Upgrading CPU, MB, Ram - Advice Needed

Guttzu

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Hello everyone. Well the time has come to upgrade out of my old i7 920 and get something new. I'm thinking about either the new i7's or an i5 but I have no idea what to get. I'm wanting something that will be easy to overclock since I'll be putting a water cooling loop on it. I'll need a new MB and new RAM so that advice is needed as well. It looks like all the new i7's are around $299-$330 and the MB's for the 1155 socket range like $200 to $350. I have no idea what RAM to buy and whether to go 8gb or 16gb since you only need 2 sticks it seems. With the water cooling system I planned to run a 360 radiator for the CPU block and the chipset blocks but I'm still not sure if running water to the chipsets is worth it or not. I was thinking to get a MB that I could upgrade the chipsets to watercooling so I guess that should be considered in the purchase. Thanks in advance for any help and advice!

CPU: New i7 or i5
MB: $200 to max $350, Asus or EVGA or whatever is good now
RAM: No idea on this... 8gb or 16gb

CPU water block: HEATKILLER® CPU Block Rev3.0 Ni-BL - Socket 1155/1156 - Black Nickel
360 radiator: XSPC RX360 - 3x120mm Radiator Rev. 2
Reservoir: XSPC Acrylic Dual 5.25in. Reservoir for Two Laing DDC's
 
You can reuse 8GB of your RAM. Just use 2 of those sticks.

Get a 3570k and an ASRock Xtreme 4. Little over 300 bucks combined. You can reuse your current rad and res but need a new block. I would put more money into a new GPU than anything else in your system.

You don't need to water the south bridge. The Z77 chipset is just that, a south bridge. The NB is built in to the CPU itself.
 
Thanks for the updated info. I haven't updated my sig in awhile but I bought an EVGA GTX 680 so I'm set on a GPU...

So I just need to ask why that CPU? I'm totally new to the new CPU's so I'm just curious. Also, The RAM I bought is triple channel but using two is fine for the 2 slots?

I haven't heard from of the ASRock Xtreme 4 before... is ASRock a legit brand? I'm fine with spending some money on this build and want to make it somewhat future proof. That's why I went with the GTX680 4GB version... which I'll be putting a loop on that as well...
 
ASRock used to be the "crap" brand of Asus until they disbanded in 2009. They made some crap product until Q3 2010 when they really ramped up sales and now they are top 3 being second under Asus and Gigabyte is 3rd (with **** CS).

3570k is Ivy Bridge which is the latest architecture. The 3770k is the same chip except 100 bucks more and with HT. If you absolutely use all 8 threads all the time then sure, maybe it might be worth it but doubtful.

Learn time! The channel option comes from the board and supported chipset itself. RAM modules are just that, RAM sticks. Nothing more. Sticks with chips. You can use any DDR3 sticks (1.65v or less) in these setups long as they are DDR3. You can run a quad channel kit in a dual channel board and vice verse. A triple channel kit of RAM is essentially just 3 sticks of RAM in one package with buzz words. You take 2 of those and put them in another setup them they will be a dual channel kit. Add one more stick and put them in my setup and it's a quad channel kit. So it's perfectly fine to run your current RAM :)

Awesome on the 680.
 
ASRock used to be the "crap" brand of Asus until they disbanded in 2009. They made some crap product until Q3 2010 when they really ramped up sales and now they are top 3 being second under Asus and Gigabyte is 3rd (with **** CS).

3570k is Ivy Bridge which is the latest architecture. The 3770k is the same chip except 100 bucks more and with HT. If you absolutely use all 8 threads all the time then sure, maybe it might be worth it but doubtful.

Learn time! The channel option comes from the board and supported chipset itself. RAM modules are just that, RAM sticks. Nothing more. Sticks with chips. You can use any DDR3 sticks (1.65v or less) in these setups long as they are DDR3. You can run a quad channel kit in a dual channel board and vice verse. A triple channel kit of RAM is essentially just 3 sticks of RAM in one package with buzz words. You take 2 of those and put them in another setup them they will be a dual channel kit. Add one more stick and put them in my setup and it's a quad channel kit. So it's perfectly fine to run your current RAM :)

Awesome on the 680.

