Upgrade Time Again!!

[Brian Clancy]

Well, its been on the cards for a while, but its upgrade time again!

I recently moved the system in to a Antec Darkfleet DF-85 case and a new Corsair 750w PSU, so thats all good n dandy, the XFX6970 is superb and is fine, so its a simple MoBo and CPU upgrade. I was going to go i7 2600K but after quite a bit of talking I'm looking at the i5 2500K. I spent a lot of time looking at Mother Boards and from the start I wanted an Asus board again, I have pretty much decided on the Asus Republic of Gamers Maximus IV Rev.3 P67, it packed with goodness and lots of O/C trickery and looks the biz and opens up the possibility of getting close to the 5Ghz O/C I am going to add an EK Waterblocks 360 water cooling kit and a water block to the 6970 so I can push it a little harder too the last addition will be 8G of 1600Mhz Corsair Dominator Ram from the old system as its still damn good Ram for Dual channel

Anybody have any thoughts or suggestions for other components in a similar price range?

 

[MrPix]

re: your mobo choice... I'm an ASUS fan too, but I would ask the question to yourself... do you really need all the goodness that the ROG board gives.... it's darn expensive!

I too was looking at an ROG board to replace my X58 P6TD Deluxe.... but in the end after reading many reviews opted for the 5yr warranty and major reduction in cost of the Sabertooth X58.... and can't fault the board.. it's the bestest overclocker I've come across (having owned ROG boards before) and is stable and cool as can be expected. I'm on 4.2Ghz on my i7 920 (H80 cooled) and have SLI GTX 580's (EK 360 cooled - full cover blocks) running at 950/1900/2200Mhz and the mobo is rock solid... the cpu barely gets to 45 degrees (22 degrees idle) and the 580's have never gone above 45 degrees (17 degrees idle) either, even at the massive OC I have them on... the voltages are really stable on the mobo and this really helps with the OC side of things....

Another recommendation from me (based on my current experience) would be to have the CPU and the GFX cards on separate loops... or maybe a closed loop sysetm for the CPU and a full w/c system for the GFX... that way.. if you ever added another card you could easily accomodate on the w/c side.

The equivalent that my online buddy has opted for to support his i5-2500k is the P67 Sabertooth (http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/SABERTOOTH_P67/) and he has no problems OC on a closed loop H60 to 4.5Ghz... I can't recall the GFX card he has, but I do remember it is not OC'ed at all.

The upshot is.... you could probably spend less on the mobo... a bit more on the w/c and have lower temps with the same capability.. unless you plan on 4 way crossfire in the future of course, then just ignore what you have read... but you'll never get those 3 minutes back

 

[Brian Clancy]

Hi Paul

Cant argue with the logic, but the ROG board has become available at a very tempting price (under £200 and yes new with full warranty) still more than the Sabertooth yes, but it's got some lovely 'toys' and extra Asus 'Goodness' LMAO The watercooling idea is solid though... The system I am opting for has the capacity to W/C both, but once I am ready to W/C the Gfx Cards, I could go H100 closed loop for the CPU and leave the EKWB system for the GFX.... It will cool the CPU atm though

Shout me on MSN / Skype when ur free

 

[Devil_Dog]

If this is going to be just for gaming then yes the 2500k is a good choice. If it is going to be used for more than gaming go with the 2600k as that has hyper threading and will be utilized in other applications. The mobo is a great board. I have had 3 of them. I killed 1 and I have one in my 24/7 rig. The one that I killed I did while on LN2 but that is another story. As far as the OC'ing capabilities there is no guarantee that you will be able to hit 5ghz 24/7 stable or even 4.5 stable. Every chip is different. I have binned about 30 2600k's and all of them ran different. Most likely you should be able to do 4.5 but it depends on the chip and what voltage you need to keep it stable. For my 24/7 rig I run @ 4.3ghz as there really is not much improvement above that. In benchmarks yes but for everything else you don't need it.

 

[Brian Clancy]

Hi Mike

This rig is just for gaming, hence going 2500k

Yep for sure, each CPU is different! I wont be surprised if I have to go through a few before I get a 'good un' lol. I have been lucky so far and had good CPU's that have O/C'd well (Hope I get another hehehe). But I have found that the better the MoBo the better the stable speed usually is. My Current CPU is an old Q8200 2.33Ghz O/C currently @ 3.5, in a mid range ASrock MoBo it solidly refused to O/C more than a few points, however, once placed in a high end Asus board things were far better!

