Time to Li...Upgrade

[AdrianD2]

I've finally decided it is time for an upgrade and breathe some life into my old system...

Here are my specs as they stand now...



Phenom x4 9600 2.3 GHz STOCK

Zotac nForce 750a Motherboard

2x2Gb DD2 800MHz RAM

2x SLI Nvidia 8800GTS 512 (One is disabled)

Crappo XION 630w PSU (I think its broken)



That's pretty much all that matters.

I do mostly gaming on my system so I want parts that are optimized for it.

This is what I was thinking about getting.



Intel i5 2500k

P67 Chipset motherboard

8Gb of Ram

A GTX285 from EVGA only $110 (Sweet deal)

I was wondering whether I should be doing this upgrade now or should I wait until Bulldozer or SB-E

Thanks in advanced guys!

 

[Lollipop]

Imo get the 2500k and a ASUS mobo and some mushkin RAM

 

[AdrianD2]

Are you sure getting the 2500k is better than waiting for bulldozer?

 

[DavinTan]

anything more than 4 cores is overkill for gaming/normal office tasks imo.

 

[S_I_N]

Are you sure getting the 2500k is better than waiting for bulldozer?

I'm changing ti SB as well preliminary BD reports say its gonna suxor bigtime.

 

[-warheart-]

wouldnt bother with a 285 anymore... if you dont want to pay much for your gpu get sth like a 470 or a 5870 so you'll at least have dx 11. otherwise i would recommend a 560.

 

[AdrianD2]

I actually found a guy on craigslist selling a GTX295 for $125 so I'm going to get that

 

[Ya93sin]

Are you sure getting the 2500k is better than waiting for bulldozer?

Basically, the only decent Bulldozer chips are coming next year, so you are in for a hell of a wait, and I'm not even sure they are coming early 2012 either.

 

[AdrianD2]

Hmm, that is too long of a wait... 2-3 months wouldn't be too bad, I just have a strange feeling my puter is going to crap on itself soon...

 

[SieB]

If you were going to wait three months anyway, you could hold out for Ivy Bridge CPUs, they are meant to coming in between August and September.

 

[AdrianD2]

I remember reading about IvyBridge but I can't recall what... How is it going to hold up against SandyBridge?

 

[Ya93sin]

Ivy Bridge will be about 20% faster than Sandy Bridge, its just a die shrink as they move from 32nm to 22nm. But it will be cooler too.

 

[AdrianD2]

Are we expecting the same pricing as SandyBridge?

 

[SieB]

I'd say they will be around the same price, they are also 22nm so they might even be slightly cheaper but no one knows yet, to early to say.

 

[Ya93sin]

I think they will be the same price, perhaps cheaper because demand might be a bit lower with the Sandy Bridge E getting into full swing

 

[SieB]

The midrange end of the market is where the money is same with GPUs, they sell a lot more of the midrange CPUs/GPUs than they do the high end ones.

I don't think SB-E will affect the pricing, Ivy Bridge will be competing with the BD CPUs on price seen as they will be the closest competition. We may also see price drops for SB as well.

 

[Ya93sin]

The midrange end of the market is where the money is same with GPUs, they sell a lot more of the midrange CPUs/GPUs than they do the high end ones.

I don't think SB-E will affect the pricing, Ivy Bridge will be competing with the BD CPUs on price seen as they will be the closest competition. We may also see price drops for SB as well.

I know it doesn't count for much, but the "enthusiast" community might affect the demand for Ivy Bridge CPUs, and lower demand might lead to lower prices

Ofc the majority of the market is the mainstream, but then a lot of these same people will have already bought Sandy Bridge CPUs, so again the demand might be lower.

And I'm sure the 2600K will sell very well when Ivy Bridge comes in

 

[SieB]

The enthusiast community has never affected demand for the mid end market and Ivy bridge is compatible with current 1155 motherboards and I think a lot of people (me included) will be selling their SB chips and buying IB chips to replace them.

Also with IB comes PCI-E 3.0 and PCI-E 3.0 motherboards and a lot of people will be buying them just for that seen as AMD 7xxx and Nvidia 6xxx GPUs and onwards will be PCI-E 3.0.

 

[Ya93sin]

The enthusiast community has never affected demand for the mid end market and Ivy bridge is compatible with current 1155 motherboards and I think a lot of people (me included) will be selling their SB chips and buying IB chips to replace them.

Also with IB comes PCI-E 3.0 and PCI-E 3.0 motherboards and a lot of people will be buying them just for that seen as AMD 7xxx and Nvidia 6xxx GPUs and onwards will be PCI-E 3.0.

You reckon much of the mainstream are going to upgrade from Sandy to Ivy? Surely if they were mainstream they wouldn't be moving on so quick right? Although I am excited to see the new generation graphics cards, and I might be upgrading, but then are you and I mainstream if we upgrade often or quickly?

And I do get your point about enthusiast sector not affecting demand, but I'm sure that it does, however small the effect

For example, say they introduced a budget Sandy Bridge E model, then they might need to lower the prices of say the 2600K or 2500K to make it fit in at that price point. AMD had to do the same thing with their GPUs recently. Although the effect is small, I'm sure its still there

 

[SieB]

You reckon much of the mainstream are going to upgrade from Sandy to Ivy? Surely if they were mainstream they wouldn't be moving on so quick right?

If IB is the same price or cheaper than SB then why not, you get a CPU that uses less power and runs cooler whilst being 20% faster than your current one, and thats before overclocking

So if you were to sell your SB CPU for slightly less than a IB one and then buy a IB CPU you have a better CPU that is 20% faster that be overclocked to go even faster still with a PCI-E 3.0 controller ready for a PCI-E 3.0 motherboard and a PCI-E 3.0 motherboard.

Although I am excited to see the new generation graphics cards, and I might be upgrading, but then are you and I mainstream if we upgrade often or quickly?

If you are buying mainstream hardware then yes

and I do get your point about enthusiast sector not affecting demand, but I'm sure that it does, however small the effect

For example, say they introduced a budget Sandy Bridge E model, then they might need to lower the prices of say the 2600K or 2500K to make it fit in at that price point. AMD had to do the same thing with their GPUs recently. Although the effect is small, I'm sure its still there

There won't be price drops strait away even if there are any, look at the Q6600, one of the best selling quad cores ever made and still to this day they sell for £150+. They might lower the price of the 2500/2600k but then the IB CPUs will be priced the same or round about what they were still making them the better buy.