Thank you for the learning master :lol: Do those boards only come in micro-atx? I guess I could spend the extra money on a waterblock for my 680 and another radiator for it.... What Asus boards would you suggest? Is the 3570k and 3770K overclock friendly and are those ASRock boards dependable and OC friendly? I guess I was expecting to drop over $1,000 on this upgrade so this is kind throwing me off lol... Thanks again for the help PP :)
 
Nah they make different boards. Well hell, if you want to spend a little more to make yourself feel better you can get the Extreme 6 =D

Newegg.com - ASRock Z77 Extreme6 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

What is your current rad? If you have a 120.3 (triple 120mm fan rad double thick) then that would be fine for both overclocked. If you have the room another rad wouldn't hurt though but yea you already bought the expensive part which is the GPU so your upgrade wont really be that much.

The Ivy Bridge CPUs are overclock friendly as much as the Sandy Bridge CPUs but they run a little warmer. Not an issue really since you will have custom water. Speaking of, if you get a 680 block get the Heatkiller hole edition. Beastly block.

Yes the ASRock boards are very dependable and OC friendly. The Formula was breaking world records under LN2.
 
Thank you for the updated info PP. Yeah I planned on getting the heatkiller GPU block: Heatkiller GPU-X³ GTX 680 Hole Edition - 15520 with a backplate: HEATKILLER® GPU Backplate for Nvidia GTX 680 I do see they offer a nickel plated edition but I'm not really thinking it is necessary: HEATKILLER® GPU-X³ GTX 680 Ni-Bl Hole Edition Waterblock - #15521 Would the nickel have issues with wearing away?

My current RAD is an HW Labs SR-1 360. Would that be enough for the CPU and GPU? I've had some people tell me that a 360 isn't enough for both... Just trying to get a parts list together for x-mas!

CPU's are either this: Newegg.com - Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I53570K or this: Newegg.com - Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770K

Also, I could see getting another one of these since I already have one and running them in RAID: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147163... Opinion?
 
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I'm not fond of nickel personally, but I just prefer the beauty of copper in my case. *shrugs*
In my experience I had corrosion issues with nickel on the inside of the block. It could have been a combination of things though.

LOL those rads are just as awesome as the double stuffed XSPC (my nickname for them). It should be fine long as you have decent fans. If not you can always just add another one to your loop later but I don't think you'll have to.

CPU is entirely what you foresee your usage being. If you will use all 8 threads a lot of the time then it's worth the extra 100. If not, then you wont see a difference between the two.

Would be good, even though I'm not fond of RAID personally. Better hurry up though, it says they are out of stock. Samsung are trying to push their 840 and 840 pro series so not sure if they will get more stock of the 830s.
 
Thanks for the update on things sir! I did notice this as an option for an SSD like you mentioned: Newegg.com - SAMSUNG 840 Series MZ-7TD120BW 2.5" 120GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) or this for a little more and just run 1 of these Newegg.com - SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD128BW 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) for a single SSD the Pro isn't that much more and the speeds seem pretty legit...

I have 3 of these on my current 360 RAD: Newegg.com - Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F 120mm Case Fan

CPU: I'm pretty sure I'm not going to use all 8 threads... I play GW2 on high settings but I stream using Xsplit which is pretty demanding on your CPU... What would be an example of using all 8 threads most of the time? Thanks again for all the awesome answers sir!

Yeah I've been reading the Radiator tests on martinsliquidlab.org and it seems for fan speeds under 1800 both the HW labs sr-1 360 and XSPC RX-360 are great. The XSPC is less expensive though...
 
I don't think you can RAID an 840 and an 830 though. Pretty sure you can't. If you do get a newer bigger SSD get the 840 Pro as the 840 much slower.

Those are pretty good fans.

Good example, rendering, video encoding, ect. Something that when turned on and being used puts your CPU usage at 100%. That's really the only time HT gets used. Games don't use it.

I prefer the XSPC myself, but personal preference.
 
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