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i5 2500k Build - Best parts for it?

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vuzedome:

--- Quote from: rostheferret on April 27, 2011, 08:08:51 AM ---
--- Quote from: Lupin on April 27, 2011, 02:29:51 AM ---
--- Quote from: Micharus on April 27, 2011, 12:20:54 AM ---Sure it does.
It will also take the i7 series of cpu's, up to 14 TB in HD's and if I run a 64 bit OS, I can install the other 4GB of ram I have sitting safe in my drawer.

So why don't I have it set up that way? Because I don't need that much right now.

--- End quote ---
You're using a dead socket (1156).

It can take Nehalem i7s but not Sandy Bridge i7s.

--- End quote ---

Not all of us can predict the future ;)

--- End quote ---
But we can't deny that 1156 has reached the end of the line, now that 1155 is out and another coming soon.

kureshii:

--- Quote from: vuzedome on April 27, 2011, 08:56:12 AM ---But we can't deny that 1156 has reached the end of the line, now that 1155 is out and another coming soon.

--- End quote ---
LGA1155 won’t have much of a future either. You get a single upgrade generation (to Ivy Bridge), and after that Intel dumps your Cougar Point chipset for Panther Point.

For the kind of performance increase you get from a process shrink (vs its cost), you might as well save up, wait a little longer and just get a new processor/chipset pair. That seems to be the way Intel is headed, anyway. Unless you’re the kind who buys every single upgrade Intel releases, don’t expect to be able to replace your old processor with a current-gen one by the time you plan to upgrade.

So the question is, do you plan to upgrade to Ivy Bridge within the next 12 months? If you don’t, just forget about upgrade paths for Intel builds. By this time next year people will be telling you LGA1155 is dead; get a Panther Point chipset with Ivy Bridge or Haswell.

Freedom Kira:

--- Quote from: Osmo on April 27, 2011, 12:19:09 AM ---The boot drive will be a SSD. I was thinking 40gb would be enough for a Win 7 64 bit. But a friend was saying get 80GB as Win7 updates take the piss.

Also. HDD slave drive will be a Samsung Spinpoint F3. Either 1TB or two 500GB F3 Raid. Undecided on that.

--- End quote ---

I'd get more than 40GB. 40GB will cost you around 70GBP. You can probably get up to 120GB in a single drive for double the price.
When you buy, make sure you look at the rated R/W times. For SATA II drives, as most SSDs are, make sure both numbers are higher than 250MBps (the highest I've seen are 285R/275W, but once you're over 250 the difference is minimal). There are shitty SSDs out there that run slower than 5400RPM drives.


--- Quote from: Osmo on April 27, 2011, 12:19:09 AM ---So when it comes to RAM I need to check for low latency and a bigger heatsink?
Thanks.

--- End quote ---

Not necessarily either. Low latency just improves performance a bit, but it's hardly noticeable most of the time. And the heatsink mostly just looks cool, but if you intend to overclock a lot you should pay it at least some attention. Otherwise, it's more for show. If you can search by latency, try to aim for lower numbers, but don't let it be a deciding factor between, say, $50 and $75. If you can't search by latency, as will often be the case, don't worry about it and just look at the clock speed.

The biggest deciding factor for RAM is the number of early failures or defects reported in reviews, vs. the total number of reviews. That should give you a good idea of how likely you are to have problems.

kureshii:
Osmo, one thing you should note is that the way SSDs work, their capacity affects their speeds as well (up to a certain point). You extract the full performance of an SSD controller by reading/writing through multiple flash channels. The lowest-capacity models do not have all the flash channels populated and hence will perform worse than the higher-capacity models. I'm lazy to link reviews right now, but go ahead and google any SSD with capacity 40GB and below, and compare them with performance numbers of SSDs with higher capacities (make sure it's the same model of course). Anandtech has a couple of articles on this. I would strongly advise you to go for at least 64GB, if you do want an SSD.

Another thing you should be careful of is to not put too much emphasis on advertised SSD speeds as Freedom Kira said. To quote Anandtech, the four cornerstones of SSD performance are random read+write, and sequential read+write. (there're other performance factors as well, but if you don't feel like reading, then just focus on these four). The advertised numbers are maximum sequential throughput numbers; numbers you won't see that often in typical desktop use. If throughput is the only important thing to you, a couple of drives in RAID would be about as fast, and cost much less for similar capacity. Don't neglect those random read/write performance benchmarks.

The main determinant of SSD performance is the controller it uses. No shitty controller can be optimised to a level that lets it compete with a good controller (although you can certainly cripple a good controller with slow NAND flash). The current SSD controller poster boy is Sandforce, which is pretty much dominating the SSD benchmarks at the moment.

The Sandforce II controllers are pretty much top dog right now, and you can't go wrong with one at this point; they are really pricey though (OCZ Vertex 3). For something cheaper, go with the Sandforce I controllers (Corsair Force, or see Sandforce's list), or perhaps some of the Marvell-based ones (Crucial C300/400). Intel's new SSDs are another possible alternative; the older X25 G2 series has crippled sequential write and isn't really much of a value proposition anymore.

Some might note that I have not included the Vertex/Agility 2 in the list of Sandforce I SSDs. A month or two earlier I would have, but Anandtech has pointed out that performance on IMFT 25nm and Hynix 32nm flash seems to have decreased compared to the older 34nm chips. Read the whole article for the full picture. If you do decide to buy a Vertex/Agility 2 at this point, do be very sure of what you are buying. I'm sure OCZ will resolve this soon enough, but it will take some time.

