03-29-2011, 09:23 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-29-2011, 09:44 PM by Concillian.)
Processors:
Intel offerings:
Socket 1366 - Processor designations i7-9xx
Socket 1156 - Processor designations i3 / i5 / i7 - yxx (where y is less than 9, 9 is reserved for Socket 1366)
Socket 1155 - Processor designations i3 / i5 / i7 - 2xxx (4 digits)
1366 offerings are fairly old (45nm). While they have superior "infrastructure" in triple channel memory and lots and lots of PCI-e lanes and such, it doesn't make up for the older architecture
1155 are newest offerings (32nm) and are basically an iteration of the 32nm offerings for socket 1156.
There is very little reason to consider anything other than Socket 1155 for a high-ish end gaming machine. AMD offerings are simply not competitive at the higher end. They compete okay at the lower end, but the high end there is simply no competition at this point in time.
Of the Socket 1155 models, I think the i5-2400 (no overclock) or i5-2500k (if doing any overclocking) are the highest value models.
Due to lack of competition at the high end, Intel is marketing these in ways to maximize profits. There are artificial limitations placed on these chips to help milk money from the consumers. It also happens to work to totally confuse people looking into this market. Perhaps this is part of their plan, to confuse people into buying more than they need.
- chips that end in 'k' are sort of "special edition" processors. They have an unlocked multiplier which gives ability to overclock (IF used with appropriate chipset, discussed later in this list). It is very, very common to be able to overclock a 2500k to 4.0GHz with plenty of margin. More "On the edge" overclocks are usually in the 4.4-4.8 GHz range.
- chips that do not end in 'k' are multiplier locked, but do have a turbo mode that will allow faster speeds if all cores are not needed. For example, if normal speed is 3.1 GHz, if only 3 cores are needed, it will raise speed to 3.2 Ghz... 2 cores / 3.3 GHz ... 1 core / 3.4 Ghz
- Chipsets are also identical silicon, but have artificial limitations in place to segment the market / price....
- H61 - basic chipset, no special support, can use the on-chip integrated graphics (something most gamers won't be using)
- H67 - middle chipset, adds 6gbps SATA support, needed only with high performance solid state drives. Adds PCI-e channels for full 16 lanes for graphics card (very small performance gain for most GPUs). Adds ability to overclock the on-chip integrated graphics (which isn't a useful feature if using a discrete graphics card.)
- P67 - "performance" chipset. Adds overclocking for k-series processors. Disabled on-chip integrated graphics, must use discrete graphics card
- Z68 - not released yet. Will allow use & overclocking of Integrated graphics and overclocking of CPU. Only chipset that will be able to use the IGP and overclock the CPU.
Confused yet? Yeah, this gen is kind of a mess and we all hope AMD can provide something competitive so Intel doesn't keep doing this garbage. H61 boards are like $60-100. H67 are like $90-130 and P67 are generally $130ish to well over $200 depending on features.
Most games are not terribly CPU bound and an i5-2400 will play them quite well. Blizzard games in particular very strongly prefer the Intel options for CPUs: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-s...-tested/20
Note how far ahead of the top end AMD CPUs the Intel CPUs are in the Starcraft II and WoW benchmarks. In many cases, the lower end i3-2100 outperforms a high end PhenomII.
i7-2600 / k is the "top of the line" for current performance, but the primary feature added over the i5-2xxx processors is hyper-threading, which is mostly a non-factor for games. 2500 / k is the highest you probably want to go given how much more the 2600 / k is (about 50% more expensive). 2400 is probably perfectly adequate to last for a while, and would be my recommendation.
-----
Motherboard
Buy based on features you want. There is VERY little else that makes a difference. If Gigabyte is your favorite, great. They probably have 2-5 boards for whatever chipset you decide is right for you. Pick the one that is the size, slot layout, and has the features you want. "hot" features will cost you more. Things like front panel USB3 ports will add $20-30 by themselves. But there is no appreciable performance difference between an H61 / H67 / P67 chipset board of any brand. Buy the layout that will work well with your case and has the ports and connectivity you're after.
-----
Video card market above about a GTX460 price range is pretty much you get what you pay for. AMD and nVidia compete fairly well at any given price point and there aren't the same marketing tricks played in the high end that you get in the budget area.
Previous gen video cards: 40nm tech
Current gen video cards: supposed to be 32nm tech, fabs cancelled 32nm node due to lack of committed orders and are skipping to 28nm... This generation ended up on the same 40nm tech, yielding only minor upgrades in performance at a given price point.
