New Build Advice - Upgrading to Ivy

[farmertml]

Hello all,

I have been planning on upgrading for quite some time and thinking about just buying all the parts and building my own again. (My Current PC is a 5 year old Alienware that I won in a competition).

Current setup is

Core2Duo E8400 3.0Ghz (Stunning Processor) - OC'ed to 3.6
EVGA 680i SLI Mobo
4gb DDR2 RAM
Radeon HD5870


I'm looking at upgrading to Ivybridge and going for fairly top spec but I'm wanting advice on the below.

Ivy 3770K - I will definitely get this

Motherboard - Looking for a Z77 chipset - any reccomendations?? I dont need a load of bells and whistles but I would ideally like an UEFI Bios and I may dabble in a bit of overclocking again. I quite liked the ASROCK Z77 boards.

RAM - 8gb DDR3 ram - I think RAM nowerdays is much of a muchness, high speed isn't really worth the cash. Some fairly standard Mushkin dual channel 8GB pair should be ok?

SSD - 160GB Mushkin or a Crucial M4

Graphics Card - I could keep costs down and keep my current Radeon HD5870 as it's still a powerful card. I am considering a Nvidia GeForce 680 though.... thoughts?! I do need to get this PC built by Thursday at the latest, everywhere seems only to have them on pre-order.

Case - Looking for something quiet and with fan controller, something like the Fractal R3 Titanium V2


Power Supply - Any advice on this is great, looking for maybe 650W Gold / Silver standard. Super cheap power supplys are a false economy.


The other thing I need to ask is when will the Ivybridge go on sale, the announcement was on the 23rd but I can't really see anything other than an offhand comment of it being for sale on the 29th. I'm looking to build this PC next week ready for the iseries LAN gaming festival.

Thanks in advance guys (and gals).

Paul

[ChrisGlobe]

Ivy 3770K - I will definitely get this

Best get some watercooling then if you're planning on overclocking!

What's your budget, what games do you play the most, what can you cannibalise from your current machine? Need new keyboard and mouse, etc.?

[PatrickC]

I'm not a fan of Asrock boards, and I'd suggest the M4 over the Mushkin.

[farmertml]

Are the reviews saying the card gets pretty hot then ? I thought it was fairly low power consumption and the heat wasn't an issue (maybe I'm wrong!)


My current PC is going to get it's insides dumped into my recording studio PC. Keyboard, Mouse, Monitor, DVD Drive and 3tb of storage drives will be salvaged and put into my new one.

To be honest I mainly am playing TF2, battlefield 3, few various others. I know getting a new PC is possibly a little overkill at the moment for those but I'm looking at biting the bullet and getting something relatively new.

I was hoping to spend something around the 800-900quid mark but I've just been looking at prices of the Gefore 680's and it's still a little crazy.

Currently what I have in my shopping basket on aria is


ASRock Z77 Pro3 (Socket 1155/Intel Z77/DDR3/S-ATA 600/ATX)

Intel Core i7-2700K 3.50GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail
- Processor will be swapped with IVY when it's available on the site.

Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML8GX3M2A1600C9)

730W be quiet! Pure Power L8 80PLUS Bronze Modular Power Supply

Crucial m4 128GB 2.5" SATA-III Solid State Hard Drive

Fractal Design Define R3 Titanium V2 Midi Tower Soundproof Chassis w/ USB3.0

be quiet! Dark Rock Advanced Quiet CPU Cooler


Total comes to £662 Inc VAT


Do you think that, in conjunction with my current graphics card will be enough of an upgrade. The important thing is it will be PCI-E 3.0 ready for when the next gen of PCI-E 3.0 cards come out. With this in mind and me waiting a little longer I may go for a 256gb SSD so I can stick all my games on it.

Thanks for your help, hope I've been clear!



@Patrick
Thanks for the advice Patrick. I've heard a lot of good stuff about the M4 drives too so I think that's the way I'm going to go. What motherboards would you reccomend for a new Ivy build? at a simliar price to the one I linked in the previous post?

Thanks

[Naphta]

On Ivy you can OC to 4.5ghz pretty comfortably - realistically this is what my Sandy 24/7 clock would have been aswell so I personally don't lose out which is why I'm going Ivy and not Sandy because I get quite a few benefits besides raw cpu output.

[PatrickC]

For £10 more you can get The Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=49019 Plus you can enter to win £50 credit if you buy this board.

[marsey99]

tbh dude if you are going to spend that much i would advise you to look more at the x79 boards and 3820 cpu really.

[Naphta]

tbh dude if you are going to spend that much i would advise you to look more at the x79 boards and 3820 cpu really.

Way I looked at it was, I'd probably upgrade motherboards when Ivy-E came out so going to 1155 > 1150/2011 would probably work better as Ivy performs better than a 3820, 2011 only seems to be better if you can get the 3930K which I personally can't!

[farmertml]

Hi Patric,

Thanks again for the advice there. How does that board perform? I was looking at some other boards around the £120 mark, would it be worth going for something more than the one you suggested? I doubt I will SLI g'cards.

Do you have any idea when the Ivy's will be available for sale. If I order straight away am I likely to get it delivered by Thursday?

Thanks for the advice Marcy, I still feel like for bang per buck sticking with the ivy will be my best bet although I appreciate your feedback as I'd not considered the lga2011.

[therealmrhead]

I think you should get it on Tuesday if you order tomorrow or by a certain time on Monday (I think)

Around the £120 mark I would get the MSI GD55 I think, the MSI stuff has impressed me. Any more expensive than that and I think you get more from Asus. That's not to say the Gibabyte isn't great, I just don't seem to have much love for them right now but it's probably not justifed. The UD5H has some great reviews but I haven't looked for reviews on the D3H.

I thought the Ivy's would be on sale tomorrow (I've seen them on some sites already). I want one so I hope they go up tomorrow.

As for the 2011 X79 stuff, the advice I was given was that 2011 only becomes better than Ivy when you go for the 3930k as the 3820 won't be worth the extra outlay compared to the 3770k.

[farmertml]

Well I bit the bullet!!

Fractal Design Define R3 Titanium V2 Midi Tower Soundproof Chassis w/ USB3.0
750W Corsair HX Series 80PLUS Silver Modular Power Supply
Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail
MSI Z77A-GD55 Intel Z77 Socket 1155 DDR3 PCI-Express Motherboard
be quiet! Dark Rock 2 Quiet CPU Cooler
Crucial m4 128GB 2.5" SATA-III Solid State Hard Drive
Mushkin Enhanced 2.5" Solid State Hard Drive Bracket
Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML8GX3M2A1600C9)
MSI GeForce GTX 680 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card


And now my bank account is crying in pain!!