i7-3930K or i7-2700k?

[Darus Grey]

Or you could buy 2500k for $200 which, for gaming, is faster than a 980x and about as fast as any of the SB-E (other than when using SLI 680 due to x16/x16 PCI-E 3.0 on X79s apparently)

For gaming you're right, for every other thing you could do with a CPU pretty much, not so much. I know the OP said primarily gaming though.


Also you're only right about the 980 vs 2500k thing at stock performance; at max OC for both it changes a lot, though the 2500k wasn't even out when I made the purchase so it was irrelevant at the time ;0(you seem to be implying I recommend he get a 980...I'm not)

[Jojimbo]

The 2500k vs 980 thing was just a note of how quickly the E CPUs get outdated for gaming, of course for multithreaded CPU stuff 6/12 threads > 4 cores still win even a couple of years later

[Asilius]

why do ppl go with 2500k when I hear 2550k oc's better...its not like ppl care about the integrated graphics lol

[Fairy-Killer]

meh, I'm gonna stick to the 3770k. prolly a bad choice... early benchmarks seem a bit mix, people just seem upset because its a marginal upgrade/difference. And I plan to just get a single EVGA signature SC whenever I can actually grab one from their site....

I plan on getting the 3770k, too. About mid summer is when I'll do my build. Before everyone tells me I should get an i5, I do a lot of programming, and a lot of graphics. That being said, I'd like to hear your experience with it after you mess around with it a bit. Going to be the first rig I've overclocked.

[Jojimbo]

why do ppl go with 2500k when I hear 2550k oc's better...its not like ppl care about the integrated graphics lol

It doesn't OC better, it costs more and iGPU has some features active even with discrete GPU (Quick Sync I think?) which include acting as a backup GPU if your main GPU needs to be replaced/is faulty or w/e

[Artemicon]

So I went ahead and pulled the trigger. I got an ASRock Extreme4 Z77 MB, i5 3570k, and 16gb of ram and spent all day yesterday overclocking shit... was fun. I don't have any pictures but my results are as follows.

4.3ghz stable at 1.239v temps at 35~38 idle, 73~77 after 6 hours of Prime95 (ran this all night)
4.4ghz stable at 1.248v temps at 36~38 idle, 72~73 after an hour of Prime95

After that it became a bit evident that 4.4ghz was my sweet spot in terms of voltage and speed because...

4.5ghz stable(ish) at 1.320v temps exceeded 85C during Prime95 but crashed a little after an hour with what seems a memory voltage error... I don't know if I could maybe drop the Vcore and raise the DRAM voltage a bit. I don't really want to invest alot of time with it atm because of TERA so I'll be dropping it back to 4.3 or 4.4 for the time being.

I think for real world application 4.4 is fine but it would eventually crash on Prime95 as it crashed a few times before I got it to run for an hour. But man is it ever fast compared to my q6600(oc 3.0ghz). I haven't had time for anything but Prime95 and overall I'm quite happy with the performance even if it won't hit 4.5ghz(my aim) without a significant increase to voltage.

*edit* Even though I'm satisfied with these results, many people are getting much better results either with lower voltages or higher clocks or both than what I'm getting. I'll have to play around in BIOS again but it seems that there are rreeeeally good batches, ok batches, and not so good... *edit*

[Tymon]

Excellent choice with the 3570K. Ivy Bridge is fantastic.

[Katlan]

Thanks for the update! I have my stuff arriving next week, but I wont play w/it until I am done w/ finals. I am pushing for 4.5/6 for the 3770k and I'll be happy, which from what ppl have been saying shouldn't be hard w/ my water setup. But the chip prolly won't go higher then 4.6-7 from what it looks like

[Artemicon]

Almost every post I've read about IB and cooling with water suggest the same thing, that IB, because of its small surface area for heat, laughs in the face of water cooling. Now that doesn't mean you'll see the same temps as you would on air but as your overclocks and voltages increase you'll see a much higher rise as you would on previous generations of CPUs specifically because of the die size.

Of course you'll still have better temps on air but don't be surprised if you have to jack the voltage up and as a result the temps are higher than you expect.

There are good results out there though and hopefully you'll get really lucky with your CPU as mine seems to be a bit lackluster or average to say the most. ^^;

[Boyiee]

IB does run really hot, but it also clocks well.

@4.5 1.17v, on water, look at temps.

Spoiler: show

http://minidriven.com/BlacknBlueforIB/lowV4point5.jpg

Still great numbers though, stable, and the chip doesn't throttle till 105c so who cares. I have my i7920 still at 4.0-4.2 on air, and quiet, and have been waiting to upgrade for a while. I skipped SB and will probably skip this early IB. But with some of these numbers, it sure it tempting.

I need to replace my mobo though, so if I see a cheap SB at microcenter or on newegg I'll grab it just to get rid of my mobo. Still waiting otherwise though.

[Katlan]

^ so under 80c is fine for IB? nice!

4.5-7 on the 3770k is plenty fine for me. It is also basically equal to a 4.8-5.0 SB 2700k in terms of performance w/more options.

[Boyiee]

Yeah it looks like it has a high throttle point so its fine with getting hot, people keep comparing temps to SB which is the wrong idea.

But, that is also on water, so thats pretty hot for on water lol. He was using big water too, has a nice setup.

[Artemicon]

Its worth noting that if the chip Boyiee is referring to is stable at 4.5ghz at 1.17v is a fucking amazing chip and is probably in the top 5% of overclocking performance I've seen.

I can't get my chip to remain stable at anything under 1.32v at 4.5ghz =(. Its not that big a deal to me because 4.4ghz is fine but it is kind of disheartening.

Oh well some get it some don't. Good Luck!

[Katlan]

I'm happy

[levish]

i ended up with a i7-3770k myself, doing 4.5 @ 0.95-1.17 vcore (power saving stuff enabled).