Hey guys, I'm in the process of upgrading my PC from running on a Core 2 Duo to possibly running on an i7 920/930. I would greatly appreciate you guys' help in picking out the best parts for the money and hopefully, stability as well. See, I have a budget that caps at around 600-620 bucks, and it seems a bit tough to find the right components when I don't have a lot of spending room. I want to find a system that can last me a good couple of years CPU-wise, which seems attainable with one of the i7's (I'll periodically up the GPU power so I can keep up as time goes on). With all that being said, can you guys assist me in finding a solid, preferably inexpensive mobo for the 1366 socket (max, a $190 mobo), good triple channel (3x2gb) RAM, and the better CPU for the money (920 or 930)? Or would it be wiser, considering my budget, to go with the 1156 socket, or even an AM3 Phenom II X4/X6-based system? Thanks for your help! EDIT: Oh, and these upgrades are pretty much gonna be used strictly for gaming.
i7 920 Bloomfield, I have this running at a cool 25c and 55c on full load @ 3.6ghz. Asus pt6 se board OCZ Gold 10600 1333mhz All cheapish and they all work a treat!
I'd probably price a decent 1156 setup alongside it. But... http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.381165 That might just about leave enough rooom for some RAM of your choice.
First off I would recommend an AMD build bro.. Look to be honest I love both Intel and AMD, and usually when building systems I always go for what the budget sets. Based on your post, for the money your willing to spend around $600 you may get a core i7 920 paired with a decent gigabyte x58 board, but you may fall a bit short on getting good ram. I swear its not just that am advocating for AMD or anything but I did a little bit of research on newegg.ca and newegg.com along on some other sites such as www.ncix.com and found that for that price you can build a very good infact a strong setup .. if you may want to take a look I would recommend these parts 1. the Phenom 2 x6 1090T BE @ http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103849 OR the x6 1055T, both are very good processors.. ie bang for the buck. ( if you want to save 100 dollars that is go for the 1055T ) 2. for the mobos any of these should be fine The Asus 890 series - http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103849 OR http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131631 MSI's 890FX http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130274 Asus Crossair 4 890FX http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131644 With any of those combinations you will have enough money to invest in good memory, and I mean very good memory from corsair, ocz, gskill your choice. Personally, If your an overclocker or your thinking of ocing down the road, I would go for the Asus 890 boards or the MSI 890FX paired with the phenom 2 x6 1055T since I actually own that processor it will not let you down lol..if your not familiar with AMD's procs you can go ahead and check out the review helbert made on the guru 3d site. Hope this helps.. cheers ! g.
If you want to build a "Solid" and "Good" I7 setup......$600 will not cut it. So even the other intel route might not work. I dont know much about AMD, since the socket 939 days, but id imagine their the cheapest route, and the best path to fit your price and solid parts. To give the I7 920/930 its proper setup, like not holding back, you can safely say its gonna come around $1000, give or take. My setup was just over $1k, and a buddy i helped build similar setup with less video card, was almost the same price. But its a kick-ass system for really not insane price, considering what you had to spend 5 years ago to get similiar top of the line performance.
If you look at the AMD Phenom II X6 1090T and 1055T benchmarks you’ll see that their performance is rather weak with respect to games. The Phenom II X6 series currently shine with heavily multithreaded tasks but beyond that many of the benchmarks I have seen have the Core i7 930 and Core i7 860 outperforming them. For gaming I’ve even seen one reviewer suggest that you get an AMD Phenom II X4 955 since it presumably performs about the same and will save you some serious coin above the 1090T. http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=910&type=expert&pid=12 In my case, I can buy an Intel Core i7 930 or Core i7 860 for ~$200 USD from Microcenter which is about ~15 to 20 min away by car. Therefore, I can buy a Core i7 930 / 860 or a Phenom II X6 1055T for the same price. Naturally I’m only really interested in the ~$300 1090T BE so it would actually be cheaper for me to go with the Core i7 930 / 860 in most cases. ***edit*** This guy doesn't seem to happy with his Phenom II X6 1090T performance: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=320687
I would disagree with you octavean, well to some extent lol. The reason being I would recommend the six core processors is for future proof purposes,but for the price I mean if this guy has access to a microcenter then go ahead and pick up a core i7 processor definitely. However, if your going with AMD, dont get a quad core because its not worth it at all ! trust me, more applications and games are taking advantage of more cores ie bad company 2, diablo 3, crysis 2 will all support more than quadcores. Bottom line is if you have the cash go for i7 but like someone said you need 1000 dollars for a good i7 setup. If your low on money go for AMD and a hexacore setup.. at the end of the day its your call : ) ! Hope this helps.. cheers ! g.
Going from a dual core to a quad/hexa core will be a big bump but going from quad to a hexa wouldnt in terms of games and such that only utilize/optimized for quad etc... it's just like saying if i had an i7 960 and you upgrade to a 980x and it wasnt a drastic change. If you can find a good i7 (930 is better btw) for a good price than go for that (if you have a microcenter/frys check out for deals), otherwise you can get an AMD x6, Motherboard, Ram and another 5770 (for crossfire) for $650ish.
am not disagreeing with anyone just offering my opinion, hilbert makes a good point in his review lol actually an excellent point
