Ok, I thought I had my next upgrade sorted. A nice quad core Phenom II 970 on a Gigabyte board. Then my friend had to say, "but what about the i5 2500K!?"
I'd not researched that as well as I normally would and was stunned to see how far the prices had fallen. My E6600 has been an over clocking monster pushing 3.2G on a 2.2G rated proc that I'm beginning to wonder if I might not get the most power out of another Intel chip given how cool they run.
Thoughts on this? Assume I know very little about the i5. Also, recommendations for a no frills motherboard would be appreciated.
Intel i5 vs Phenom x4
Re: Intel i5 vs Phenom x4
For a no frills board, one of the best I have used it the GIGABYTE P67A-UD4. Newegg has it for ~170 right now. I really liked that board when I tested it. Though it's a P67 chipset so you won't have Intel SRT or access to the features that come with the Intel HD Graphics. If you want that you could upgrade to the Z68 chipset version of the UD4 for ~200. Though i haven't played with that one. What price range are you aiming at for the board?
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Skippman
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Re: Intel i5 vs Phenom x4
I was in the $150-$200 range. If I was willing to spend more this would be a no brainer and I'd be ordering an EVGA Classified or something.
Here's where I'm coming from on this. I have an ASUS P5W DH Deluxe right now. I bought it at the time because it was rated as one of the best Crossfire capable boards there was. It's worked fantastic on my overclocked rig for over 2 years now. But there's some things I don't like about it. It's finicky. I don't know why, and it probably has something to do with the chassis intrusion alarm, but it won't boot once the powers been disconnected unless I open the case. I know, it's super weird but I have thumb screws and I've learned to live with it. It also has a ton of features I've just outright turned off like WiFi, a remote control system, and the onboard sound card as I'm using a X-Fi Titanium now. I have to admit my experience with this last board has checkered my opinion of the once mighty ASUS.
That being said it seems harder and harder to find a motherboard that ISN'T bristling with features. I don't want onboard sound, onboard video, 47 USB ports, 4 eSATA ports, etc. I want the most stripped down, OC ready motherboard I can find. Here's my short list of criteria.
1.) Must support stable OC'ing. I have a massive Swiftech setup and I intend to use it.
2.) It must have two X16 PCI-E 2.0 slots and at least once 1X PCI-E slot that are simultaneously usable. If it has more, I won't object.
3.) Support for two drives in RAID 0 and a third SATA connector for my optical drive
4.) I'd prefer something without onboard video as I'm only going to disable it anyway.
5.) I'd prefer something that isn't pastel colored and looks like it's a piece of grown-up hardware.
That's it. Pretty simple really. But it's becoming harder and harder to find it seems. Any board I find that's stripped down is always some low end, bottom shelf component build board. I find it hard to believe that all enthusiasts out there want a Swiss-Army-Board. When they build a race car no one says "Yes, lets put heated seats, sat nav, and a refrigerator in there!". They say "How can we save weight." I dunno, maybe I'm in the minority here. I've been out of the PC building thing a spell but I miss it even if there's no one here in STL that LAN's anymore.
Gigabyte has a couple boards that seem to meet my requirements the GA-Z68XP-UD3P which is touted as the replacement for the P67 series you mentioned sollie and the GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3. I'm not terribly certain what the major differences here are. Also, ASUS as usual has a board that will meet my requirements, the Maximus IV Gene-Z.
Here's where I'm coming from on this. I have an ASUS P5W DH Deluxe right now. I bought it at the time because it was rated as one of the best Crossfire capable boards there was. It's worked fantastic on my overclocked rig for over 2 years now. But there's some things I don't like about it. It's finicky. I don't know why, and it probably has something to do with the chassis intrusion alarm, but it won't boot once the powers been disconnected unless I open the case. I know, it's super weird but I have thumb screws and I've learned to live with it. It also has a ton of features I've just outright turned off like WiFi, a remote control system, and the onboard sound card as I'm using a X-Fi Titanium now. I have to admit my experience with this last board has checkered my opinion of the once mighty ASUS.
That being said it seems harder and harder to find a motherboard that ISN'T bristling with features. I don't want onboard sound, onboard video, 47 USB ports, 4 eSATA ports, etc. I want the most stripped down, OC ready motherboard I can find. Here's my short list of criteria.
1.) Must support stable OC'ing. I have a massive Swiftech setup and I intend to use it.
2.) It must have two X16 PCI-E 2.0 slots and at least once 1X PCI-E slot that are simultaneously usable. If it has more, I won't object.
3.) Support for two drives in RAID 0 and a third SATA connector for my optical drive
4.) I'd prefer something without onboard video as I'm only going to disable it anyway.
5.) I'd prefer something that isn't pastel colored and looks like it's a piece of grown-up hardware.
That's it. Pretty simple really. But it's becoming harder and harder to find it seems. Any board I find that's stripped down is always some low end, bottom shelf component build board. I find it hard to believe that all enthusiasts out there want a Swiss-Army-Board. When they build a race car no one says "Yes, lets put heated seats, sat nav, and a refrigerator in there!". They say "How can we save weight." I dunno, maybe I'm in the minority here. I've been out of the PC building thing a spell but I miss it even if there's no one here in STL that LAN's anymore.
Gigabyte has a couple boards that seem to meet my requirements the GA-Z68XP-UD3P which is touted as the replacement for the P67 series you mentioned sollie and the GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3. I'm not terribly certain what the major differences here are. Also, ASUS as usual has a board that will meet my requirements, the Maximus IV Gene-Z.
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Skippman
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Re: Intel i5 vs Phenom x4
Here's what I've come up with doing some research today on my day off.
AMD Phenom II Build
GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 Mobo - $149.99
AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition Deneb 3.5GHz - $139.99
G.SKILL Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1866 - $74.99
Total Cost: $364.97
Intel i5 2500K Build
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 Mobo - $109.99
Intel i5 2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3G - $179.99
G.SKILL Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1866 - $74.99
Socket LGA 1155/1156 Mounting kit (Apogee GTX/GTZ) - $9.95
Total Cost: $374.92
Given the overclocking potential of both processors, largely based off Brian's review here I think the Intel setup is the far better way to go. Hitting 4.9G stable with my Swiftech setup doesn't seem out of the question. Am I missing something here?
AMD Phenom II Build
GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 Mobo - $149.99
AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition Deneb 3.5GHz - $139.99
G.SKILL Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1866 - $74.99
Total Cost: $364.97
Intel i5 2500K Build
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 Mobo - $109.99
Intel i5 2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3G - $179.99
G.SKILL Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1866 - $74.99
Socket LGA 1155/1156 Mounting kit (Apogee GTX/GTZ) - $9.95
Total Cost: $374.92
Given the overclocking potential of both processors, largely based off Brian's review here I think the Intel setup is the far better way to go. Hitting 4.9G stable with my Swiftech setup doesn't seem out of the question. Am I missing something here?