New CPU or wait for Ivy Bridge

[Mars999]

Not if your board isn't a Gen3. Not all Z68 boards are Gen3.

Why don't you read the whole posting and stop quoting only parts of my post...

"You only get true PCIe3 on some Z68 MB's"

 

[Mars999]

To Hidden Hippo,

IMO just get a P67 or Z68 MB, get a 1156 CPU of you choice and forget IB if you are worried about bugs and jump to Haswell in a year from now or 18months.

BTW Sata Express or Sata 4 is coming and so is PCIe 4 and DDR4 around the time Haswell or shortly afterwards...

 

[Hidden Hippo]

Ok, thanks for the advice. I'm looking at the following now:

i5 2500k
8GB 1.5V DDR3 1600MHz (2x4GB) - Corsair/Crucial/G. Skill (whoever is cheapest on the day)

And then one of the following motherboards:

AsRock Extreme3 Gen3 (£105)
Asus P8Z68V-LX (£75)
AsRock Pro3 Gen3 (£85)
MSI Z68S-G43 (£75)

Looking at the specs I'm leaning towards the MSI at the moment. It's the cheapest but supports PCIe3, can run Crossfire (albeit x16/x4), supports USB3.0 and SATAIII.

What are your thoughts? In total it works out to around £270 with the MSI, which is pretty reasonable in my book.

Edit: Ideally I'd like something Gen3 and capable of crossfire/SLI support (just in case) but this is unlikely to get used in fairness, purely for the cost of getting such a setup, including a new PSU.

 

[Mars999]

Looks good. I would get Corsair RAM
blue
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145345

or black
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820233144

 

[Hidden Hippo]

Perhaps the MSI isn't so good - appears to only support DDR1600 when overclocking, whereas the Asus supports it at stock speeds (I think).

Has anyone used the Pro3? I've seen comments on the Extreme3 boards, but very little on the Pro3.