Next gen video cards: 28nm, I expect to see substantial gains in performance for $$$ and performance for a given power envelope.
You can probably get an adequate video card for now, then upgrade to a faster one in a year for the same total price that you'd buy a GTX570 for and have a spare / hand me down. That would be the only consideration. Otherwise, pick nVidia or AMD and a price point and get what you want. It's actually really close to +x% price = +x% performance.
PC Gaming tech, in general, is slowing down. Many developers are creating console versions and porting to the PC. Add higher resolution support and 4xAA / 16xAF and they call it a PC game. There is some stagnation, so a card now may last longer than you think. At least until the next gen consoles are due out.
------
Good power supplies go on sale often here. Dunno about in your area. There is a fair amount of variation in power supply quality, but even the poorly built supplies don't really blow computer components anymore. However, there is a fair amount of false advertising, labeling a smaller supply design to a higher rated power output (that it can't actually support). People tend to overestimate power needs so this usually isn't a big deal, but it does happen. Brands that I know don't do this include Antec, Corsair, Seasonic, NZXT, Kingwin, Super Flower. I'm sure there are others, I'm just listing ones from memory.
Thermal design power for the GTX 570 is 220W, 1155 CPUs are 95W, add in 100W for motherboard, drives, etc... and you are looking at 420W max draw. In practice you will never really see that draw, because nothing really fully taxes the CPU when fully taxing the GPU, there is always some give and take there. 450W is probably enough, but a little headroom is good 500-550W is probably a good place to be. Buy something with dedicated PCI-e connectors to support your video card without adapters ... (2) 6-pin PCI-e power connectors. Many supplies will use a 6+2 configuration, and this is fine too.
------
Memory for Socket 1155 is either 4GB or 8GB. For your type of build, I'd probably go 8GB. Speed is generally not too important and you end up paying lots for very little "real-world" improvement. DDR3-1600 CAS 9 is probably the best value right now. DDR3 market prices are rising from their historic lows around December / January.
Intel offerings:
Socket 1366 - Processor designations i7-9xx
Socket 1156 - Processor designations i3 / i5 / i7 - yxx (where y is less than 9, 9 is reserved for Socket 1366)
Socket 1155 - Processor designations i3 / i5 / i7 - 2xxx (4 digits)
1366 offerings are fairly old (45nm). While they have superior "infrastructure" in triple channel memory and lots and lots of PCI-e lanes and such, it doesn't make up for the older architecture
1155 are newest offerings (32nm) and are basically an iteration of the 32nm offerings for socket 1156.
There is very little reason to consider anything other than Socket 1155 for a high-ish end gaming machine. AMD offerings are simply not competitive at the higher end. They compete okay at the lower end, but the high end there is simply no competition at this point in time.
Of the Socket 1155 models, I think the i5-2400 (no overclock) or i5-2500k (if doing any overclocking) are the highest value models.
Due to lack of competition at the high end, Intel is marketing these in ways to maximize profits. There are artificial limitations placed on these chips to help milk money from the consumers. It also happens to work to totally confuse people looking into this market. Perhaps this is part of their plan, to confuse people into buying more than they need.
- chips that end in 'k' are sort of "special edition" processors. They have an unlocked multiplier which gives ability to overclock (IF used with appropriate chipset, discussed later in this list). It is very, very common to be able to overclock a 2500k to 4.0GHz with plenty of margin. More "On the edge" overclocks are usually in the 4.4-4.8 GHz range.
- chips that do not end in 'k' are multiplier locked, but do have a turbo mode that will allow faster speeds if all cores are not needed. For example, if normal speed is 3.1 GHz, if only 3 cores are needed, it will raise speed to 3.2 Ghz... 2 cores / 3.3 GHz ... 1 core / 3.4 Ghz
- Chipsets are also identical silicon, but have artificial limitations in place to segment the market / price....
- H61 - basic chipset, no special support, can use the on-chip integrated graphics (something most gamers won't be using)
- H67 - middle chipset, adds 6gbps SATA support, needed only with high performance solid state drives. Adds PCI-e channels for full 16 lanes for graphics card (very small performance gain for most GPUs). Adds ability to overclock the on-chip integrated graphics (which isn't a useful feature if using a discrete graphics card.)