Final tips on using SSDs (in case you haven't been doing your reading on them like you should): Make sure AHCI mode is enabled in the motherboard BIOS, don't defrag them, and ensure TRIM is enabled.


--------------------

For RAM, do as Freedom Kira says and buy for reliability rather than performance. A small heads-up: 4GB DDR3 DIMMs are going pretty cheap (pretty much same price as 2x2GB), so don't rule out a 2x4GB setup as a possibility either.

For PSU, if you want to worry yourself over things other than whether it'll supply enough power for your CPU/GPU, then I suggest buying from Jonnyguru's recommended list. Note that it is an old list (2007), so many newer PSUs will not be on it. To Tier 1/2 I can easily add the Seasonic X-series and Enermax Modu/Pro87 series, but those are definitely out of your budget. Just find something within your budget; Corsair TX-750/TX-650 should be pretty affordable. Avoid Coolermaster if you're looking for a great PSU; they make decent PSUs but reading any good PSU review will show you that their PSUs are designed just barely within the ATX specs (and other certifications e.g. 80Plus), and not with dedication to quality.

You're already going with a graphics card, so forget H67/Z68 motherboards and just go with a P67 board from a reputable motherboard brand. It makes your purchasing decision much easier, unless you really must have every single gimmick that Intel dangles in front of you. Won't be advising you on GPU since that's not my area of interest.

Hard drive, go with a Spinpoint (might not be around too much longer since Seagate's in acquisition talks with them) or Caviar Black for disk-heavy stuff (applications, or anything that will be accessing the disk heavily). Most importantly, make sure it has good warranty (preferably 5 years, though in some parts of the world it might not extend beyond 3 years), and be sure to budget for backups (extra HDD, DVD backups, etc). I will readily go with a disk that's slightly inferior in benchmarks but has longer warranty.

Micharus' build would have been a great build... in January or earlier. Now that Sandy Bridge is out, it offers much more compelling price–performance ratio and there really are very few reasons to go with an i5-750 build (unless you have an unbeatable second-hand deal for it, for instance).

If you want to save some money, go with an i5-2500.
* kureshii listens to the collective gasp.Odd recommendation, I know, but considering you don't seem to have purchase plans for an aftermarket cooler or heavy overclocking, I'd say most of the money you spend on that 'K' suffix is wasted. You won't be hitting anywhere near the full potential of a K-series Sandy Bridge processor anyway, and you can still overclock up to 4.1GHz with a non-K processor. An i5-2500 won't be your bottleneck for gaming. Give it a good think through. As a bonus, if you're not planning on going Crossfire/SLI in the next 2 years, you can save even more money and go with an H67 motherboard! :D

This should readily meet your needs for HD+gaming, and PS. Forget about spending so little for *real* professional photography; you'll need at least double that budget, and the desktop will be the least of your concerns. Have fun learning about colour management and display calibration ;)

xShadow:
Agreed with Kureshii's TX power supply suggestion, I was gonna suggest it myself.

In particular: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-Power-Supply-Version-CMPSU-650TXUK/dp/B000Z7KHLA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303921166&sr=8-1

I have one of these (US version of course), and it has performed quite beautifully since... well... this thread.


--- Quote from: BrownMasterV on April 27, 2011, 01:15:43 AM ---
--- Quote from: Osmo on April 27, 2011, 12:19:09 AM ---
--- Quote from: BrownMasterV on April 26, 2011, 04:02:16 AM ---I don't see an aftermarket CPU cooler anywhere....are you planning to use the stock heatsink/fan for your CPU?   :-\

--- End quote ---

I'm sorry come again?

--- End quote ---

I assumed you were going to overclock your 2500k (why else would one get a 2500k?), and I strongly advise against using the heatsink/fan that comes with it

--- End quote ---

Completely agreed, if it's anything like my i5 750's fan, it's a piece of shit. The CPU fan by far makes the largest difference in your CPU temps; case fans and whatnot have almost no effect compared to it.

This is what I got:
http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/cpu/041/scktn3000_detail.html

... But I wouldn't recommend it. It's an absolute bitch to mount and even then it comes somewhat loose eventually. Works great when it's in full contact. Basically, go to newegg, do some CPU fan research, find one that has good ratings (especially make DAMN WELL SURE NO ONE HAD TROUBLE MOUNTING IT; I CAN'T STRESS THIS ENOUGH). Then, check to see if any of your sites have it. No? Find another one. The 1155/1156 mounting system is really annoying in my opinion so find something that's not too clunky looking.


For RAM, just find something that's cheap and has decent rating. From what most people say RAM isn't quite that important when gaming. However, if you want to be sure to be able to play EVERYTHING, get at least 8 gigs. I have 4 GB right now, and it's usually enough, but it's not enough for Civ 5. I'm serious. >_>;
These are the sticks I'm using: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CMX4GX3M2A1600C9-DDR3-SDRAM-Memory/dp/B002LE8D2A/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1303922853&sr=1-1
Cheap, work fine. Get 2 packs, though, if you wanna be damn well sure you can play any game for a while.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Antec-Three-Hundred-Midi-Case/dp/B0017Q8IAA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303923055&sr=1-1
This is the case I'm using. Relatively cheap, works fine.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129066&Tpk=three%20hundred%20illusion
If you can find that version of it somewhere though, get it. It comes with more fans already on it, and you can "turn off" the lights on the fans by just snipping the wires that go to the lights. <.<;



I can't comment on anything else. I haven't had any experiences with 1155 boards that your CPU uses, but I have heard about some SATA ports dying down or something over time, so make sure your MB doesn't have that problem. Check reviews and whatnot.

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