Bring me up to speed - Socket types & CPUs

[Arfur Schrunkunpecker]

Hi everyone.

Soon I'll be looking to build another PC so that I can give my current one to my ex-wife, as hers (one of my previous builds) is struggling nowadays.

I'm coming from an Asus P6T Deluxe V2, i7-930 and HD5870 - rundown here.

I need to be brought up to speed please.

Looking for a fast PC, good for gaming, etc.

My question is mostly about CPUs and socket types. Whats the current ideal socket type for speed and gaming nowadays please? I spend many hours on the PC but have stayed out of the loop with regards to the lastest motherboards, socket types and CPU naming conventions. I can understand other hardware.

Thanks for your advice.

Grant

 

[Josh Weston]

Sandy Bridge E:
Designed for video editors and number crunchers.
Chipset: X79, can use hexa-core processors.
Socket: 2011
Not really for gaming.
CPUs: i7 3820, i7 3930k, i7 3960X, i7 3970X.
Expensive chips (bar the '3820) and generally more expensive motherboards.

Ivy Bridge:
Successor of Sandy Bridge and designed for the mainstream market.
This includes gamers.
Stronger architecture than Sandy Bridge E, meaning that clock-per-clock, Ivy is faster (in single-threaded apps, at least).
Chipset: Z77's your main one, which gives your the most freedom over your overclocks. It's the 'top-of-the-range' Ivy bridge socket, but it's still cheap.
Socket: 1155
CPUs: For gaming there are 3 options of CPUs.
The low end i3 3220, which is great for gaming on a budget.
The gamer's favourite i5 3570K, which has an unlocked multiplier for simple overclocking. No hyperthreading, so its 4 cores manifest as 4 threads, too - all that games make use of.
The gamer with a hobby for rendering/video editing's favourite, the i7 3770K. Pretty much a carbon copy of the i5 but with hyperthreading enabled. No benefit for gaming, but is useful for heavily threaded apps.

A fairly high end gaming build. Note the CPU cooler only comes with LGA2011 mounting brackets, so you'd need to source that elsewhere.

 

[Master&Puppet]

For balance AMD also still exist.

/end post.

(AMD's current and last gen of CPUs - Piledriver and Bulldozer respectively - have a poor single thread performance but can have many cores. They are cheaper than intel but only worthwhile if you need a cheap rendering/editing system. For gamers the i5 3570K is the gamers choice).

 

[Josh Weston]

Haha, my bad. I often forget to mention AMD these days.

 

[Master&Puppet]

Made me giggle

 

[Arfur Schrunkunpecker]

Josh. Thanks for going out of your way to thoroughly answer like that. That's just what I needed. I'll use those items as my main guide. I'm in love with my present case because it's so quiet, so I'll try to get the same or bigger version if necessary depending on the size of the GPU. The Noctua I might keep and put the old stock fan on my old rig for my ex. As you said, I will look for the correct fitting. My PSU I might keep and buy a cheaper one for my current rig. Much appreciated.

Master&Puppet. That's right, I will also compare with AMD. I've never had a spot-on cutting edge setup focussing just on peformance, so I always consider AMD, especially in the past when considering their hexa-core performance to price ratio.

Thanks guys, I appreciate it. I'm looking to treat my ex, myself, and stay within a budget so that everyone is happy.

Thanks for your time.

Grant

 

[Drakkonen]

From what I've heard, the AMD FX8350 outperforms the 3570k in most cases for games and costs around the same price. Might be an idea to look into it.

 

[Arfur Schrunkunpecker]

From what I've heard, the AMD FX8350 outperforms the 3570k in most cases for games and costs around the same price. Might be an idea to look into it.

Cheers. I need to check out the performance charts and customer reviews too for most of these products. I'm actually fairly happy with my current rig, but the graphics could be faster for gaming and I want my ex to have a better machine.
Thanks.

 

[Deejeta]

Hi mate,
Had a look at that old build. Well I personally would just replace the gpu with something like a 7950 and add a big ssd. Overclock the 930 a bit more. Close to the 4ghz mark should be easily attainable. Those raven cases are cool so keep that I reckon.

For a favour to my ex-wife as she was in the same predicament only a few weeks back. Her old netbook finally died. I sourced and old Core2Duo machine.
Added a new SSD and another old sata2 hdd of mine and it boots into windows 7 in less than 30 seconds & runs super smooth. Perfect for what she uses it for anyway.

If you are dead keen on something new for yourself.
Z77 motherboard, Ivy bridge (3570k or 3770k), GPU's well whatever you budget dictates I guess - the 7950 is at the sweetspot at the moment in terms of performance for the price and most will overclock to the hilt as well.

Hope this is of some help.

 

[Arfur Schrunkunpecker]

Thanks Deejeta,

I feel quite happy to stick with much of my rig. It depends on how cheaply I can put together another one for my ex-wife. Her rig is only a P4 3.6Ghz, so I can make her something much sweeter for a fairly cheap price I expect. Depending on how much I pay or need to pay, I can swap and improve some of my own parts. I will definitely up my GPU and I know it's about time I bought an SSD!

