I'm coming from a Core 2 duo 6600 overclocked to 3.33 for the last 5+ years. The machine has become a little unstable and rather than monkey with it, it's time to upgrade. On the fence between Sandy and Ivy. I like Sandy because: 1) been around for a while, more mature; 2) sounds like easier to achieve better overclocks; and 3) a little cheaper. Ivy has me a little tempted as it may be a little more future proof and and uses less power (and therefore less heat) overall.
Answering the standard questions:
1) mainly light use internet, e-mail, word processing, some light photoshop, some gaming (Diablo's back)- Games are probably the most demanding use as I would like to be able to play anything as I periodically get into different games (thinking about BF3 as a game to test out the new rig);
2) budget is not a huge factor- I'd like to be in the $1250 range;
3) buying parts in the US (I've typically New Egg'ed in the past);
4) no fan boy tendencies to speak of but I do place somewhat of a premium on reliability;
5) I plan to use keyboard, monitor, mouse and hard drives (Intel 150 gb SSD and a couple of Raptor 250s currently in a RAID 0 array); may also use DVD burner and floppy, if needed
6) I plan on overclocking on air with little/no voltage tweaking (I'd like to keep the system quiet as well);
6) current monitor is 1600x1200- might add a second monitor in the not too distant future- I like having two at work;
7) I plan to build more or less immediately.
Here's what I came up with-
Antec Performance One Series P193 V3 because, in general, I like my P180;
Radeon HD 7850- Seems like a good relative 'bang for the buck' card;
CORSAIR Professional Series HX750- wondering if this is too much power?
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL- this is really a shot in the dark for me
ASRock P67 EXTREME4 GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard- I have somewhat of a ASUS bias but I'm willing to try new things
Intel Core i7-2600K- Again, still somewhat on the fence with Ivy
Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm SSO CPU Cooler- I realize this is a chunk of dough but the idea of top notch quiet cooling has me leaning in this direction with some concern about its size and potential ram interference.
Any thoughts on the picks or the choice between Sandy and Ivy? If Ivy is the way to go, is there a good Z77 board where I don't have to worry about potentially having to flash the bios just to get the thing going?
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Matt
Answering the standard questions:
1) mainly light use internet, e-mail, word processing, some light photoshop, some gaming (Diablo's back)- Games are probably the most demanding use as I would like to be able to play anything as I periodically get into different games (thinking about BF3 as a game to test out the new rig);
2) budget is not a huge factor- I'd like to be in the $1250 range;
3) buying parts in the US (I've typically New Egg'ed in the past);
4) no fan boy tendencies to speak of but I do place somewhat of a premium on reliability;
5) I plan to use keyboard, monitor, mouse and hard drives (Intel 150 gb SSD and a couple of Raptor 250s currently in a RAID 0 array); may also use DVD burner and floppy, if needed
6) I plan on overclocking on air with little/no voltage tweaking (I'd like to keep the system quiet as well);
6) current monitor is 1600x1200- might add a second monitor in the not too distant future- I like having two at work;
7) I plan to build more or less immediately.
Here's what I came up with-
Antec Performance One Series P193 V3 because, in general, I like my P180;
Radeon HD 7850- Seems like a good relative 'bang for the buck' card;
CORSAIR Professional Series HX750- wondering if this is too much power?
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL- this is really a shot in the dark for me
ASRock P67 EXTREME4 GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard- I have somewhat of a ASUS bias but I'm willing to try new things
Intel Core i7-2600K- Again, still somewhat on the fence with Ivy
Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm SSO CPU Cooler- I realize this is a chunk of dough but the idea of top notch quiet cooling has me leaning in this direction with some concern about its size and potential ram interference.
Any thoughts on the picks or the choice between Sandy and Ivy? If Ivy is the way to go, is there a good Z77 board where I don't have to worry about potentially having to flash the bios just to get the thing going?
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Matt