- P67 - "performance" chipset. Adds overclocking for k-series processors. Disabled on-chip integrated graphics, must use discrete graphics card
- Z68 - not released yet. Will allow use & overclocking of Integrated graphics and overclocking of CPU. Only chipset that will be able to use the IGP and overclock the CPU.
Confused yet? Yeah, this gen is kind of a mess and we all hope AMD can provide something competitive so Intel doesn't keep doing this garbage. H61 boards are like $60-100. H67 are like $90-130 and P67 are generally $130ish to well over $200 depending on features.
Most games are not terribly CPU bound and an i5-2400 will play them quite well. Blizzard games in particular very strongly prefer the Intel options for CPUs: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-s...-tested/20
Note how far ahead of the top end AMD CPUs the Intel CPUs are in the Starcraft II and WoW benchmarks. In many cases, the lower end i3-2100 outperforms a high end PhenomII.
i7-2600 / k is the "top of the line" for current performance, but the primary feature added over the i5-2xxx processors is hyper-threading, which is mostly a non-factor for games. 2500 / k is the highest you probably want to go given how much more the 2600 / k is (about 50% more expensive). 2400 is probably perfectly adequate to last for a while, and would be my recommendation.
-----
Motherboard
Buy based on features you want. There is VERY little else that makes a difference. If Gigabyte is your favorite, great. They probably have 2-5 boards for whatever chipset you decide is right for you. Pick the one that is the size, slot layout, and has the features you want. "hot" features will cost you more. Things like front panel USB3 ports will add $20-30 by themselves. But there is no appreciable performance difference between an H61 / H67 / P67 chipset board of any brand. Buy the layout that will work well with your case and has the ports and connectivity you're after.
-----
Video card market above about a GTX460 price range is pretty much you get what you pay for. AMD and nVidia compete fairly well at any given price point and there aren't the same marketing tricks played in the high end that you get in the budget area.
Previous gen video cards: 40nm tech
Current gen video cards: supposed to be 32nm tech, fabs cancelled 32nm node due to lack of committed orders and are skipping to 28nm... This generation ended up on the same 40nm tech, yielding only minor upgrades in performance at a given price point.
Next gen video cards: 28nm, I expect to see substantial gains in performance for $$$ and performance for a given power envelope.
You can probably get an adequate video card for now, then upgrade to a faster one in a year for the same total price that you'd buy a GTX570 for and have a spare / hand me down. That would be the only consideration. Otherwise, pick nVidia or AMD and a price point and get what you want. It's actually really close to +x% price = +x% performance.
PC Gaming tech, in general, is slowing down. Many developers are creating console versions and porting to the PC. Add higher resolution support and 4xAA / 16xAF and they call it a PC game. There is some stagnation, so a card now may last longer than you think. At least until the next gen consoles are due out.
------
Good power supplies go on sale often here. Dunno about in your area. There is a fair amount of variation in power supply quality, but even the poorly built supplies don't really blow computer components anymore. However, there is a fair amount of false advertising, labeling a smaller supply design to a higher rated power output (that it can't actually support). People tend to overestimate power needs so this usually isn't a big deal, but it does happen. Brands that I know don't do this include Antec, Corsair, Seasonic, NZXT, Kingwin, Super Flower. I'm sure there are others, I'm just listing ones from memory.
Thermal design power for the GTX 570 is 220W, 1155 CPUs are 95W, add in 100W for motherboard, drives, etc... and you are looking at 420W max draw. In practice you will never really see that draw, because nothing really fully taxes the CPU when fully taxing the GPU, there is always some give and take there. 450W is probably enough, but a little headroom is good 500-550W is probably a good place to be. Buy something with dedicated PCI-e connectors to support your video card without adapters ... (2) 6-pin PCI-e power connectors. Many supplies will use a 6+2 configuration, and this is fine too.
------
Memory for Socket 1155 is either 4GB or 8GB. For your type of build, I'd probably go 8GB. Speed is generally not too important and you end up paying lots for very little "real-world" improvement. DDR3-1600 CAS 9 is probably the best value right now. DDR3 market prices are rising from their historic lows around December / January.
Conc / Concillian -- Vintage player of many games. Deadly leader of the All Pally Team (or was it Death leader?)
Terenas WoW player... while we waited for Diablo III.
And it came... and it went... and I played Hearthstone longer than Diablo III.
Terenas WoW player... while we waited for Diablo III.
And it came... and it went... and I played Hearthstone longer than Diablo III.