18 replies to this topic

[Victor Kurgan]

Hi folks,
I am upgrading my PC, having won in a competition 8GB of Corsair Vengance 1600Mhz RAM and a 240GB SSD, I want to upgrade my Mobo and CPU.

I just found the following motherboard for what seems a great price (everywhere else is selling it at £180 or so, but I found a site selling it for £125)
http://www.jamdup.co...rtooth-z77.html

From what I read the Asus Sabertooth Z77 is a good board...opinions?

I was going to go with the Phenom X4 originally (and get a mobo to suit), but think that AMD arent coming up with much for future upgrades, so thought a move to Intel would be a good idea.

So There are so many i5's and i7's, what should I go for? I need to be as cheap as possible but get a good i5 or i7...anyone give me suggestions? Also where is the cheapest place to get them in the UK?

I only really play this game, other than that I do 3D modelling,

Cheers for your thoughts folks

Al

Edited by Victor Kurgan, 05 January 2013 - 08:35 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

As a UK buyer myself, i have never heard of Jamdup if im honest, and im always weary of where i buy from, even more so given the cost.
It's also out of stock (funny that)

One company i can recommend however, is http://scan.co.uk the Sabertooth is at its recommended retail price so likely out of your reach, however the board i own is around the same price.

http://www.scan.co.u...-hdmi-micro-atx

Great little board, not had a problem with mine, and i have just completed a stable 5Ghz overclock on my I5 2500k so im even more in love with it (http://valid.canardp....php?id=2641316)

If you don't like the idea of a micro board, and some don't
http://www.scan.co.u...-dvi-d-hdmi-atx

is not a bad board in the same price range.

As for CPU's, the general go to ones are the I5 2500k and the I5 3570K.

Edited by DV McKenna, 05 January 2013 - 10:11 AM.

[Victor Kurgan]

Hi DV,
I appreciate your response, I have to admit i was wary a bit too, but I ended up going for it (hopefully not stupidly) and got the last one (hence the reason for it being out of stock). I will see what happens!! Fingers crossed they all legit!LOL

Cheers for the words on the CPU's too.

Catch you later...

[DocBach]

Z77 Sabertooth with 3750K would be awesome. I use a Sabertooth with an i7 3770K, awesome board that looks really cool, too.

[Victor Kurgan]

And a quick update...having done a search on Jamdup, it appears they are in fact a very dubious company to deal with. There seems alot of cases of people buying items that are not getting delivered...Que phonecalls the bank to stop the transaction....Back to shopping for a mobo then...Will have a look at those links now DV... cheers

Lesson learned......

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Np, you know what they say, if it appears too good to be true, it usually is.

[TheFlayedman]

I'm half thinking of upgrading myself, i'm in the uk aswell. I was looking at an i7 3770k, thermalright silver arrow SB-E from www.aria.co.uk and MSI MPower z77 and kingston hyperX 1600 DDR3 from www.overclockers.co.uk as you get a free remote control car lol but it all comes in at £489. Ouch.

I just saw if you join the forum at www.aria.co.uk and make 1000 posts you get free shipping for life. Does anyone fancy a really long pointless coversation on their forum?

[Barbaric Soul]

TheFlayedman, on 06 January 2013 - 03:53 AM, said:

I'm half thinking of upgrading myself, i'm in the uk aswell. I was looking at an i7 3770k, thermalright silver arrow SB-E from www.aria.co.uk and MSI MPower z77 and kingston hyperX 1600 DDR3 from www.overclockers.co.uk as you get a free remote control car lol but it all comes in at £489. Ouch.

I just saw if you join the forum at www.aria.co.uk and make 1000 posts you get free shipping for life. Does anyone fancy a really long pointless coversation on their forum?

Unless you do things that would benefit from it's 8 processing threads, get the 3570k instead and save alittle bit of money.

I'm very pleased with my MSI Z68A-GD80 gen3 board and I've heard very good things about the MPower.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

I really wanted the M-Power board, but could never find it instock, several places that advertised in stock and then phoned me to say they were out, would i like X,Y,Z instead it's just as good.

No thank you!

Agree on dropping to an I5 3570k.

[Honey Badger]

Since it sounds like you're getting a Z77 mobo, like others have said, i5-3570K is kinda in the sweetspot for performance, and if you get a decent cooler (I'm using a ThermalTake Water 2.0 Performer) you can get yourself to the next level of performance OCing without a lot of problems. I was able to OC easily to 4.6GHz with a 46x multiplier and 1.24V on a ASUS mobo. It was a piece of cake, I'm sure I could have pushed harder, but at this point with the MB/GPU (GTX660 OC) combo, I'm getting 50-70 FPS consistently. Pretty good in my book!

[TheFlayedman]

Yeah i wanna overclock to at least 4.4Ghz but I know it is kind of luck of the draw and I'll need an expensive cooler but hey I already have a huge case.

I do have a question though i'm not sure how it works as i always used to use a corporate key for win xp for years but since have upgraded to Windows 7 OEM if i change every part of my computer will it still let me install or do i need to buy Windoze 8?

[TheFlayedman]

Ok so i ordered a i5 3570k with the MPower mobo, the ram and the thermalright cooler. After a couple of large G and T's I was like screw it and ordered a New HDD and Windows 8 oem. Just hope my girlfriend doesn't find out or im dead meat hehe.

