CPU, Mobo, RAM and Cooling Upgrade Advice

S

Sheza

New member
Hi all,

I'm going to be able to upgrade a lot of my parts very soon and I was wondering what your advice would be. I had parts that I thought were pretty much set in stone but since there's so much I could do it's spun it all around again!

Here's a list of the parts I need and any others I have considered:

Motherboard: MSI Z77-GD65 (This can't be changed)

Processor: Core i7 3770K (A lot of people recommending Sandy Bridge 2600K here!)

RAM: 8GB Mushkin Enhanced Redline Ridgeback (1600Mhz) 7-7-7-24

Cooling: Keep current / Corsair H80 / Good Air cooler

This will go into my current system which consists of:

Motherboard: Gigabyte X58-UD3R (In case you were wondering)

Processor: Core i7 920 Stock (2.67Ghz)

RAM: Unbranded tat

Graphics: MSI GTX 560Ti Hawk (TF III)

CPU Cooler: Coolit ECO A.L.C. (Budget £40 sealed unit)

Case: Coolermaster Storm Scout

Now obviously the main issue is the CPU cooling since Ivy Bridge is hot and I wanted to give overclocking a bit of an amateur go since MSI make it so easy. I tested the performance of my current cooler with Prime95. This is the STOCK clock of 2.67Ghz:

38-42 degrees on idle (room temperature 20 degrees)

68-70 degrees max on Prime95 Torture Test (same room temperature)

I have been looking into cooling a great deal from The Corsair H80 and Antec KÜHLER H2O 920 to the Noctua NH-D14 and phanteks ph-tc14pe.

The problem with this of course is that:

1) it costs a lot more

2) the H80 isn't great

3) the big air coolers could be too big for my case

4) the big air coolers would cause problems with my desired ridgeback RAM.

There I must ask the wise members of OC3D what you think!

Is my set list up okay?

Should I keep my current cooling and see how things go, or get something better?

Air vs Liquid?

Will better versions of Ivy Bridge be released in the future?

Do I need Ivy Bridge for Intel SATA III support & Lucid MVP or does this come with the Z77 chipset?

Please be aware my maximum budget for all of this is £600.

Any help greatly appreciated. I've even considered getting a new case and PSU. I'm just not sure what to do!
 
I think either CPU would be a good buy. The cooler will come down to what you want as far as performacne and noise. The NH-D 14 will work with ridgeback ram, it is quiet and has the ability to cool a high overclock and will fit into your current case. The H80 is louder then the NH-D14 and should be able to handle a good overclock without much problem.
 
SEBAR said:
I think either CPU would be a good buy. The cooler will come down to what you want as far as performacne and noise. The NH-D 14 will work with ridgeback ram, it is quiet and has the ability to cool a high overclock and will fit into your current case. The H80 is louder then the NH-D14 and should be able to handle a good overclock without much problem.
Click to expand...

I didn't think the NH-D14 could fit ridgeback looking at this:

5552643334_567323d3ed.jpg


Wheras the Phantec has fins much higher up, and adjustable fan height.

The loudest part of my PC is my graphics card which can get pretty damn loud under load anyway, and I don't reckon I'd be stressing my CPU out too much besides video processing.
 
Sheza said:
I didn't think the NH-D14 could fit ridgeback looking at this:

5552643334_567323d3ed.jpg


Wheras the Phantec has fins much higher up, and adjustable fan height.

The loudest part of my PC is my graphics card which can get pretty damn loud under load anyway, and I don't reckon I'd be stressing my CPU out too much besides video processing.
Click to expand...

I am using an NH-D14 with Mushkin Blackline Ridgeback.
IMG_0769.jpg


you just have to slide the 120mm fan up a little. Also I have seen pics of the NH-D14 in the Scout.
 
when it comes to mobo take a look a www.dabs.com and enter code april10 for £10 off if you spend £150 or more before the 20/04/2012 (midnight)

Also this might be the place to get the H100 aswell
 
Cram said:
when it comes to mobo take a look a www.dabs.com and enter code april10 for £10 off if you spend £150 or more before the 20/04/2012 (midnight)

Also this might be the place to get the H100 aswell
Click to expand...

Alas I have the £25 code from MSI for the GD 65. Thanks for the help though!
 
Cram said:
I was thinking of geting the msi gd65 and £25 off might just seal the deal can you share this please
Click to expand...

