Upgrade time build

[NOFX]

So after looking through my history in newegg, I haven't upgraded my motherboard or RAM since August 2007.

 

Im currently running a quad core Q8400@3.0ghz with 4 gigs and a 6850 GPU. Obviously, I've been out of the scene for a while. What's the current bang for your buck CPU? An i5-3570k? Any new lineups coming out soon that I should hold off and wait for?

[Flitterkill]

(Reads the above, looks at the floor to see my October 2007 C2D build with 2 gigs of ram and 8800GTS, wonders what marvels a new computer will reveal, one day...)

[LiMiT]

Im in the same boat. My current comp was built in 2008. Processors are, well, processsors but AMD is due to launch the 8000 series GPUs early 2013 so that may be worth waiting for. Or, getting a good price on 7970's and doing a Crossfire build. I may stay on the budget side of things but Far Cry 3 may force me to shell out a few extra dollars to run that at a comfortable 60fps with everything maxed.

 

S.

[NOFX]

Not planning on buying a GPU right now.

 

Im looking at either a FX-8350 8 core AMD or the i5-3570k. 16 gigs of RAM and whatever motherboard can handle it.

 

The FX looks beast in benchmarks, but in gaming frames per second it looks like the i5 is much better.

 

Id also like to pick up an SSD drive and swap out my raptor. I keep telling myself my FPS are good enough, but now eclipse IDE is bogging down and I can't even run a full nexus 7 emulator with a gig of RAM.

 

[onyxdragoon]

I don't remember exactly but I think the i5 2500K has better overclocking than the i5 3570K and at stock the 3570K is better.

[amertrash]

I'd stick with the Intel side, AMD has not been doing so hot with their own CEO stating they have no position in the high-end market and talks of them folding entirely. The single threaded performance of AMD's Piledriver is still awful and Windows 7's scheduler isn't aware of it's internal organization, tho Windows 8 is. As for RAM all of the Sandy/Ivy Bridge chipsets(besides the H61) support 32G of RAM so 16 isn't an issue. .

 

The B75, Q75, Q77, and H77 all support CPU overclocking, conventional PCI, 1 PCIe 3.0 16x slot, and 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes configured however the board maker chooses. The Z75 and Z77 support RAM overclocking in addition to CPU, drop support for conventional PCI, support the same number of PCIe lanes but allows them to be divided into two slots(2 8x Z75) or three slots(1 8x, 2 4x Z77). So really a question of if you want to be able to run your RAM faster than DDR3-1600 and if you want the extra PCIe for Crossfire/SLI.

 

As for the SSD OCZ's Vector just came out which is the first release of their in house designed controller and it is a beast in every way, $159 for the 128G, and $289 for the 256G. I will however say OCZ is on the brink of going out of business and their support is some of the worst in the industry. Intel has the 330 and slightly higher end 520 series both based on the SandForce controllers available in a number of sizes and reasonably priced, with excellent support and reliability.

[amertrash]

I don't remember exactly but I think the i5 2500K has better overclocking than the i5 3570K and at stock the 3570K is better.

 

i5-2xxx parts == Sandy Bridge, It'd suggest sticking with the i5-3xxx parts which are Ivy Bridge. Ivy brings PCIe 3.0 vs 2.0, and smaller process and likewise cooler running, higher performance at the same clock rate, and a handful of new CPU instructions.

[onyxdragoon]

Using "better" wasn't the right word. If you plan to overclock, the 2500K is cooler. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ivy-bridge-overclocking-high-temp,15512.html that is just for temperatures if that is a problem.

Overall the 3570K does outperform at stock though. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=701

I'd still go with the 2500K >_>

 

For SSDs, I may be out of the loop but the top 5 iirc was the Crucial m4, Samsung 830 and Plextor M5 Pro, Intel 330 and one of the OCZ ones that I can't remember.

I guess the Samsung 840 Pro replaces the 830. I will wait for Trash and cry.

[ZeroDamage]

I am running the AMD 1090T 6-core with 8GB of RAM and an Asus Crosshair IV Formula and there isn't a game I cannot max out and play with this setup. I honestly think you are buying more PC than most games can use when you go higher end Intel and you are paying a premium for it.

 

I am running an nvidia 670 GPU as well. Let me just say this. You are not going to see a difference between 180fps and 200 fps on a game and hundreds of dollars extra isn't worth it IMO. Others may disagree of course.

[walkingCat]

Amertrash and ZeroDamage are here, nothing to do here...

[amertrash]

Onyx, interesting about the heat when overclocking Ivy Bridge CPUs, haven't seen that before. If overclocking is important that certainly could be a factor, I'd stick with the Ivy Bridge for the PCIe 3.0 and the higher performance per clock. As for the SSD it's more about controller vs brandname. A good portion of the drives use the SandForce SF-2281 controller which has unified firmware for all drives(Exception Intel 330/520 as Intel has their own in house tweaked one) so you should see very similar performance between all brands using it, the Marvell 88SS9174 controller is used by the m4/C400 and a handful of other drives, Samsung who only uses their controllers for their SSDs, and the just released Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller used by the OCZ Vector. Those are the controllers you want to pick from with the Barefoot 3 and the Samsung 840 leading the pack but all of them perform exceedingly fast to point where I don't know if you'd notice a difference. I'd personally stick with the Intel 330/520 just for the warranty/service that Intel provides.

 

nofx, as for the Android SDK emulator it's based on QEMU which is single threaded. Unless your machine is already bogged down with other software running switching to that FX-8350 probably won't make much of a speed difference for you but the core i5 probably would help a bit. It's gonna be slow in any case, another solution would be to load Android-x86 under Virtual PC/vmware player/VirtualBox as it is bound to run far faster via virtualization instead of emulation.

[NOFX]

Thanks for all the info trash. I used to be very active in these forums back in the day. The emulator wont run because of lack of memory. My 150 gig raptor only had 2 gigs free also.

 

As much as I want to upgrade.. I just can't seem to pull the trigger on anything. Upgrading to anything less than i5 seems like a waste. Perhaps I will hold off.. just a bit longer.

Edited December 7, 2012 by NOFX

[Preacher]

Microcenter has the best CPU prices. http://www.microcenter.com/product/388577/Core_i5_3570K_34GHz_LGA_1155_Processor