12:51:30 PM

Ivy Bridge tends to do really well with temps until you hit a certain threshold and then the heat gets insane very quickly!

Still not as fast as my Sandybridge @ 5GHz tho looking at your benchmarks

...go on push it a bit higher! 7.03 to beat with SuperPI 32M

you should be able to beat it at around 4.5 GHz

Clock'd 0Ne · **Reply #40 on:** May 23, 2012, 13:54:45 PM

Re: Best cheap(ish) upgrade path?

Reply #40 on: May 23, 2012, 13:54:45 PM

Yeah, I noticed the DIGI thing on the Asus UEFI was set to 140%! That's way too hot for IB, I scaled it down to 110% and now it only goes up to 1.2V max. I've noticed I get worse results from the multicore superpi than I do from standard, I think I could beat your 7 seconds with a push

RAM is at default XMP settings too, so 800Mhz 10-10-10-27 (I forgot to add above nowehere is stocking the Corsair sticks I wanted so ended up with a Mushkin Enhanced Black Line set). I gather with Ivy Bridge ram speed doesn't make much difference though, the cache and code execution are so efficient.

Last Edit: May 23, 2012, 13:57:28 PM by Clock'd 0Ne #187;

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Author Topic: Best cheap(ish) upgrade path? (Read 6514 times)