I'm afraid it's unique, one time only. They were given out to the first 300 people to enter their competition. Sorry
sad.png
 
Okay so here's what I plan to get, with/without a proper PSU lol. (PowerCool 850w at the moment)

FINAL BUILD SPEC #1 - SANDY BRIDGE

i7 2600K - £220

Z77A-GD65 - £125

Noctua NH-D14 - £60 Specialtech

Corsair Vengence Low Profile Blue 8GB - £39

(POSSIBLE) Corsair TX650Modular - £77 eBuyer

(POSSIBLE) Corsair TX650 - £66 Scan

Arctic Cooling MX-4 - £4.59 Specialtech

Total: £448.49 without PSU

Total: £514.59 with PSU

Total: £524.49 with PSU Modular

FINAL BUILD SPEC #2 - IVY BRIDGE

i7 3770K - £280

Z77A-GD65 - £125

Noctua NH-D14 - £60 Specialtech

Corsair Vengence Low Profile Blue 8GB - £39

(POSSIBLE) Corsair TX650Modular - £77 eBuyer

(POSSIBLE) Corsair TX650 - £66 Scan

Arctic Cooling MX-4 - £4.59 Specialtech

Total: £508.49 without PSU

Total: £574.59 with PSU

Total: £584.49 with PSU Modular

------

Let me know if there's anything on there that is frdtasyically bad. Also how is the thermal paste supplied with the Noctua? Is it good? Because if it is then I'll get another fiver off to not buy the MX-4.

Also of course the Ivy Bridge price is simply a guess.
 
SB 1155 supports 6gb/s sata III as well so don't worry about that.

IB vs SB. Ultimately we need to wait for the benches to come out on Monday but we expect the performace to be virtually identical (IB will probably clock lower because of heat but will perform better clock for clock).

The only issue I see with putting a 2600k in a z77 board is that you will limit the mobos pcie slots to 2.x. The pci-e 3.0 controller is only available on IB 1155 and SB-e cpus. This would only potentially matter if you were planning on upgrading to using two pcie3 gpus in crossfire at anypoint...

Otherwise I would go on price (assuming the benches are what I expect). I'd pay 10% more for a 3770k over a 2600k but would have no issue picking up the 2600k if the difference was any greater.
 
Indeed I'll be waiting for Ivy to come out first which could even drive down SB prices further.

I heard about that limitation - does that mean my cards are restricted to PCI-E 2.0, or that I can only use 2 or 3 slots, and they are both PCI-E 3.0?

I shouldn't have an issue with 2x GTX 680's (besides PSU etc) with SB should I?
 
It's to do with bandwidth.

pcie3 x16 = 16gb/s

pcie2 x16 = 8 gb/s

x8 slots are half those, so a pcie3 x8 = pcie2 x16 = 8 gb/s

single pcie2 cards can't fill 4gb/s bandwidth

single pcie3 cards will fill 4gb/s but not 8gb/s

So if you stick with single card set up even pcie3 cards won't fill a pcie2 x16 slot (which you will have on the z77 cause of the 2600k). So a standard z68/SB build would be fine.

If you had 2x pcie2 cards the total bandwidth would still only be 8gb/s so you could again just use z68/SB.

If you have 2x pcie3 cards you would need to have 16gb/s available which you cannot get on the pcie2 setups since the single x16 lane would become 2 x8s (or 2x 4gb/s slots).

z77/IB provides pcie3 x16 which is 16gb/s or in dual card setups, 2 x8 = 2 x 8gb/s so there is no bottlenecking.

For people with z68 who are worried about this - it's not a major concern and I wouldn't recommend upgrading to IB for it:

1. The bottlenecking might cost upto 15% fps depending on the game from figures I have seen but since we are talking about dual pcie3 cards the fps is so huge that this worst case drop will not affect playable frame rates.

2. The performance of IB cpu over SB in no way justifies the upgrade alone.

However, for a new build (and since you are keen on z77 anyway) it seems a waste not get the pcie3 support if the IB chip is only £20 more. Might save you having to buy an entirely new chip or indeed deciding to re-buy the whole platform with Haswell next year.

But that is still only worth it if you intend on dual pcie3 cards at any point - or you could look at it as being only an extra £20 for peace of mind but that's up to you!

Personally, if you know you want 2x 680s then I would go for IB. In fact that's exactly what I'm doing (I've just bought 2x 7950s). It's silly to upgrade from SB to IB but since we are both jumping into this latest generation architecture (I came from AM3 phenom II) it seems sensible to spend the few £s more to me.
 
I don't reckon I'd ever be able to afford 2 680's but thanks for clearing that up, I understand it all now
smile.png


Will await the retail reviews.
 
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