[Honey Badger]

I tried to recycle an Win7 product key and it kept balking. Finally broke down and ordered a new Win7 OEM and it ran like a top. They must tie product keys to CPUs somehow.

[TheFlayedman]

I fancied having a look at windows 8 anyway and it was on sale

[Werewolf486 ScorpS]

I'm waiting for the new Haswell socket and cpu's to come out this year. Should be Q2, will be faster than current stuff, and looks to be the last in LGA sockets as Intel plans to go BGA (Ball Grid Array) which means all CPU's will be soldered into future motherboards once they get to Broadwell socket. Also the new HD8000 and GTX700 series will be coming out. What does this mean? You should wait either way, if your going to buy the current stuff on the market the prices will come down when the new stuff comes out in Q2, or you just buy the new stuff and enjoy the last of the LGA.

[Staplebeater]

Werewolf486, on 06 January 2013 - 05:16 PM, said:

I'm waiting for the new Haswell socket and cpu's to come out this year. Should be Q2, will be faster than current stuff, and looks to be the last in LGA sockets as Intel plans to go BGA (Ball Grid Array) which means all CPU's will be soldered into future motherboards once they get to Broadwell socket. Also the new HD8000 and GTX700 series will be coming out. What does this mean? You should wait either way, if your going to buy the current stuff on the market the prices will come down when the new stuff comes out in Q2, or you just buy the new stuff and enjoy the last of the LGA.

I am with you. I have a 2500K and am gonna wait till haswell till I upgrade.

[Barbaric Soul]

Werewolf486, on 06 January 2013 - 05:16 PM, said:

I'm waiting for the new Haswell socket and cpu's to come out this year. Should be Q2, will be faster than current stuff, and looks to be the last in LGA sockets as Intel plans to go BGA (Ball Grid Array) which means all CPU's will be soldered into future motherboards once they get to Broadwell socket. Also the new HD8000 and GTX700 series will be coming out. What does this mean? You should wait either way, if your going to buy the current stuff on the market the prices will come down when the new stuff comes out in Q2, or you just buy the new stuff and enjoy the last of the LGA.

Intel is not going full out BGA. Thier higher-end CPU's (stuff like the 3770k and 3570k) will still be LGA.

Quote

Friday, December 21st 2012

Intel Could Find a Way to Keep LGA CPUs: ASUS
In an interview with DigiTimes, ASUS general manager of motherboard business Joe Hsieh commented on reports of Intel abandoning CPU sockets in favor of processors being hardwired to motherboards in BGA packages. Hsieh said that the issue will not be as bad as people think and Intel could find a strategy that allows both soldered and socketed processors to be sold, which is much like today, except that hardwired processors are limited to notebooks (Core i3 and i5 processors in the BGA1224 package) and low-end Atom-driven desktop motherboards.

What lends Hsieh's statement weight, apart from the fact that he leads the biggest PC motherboard design team, is that Intel recently denied those reports, saying it would provide socketed CPUs for "the foreseeable future." Last month, Japanese publication PC Watch, credited for generally accurate tech predictions based on information at hand, reported that following its 22 nm Core "Haswell" CPU family, Intel could transform its entry-, mainstream-, and performance-segment client CPUs to hardwired BGA packages, probably leaving socketed CPUs only to HEDT (high-end desktop) and enterprise Xeon processor lines. Other PC motherboard vendors DigiTimes spoke with echoed ASUS' opinion, they don't believe Intel could "suddenly" completely change the way processors are sold to consumers.

http://www.techpower...-CPUs-ASUS.html

Edited by Barbaric Soul, 07 January 2013 - 03:11 AM.

[TheFlayedman]

Werewolf486, on 06 January 2013 - 05:16 PM, said:

I'm waiting for the new Haswell socket and cpu's to come out this year. Should be Q2, will be faster than current stuff, and looks to be the last in LGA sockets as Intel plans to go BGA (Ball Grid Array) which means all CPU's will be soldered into future motherboards once they get to Broadwell socket. Also the new HD8000 and GTX700 series will be coming out. What does this mean? You should wait either way, if your going to buy the current stuff on the market the prices will come down when the new stuff comes out in Q2, or you just buy the new stuff and enjoy the last of the LGA.

Yeah I was gunna wait too until I saw they won't be released until 2nd of June, i'm like i cant put up with the terrible framerate for 5 more months.

http://www.xbitlabs....ile_Lineup.html

[Werewolf486 ScorpS]

Barbaric Soul, on 07 January 2013 - 03:09 AM, said:

Intel is not going full out BGA. Thier higher-end CPU's (stuff like the 3770k and 3570k) will still be LGA.

You won't be able to start out with a low-end CPU and have to jump in to high end higher expense stuff right away, I like to build my rigs with a good CPU and wait till prices come down on the high end stuff, like when the next new thing comes out. Eventually you will have to purchase your new motherboard with a BGA CPU installed and spend lots of money to get it. I had already read you article and many many others.

TheFlayedman, on 07 January 2013 - 03:49 AM, said:

Yeah I was gunna wait too until I saw they won't be released until 2nd of June, i'm like i cant put up with the terrible framerate for 5 more months.

Fortunately my old ASUS LGA775 Rampage is good enough that I can wait, thank god! One last upgrade to HD7870 for the old girl and then on to the new rigs. My sons new rig will be first on an ASUS Sabertooth LGA1150, then my new rig will be a Rampage LGA1150 by the end of the year. Then I will give my old rig to the wife.