I know what you mean about chasing numbers for benchmark, but I keep hearing that the i5 with this and other high end Mobo's still shows good real life improvements at high O/C's..... Its going to be interesting to find out

 

[glight]

If you've got the cash then get that Maximus. When I built my PC last year I got the 2500k and a MSIP67AG43 for $310 (198GBP). This was pretty much the bare minimum board but I still managed to get 4.4GHz out of the CPU.

 

[Brian Clancy]

I got the maximus, 2500K, EKWB 360 supreme water cooling kit, Sata 3 OCZ 60GB SSD (for OS) and a few other nice goodies I hope to get it all up and running over the weekend and will post some pics and first findings

 

[Brian Clancy]

Just getting things together at the moment, but a stable 4.9Ghz is here already, the ROG Motherboard is excellent! I will add some pics tomorrow, but a solid 5Ghz looks doable, the current Vcore volts can come down a bit yet too

 

[Brian Clancy]

ok 5Ghz is here, need to do a long Prime 95 run to check stability properly, but specs are great! 5Ghz, Vcore @ 1.42 and max temps (at cores) under prime95 load peaking @ 60-62 c Happy Days

 

[MrPix]

excellent.... so 10Ghz is the next step?..... but in all seriousness, I would have expected a slightly lower mid to late 40's temp with your EK360 solely on the CPU... maybe the vcore needs to come down a bit?

5Ghz should set you up nicely for zero CPU induced lag.... you'll be 'clocking your GFX next

 

[Brian Clancy]

yup, next stage is to see how low I can get the Vcore to drop before instability sets in The temps are not bad, I dont think they will go as low as late 40's....but we will see

 

[Jim Cole]

The Sandybridge CPU's are very nice when it comes to being able to overclock Glad you are able to get up to 5Ghz and hope you enjoy it for some time to come hehe.

 

[Brian Clancy]

Its a bit mad Jim, I have managed 5.4Ghz :eek: but Vcore was@1.5v and it was a bit scarey LMAO

I think 5Ghz at this voltage should be reliable and with the 'turbo' setting enabled, on everyday tasks shes running @1.6Ghz

 

[Neil Tasker]

wow thats cool all means nothing to me though all those figures, need somone to come and o.c mine i reckon

 

[glight]

60C @ 5GHz ? Holy crap dude!

I don't think you need to worry about CPU temp unless it goes over 80C in prime95. Temps will be a bit lower when you actually doing work (encoding) under full load anyway. Go for that 5.4GHz!

 

[Dietmar]

Why are you actually overclocking at all, that rig should be able to play most of the sims while in sleep mode... doesn't it?

(As long as the rig is capable of doing everyhting well, isnt it just sucking more power while being idle?)

PS: Hope that not one of the question never to ask an overclocker

 

[Brian Clancy]

Why are you actually overclocking at all, that rig should be able to play most of the sims while in sleep mode... doesn't it?

(As long as the rig is capable of doing everyhting well, isnt it just sucking more power while being idle?)

PS: Hope that not one of the question never to ask an overclocker

LOL! Well you could look at it that way, but then its nice to have the extra power, you can see / feel the extra CPU grunt in use. Plus I have configured the 'turbo mode' so it runs at 2Ghz in normal use, only running up to 5Ghz when needed

 

[Rupe Wilson]

Does clocking components shorten there life.. if not why are they not clocked on purchase to run a optimum settings..or is a case is only has to last a few years and ill be upgrading again..
Ive just upgraded to a i5 2500k with a assus motherboard P87Z 68-v-lx and ive got H80 liquid cooling 16 gig ram its all stock at the moment, i was wondering what i might be able to achieve without going crazy... ive a gtx460 ... im assuming this is the weak spot in my system

 

[Jim Cole]

First answer is yes, the effective life of the CPU/GPU that you overclock will be shorter than what it would be if you didn't overclock. Keep in mind however that if done right, and you upgrade at least every 2 years, overclocking isn't a big deal.

On the other hand, if you don't know what you are doing when you overclock, you could literally burn up the CPU causing it do die right then. If you feel you really want to overclock then please read as much as possible about the procedure and take it easy. One small adjustment at a time and about an hour of testing with each adjustment to be sure that the system is still stable. An extreme overclock could take as much as a month to reach the final speed. An average overclock should take roughly a week to achieve if done correctly and safely.

 

[Rupe Wilson]

Thanks Jim... With having Asus motherboard and gfx card they have there own turbo mode with there software Is this stuff OK to use, heard bad press about it..... maybe i will start with this...Ive never overclocked anything so i think ill leave that for a while.. i already read so much stuff (but i didn't understand it) so will read more.. I assume its all individual to each machine with there different components.. maybe something to look at later... thanks for info.. think ill keep my hands in my pocket on this one