I always like to see performance improvements in each build but I expect the SSD and maybe GPU will help in that department for my setup.

Anyway, I must go to work. All the best mate. Cheers.

 

[seumasbeathan]

From what I've heard, the AMD FX8350 outperforms the 3570k in most cases for games and costs around the same price. Might be an idea to look into it.

The 8350 does beat the 3570k in some things, mainly multi core/threaded benchmarks, but one thing it certainly does not beat the 3570k in is gaming

 

[Bang]

If you are in need of a toaster, buy AMD. If you like high electricity bills, buy AMD. If you like to make your own croutons, open a loaf of bread and put it in an AMD system.

The power draw and heat of AMD is second to none, whilst leaving much to be desired in gaming performance, and the 3570k is only about $6 more.

AMD is only 'worth it' if you do lots of compiling/decompiling of code and/or rendering/editing/transcoding of video. In the long rund you would still be better off spending the extra $100 to get a 3770k which results in lower monthly power bills.

Have you got a budget for this upcoming build?

 

[Arfur Schrunkunpecker]

Hi Bang,

Not really a budget for my machine, because I can always wait to add something better if necessary. As you might have seen from my build, I'm not cutting edge, and I'm fairly easy to please, although I do like the idea of having a gaming advantage over previous rigs. Call me a fool, but I'm more interested in seeing my ex-wife enjoy and benefit from a decent upgrade from her P4 3.6Ghz single core machine. :handshake:

As people here have suggested, I mostly need a better graphics card (and SSD) to see improvements for my needs. So she can have my HD5870, I'll go for a better card for me, and build something good enough for her to go around the HD5870.

Thanks mate.

 

[Assume]

Cheers. I need to check out the performance charts and customer reviews too for most of these products. I'm actually fairly happy with my current rig, but the graphics could be faster for gaming and I want my ex to have a better machine.
Thanks.

I hope you have children so they can use it while at your ex-wife's house. I've never heard of a ex-husband giving something to their ex-wife unless it's child support or alimony.

 

[grassman]

The 8350 does beat the 3570k in some things, mainly multi core/threaded benchmarks, but one thing it certainly does not beat the 3570k in is gaming

no

yeah maybe 5 year old single threaded games like Crysis but not modern stuff which is multi threaded. Those heavy single core games cant even get you 60 FPS no matter how good a CPU you have therefore pointless also MSAA lovesssssssssssssssssss Cores + Threads and as MSAA is becoming more and more common... Yeahhhhhhhh

If you are in need of a toaster, buy AMD. If you like high electricity bills, buy AMD. If you like to make your own croutons, open a loaf of bread and put it in an AMD system.

The power draw and heat of AMD is second to none, whilst leaving much to be desired in gaming performance, and the 3570k is only about $6 more.

AMD is only 'worth it' if you do lots of compiling/decompiling of code and/or rendering/editing/transcoding of video. In the long rund you would still be better off spending the extra $100 to get a 3770k which results in lower monthly power bills.

Have you got a budget for this upcoming build?

Has this big Government greeny nonsense gotten this out of hand around the globe? It's outlandish that people agree to waive there right to bear arms while nonsense like this is spewing from nation to nation like cancer.

 

[Arfur Schrunkunpecker]

I hope you have children so they can use it while at your ex-wife's house. I've never heard of a ex-husband giving something to their ex-wife unless it's child support or alimony.

Yeah. Everyone's different, I guess.
Getting older and growing together isn't the same as living with your young partner, and splitting up with them so that they can do it all over again.
I'm a big softy anyway.. If I were rich, I'd take care of everyone, ex or not.

 

[Josh Weston]

If I may, what kind of games does your ex-wife play? I'm wondering if you couldn't get away with something like an APU from AMD and try to sell your 5870, or keep it, to recoup some money.

 

[Arfur Schrunkunpecker]

She only plays internet games like Yahoo games. She surfs the net and watches YouTube. So I want her to be able to watch YouTube in 1080p, play DVD's, Blu-ray, etc.
Cheers.

 

[seumasbeathan]

no

yeah maybe 5 year old single threaded games like Crysis but not modern stuff which is multi threaded. Those heavy single core games cant even get you 60 FPS no matter how good a CPU you have therefore pointless also MSAA lovesssssssssssssssssss Cores + Threads and as MSAA is becoming more and more common... Yeahhhhhhhh

Thats rubbish mate, no games use more than 4 cores, and as clock for clock the 3570k is better this means that in games it is better, would you like proof?

 

[Josh Weston]

The RAM's a horrible clash of colours to the motherboard, but i'm hoping she won't be looking inside. APUs thrive on fast memory, and those DIMMs are less than £10 more than a 1600MHz kit.
For browser based games and browsing, that rig's absolutely fine. The hard drive's a fast one, too. I'd wager that if you installed the OS and programs on an SSD and placed it in her current system, it'd be like a whole new computer.