I have been a long time user and fan of AMD products, because while i certainly was not building the fastest PC in the world, i could always run any game maxed on AMD products for significantly cheaper than intel based parts. Bulldozer however has shaken my belief in AMD. Now i know that in highly threaded applications that bulldozer is not a pig, but gaming is rarely a highly threaded activity. I mean there are instances where my mildly overclocked 1100T will blow the doors of a FX6100, and some instances where it will beat the FX8150 which is what like 60 bucks more expensive.
Long story short I plan to switch over to an intel based system in the next few months (by March I should have roughly 600-700 dollars to throw around) and i will need both a motherboard and CPU. I know that the 2500K is a solid option, but with ivy bridge soon to be out and the new 2011 socket im at a loss as to what i should do, and i am worried if i am overlooking something. I am doing primarily gaming with limited video editing (not enough to justify the 2600k or even my 1100T). When i look at for instance a i7 960 how would that fair versus a i5 2500K? the 960 is more expensive and uses more power, but its an older architecture and I simply do not know enough to determine if its a better chip for my purposes. Is the triple channel memory significantly faster ( I remember reading it wasnt), do the X58 and X78 offer more features, or are they simply more expensive?
Obviously i have lots of questions, so im sorry for how long this post was, Intel's offerings are just a tad more complicated than AMD's.
So far my best guess is that the hyper threading on the 960 wont make up for its lower clock in gaming, and that an overclocked i5 2500k is the best option and since its cheaper than the 960 my excess funds would be better spent towards a mobo with more features.
Sorry, this is so disjointed with so many questions, but thanks for any and all input!
For those who dont want to read or find it unnecessary to read through the above ramble, i am looking for advice on what would be a good option for a new CPU motherboard combo for gaming in the 6-700 dollar range around march of 2012. (I am open to some of the funds being spent on a custom watercooling setup for overclocking, although i already have a NH-D14 so overclocking is possible without contributing any of the 6-700 dollars to cooling.
Long story short I plan to switch over to an intel based system in the next few months (by March I should have roughly 600-700 dollars to throw around) and i will need both a motherboard and CPU. I know that the 2500K is a solid option, but with ivy bridge soon to be out and the new 2011 socket im at a loss as to what i should do, and i am worried if i am overlooking something. I am doing primarily gaming with limited video editing (not enough to justify the 2600k or even my 1100T). When i look at for instance a i7 960 how would that fair versus a i5 2500K? the 960 is more expensive and uses more power, but its an older architecture and I simply do not know enough to determine if its a better chip for my purposes. Is the triple channel memory significantly faster ( I remember reading it wasnt), do the X58 and X78 offer more features, or are they simply more expensive?
Obviously i have lots of questions, so im sorry for how long this post was, Intel's offerings are just a tad more complicated than AMD's.
So far my best guess is that the hyper threading on the 960 wont make up for its lower clock in gaming, and that an overclocked i5 2500k is the best option and since its cheaper than the 960 my excess funds would be better spent towards a mobo with more features.
Sorry, this is so disjointed with so many questions, but thanks for any and all input!
For those who dont want to read or find it unnecessary to read through the above ramble, i am looking for advice on what would be a good option for a new CPU motherboard combo for gaming in the 6-700 dollar range around march of 2012. (I am open to some of the funds being spent on a custom watercooling setup for overclocking, although i already have a NH-D14 so overclocking is possible without contributing any of the 6-700 dollars to cooling.
