The big PC upgrade decision: 1366, 1155, or 2011?

[Olo401]

Ok now that I've got my tax refund it's time to put upgrade plans into place. I love my current E8400 machine and it does everything I've demanded of it so far, but I'm at that three year mark where you start to get itchy. I had thought about going with a Sandy Bridge 1155 machine, but with the ability to overclocked limited to the K processors and the performance difference not that big I figured maybe a 1366-based system would be a better call since they're about the same price and speed, plus you can overclock easily. (I can get a i7-960 and EVGA board right now for about $400 if I hustle)

Or I can wait it out a little bit longer for the Sandy Bridge-E (LGA 2011) line to come out and replace the 1366. I'm just worried that the overclocking on those will be locked down & limited to multiplier bumps like it is on 1155.

What do I do folks.. ?

[Celeras]

I wouldnt be too worried about the overclocking as 2600Ks are able to hit 5ghz pretty easily. The 960 deal sounds pretty good though, depending on the board. But it'd be pretty dumb otherwise to get 1366 at this stage in the game, seeing as their prices shot up as soon as 1155 came out (due to limited stock etc). That was more of an option back when 930s were $199.

Id probably wait for 2011 if it were me, just because of the minuscule jump between 1366 and 1155. Or maybe wait to see how bulldozer does.

[Boyiee]

If you are planning to OC, do not get a 960, get a 920 if you can find one or really anything in between.

They overclock the same... It's a great price for both, but for some reason 920's overclock like mad and most other models don't get there. You might even find a GREAT price on a 920 once the 1155's become established.

The 1155's are great, but you will be waiting to get a good mobo for one anyway - whats a few more months? That is if 2011 releases on time.

edit: looks like today a few more mobo's popped up, but still...

[Olo401]

The board's an EVGA X58 SLI LE (basically an old model that only has SATA & USB 2.0, so they dropped the price 80 bucks).

[Cephius]

Sandy Bridge is not much more expensive and seems to be more power per dollar than the 9xx series. It's a bit hard to find motherboards for them right now (most were recalled due to a problem with the SATAII bus) but you should start seeing them in stock in the next few days. I'm looking at a build too and I'm probably going to go with that once I can find a decent motherboard. The 2011 isn't due out until around November if it remains on schedule, and I don't think I'm going to wait for that

[Amastacia]

Even at ~$400 I'd go Sandy Bridge.

For a gaming PC, there's no reason to spend the extra on a 2600K over an i5-2500K, as they perform near identically except in those applications that really take advantage of hyperthreading. If you're running a database server on your PC as well, by all means pony up on a 2600K or an i7-960, but otherwise, there's not much point.

The only other reason to consider LGA-1366 is for more PCI-E lanes, but there's a competitive answer on the P67 platform for multi-GPU people.

For my new build (tax returns, yay!) I'm almost certainly going with the respin of the ASUS P8P67 PRO ($~200) and an i5-2500K. Total is a hair over $400, but with a decent heatpipe tower, the 2500K will hit 5GHz just as easily as a 2600K if I decide to push it that far.

[Celeras]

The board's an EVGA X58 SLI LE (basically an old model that only has SATA & USB 2.0, so they dropped the price 80 bucks).

Then thats not really a good deal. And depending where you're getting it from (used?), those were on eVGA B-Stock(refurbs) for quite a while for next to nothing.

[Callisto]

Is 1366 pretty much going to not be for anything past that last line of i#'s?