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Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 9:29 pm
by Bashiba
So you guys where great in helping me in my recent amd budget thread for my friends new system. So I thought I would come here and beg for more great free advice. Tonight I was waiting for my friend to call me back and give me the final go ahead to order his parts, in the meantime I was playing a little skyrim and bang, blue screen on my own system. ACPI Compliant system error, so for the last couple hours I have been futzing around with my own system with no luck trying to get it back up. I haven't given up on that yet, but the wife has been home and watching me tear into it and toss the occasional bad word at it. While I still think I will get it going, she green lit me to order new parts. So why let the opportunity pass. Plus I was tired of messing with it for tonight, its more fun to system shop.

Here is my current rig - In long need of replacement anyway - everything but the GPU is from either 2007 or 2008
MSI K9A2 Platinum Board
8gbs Ram
Phenom 9850 Quad Core OC'ed to 2.8
Radeon 7770 - The only recent upgrade as Diablo 3 caused my 4850 to melt down, lol.
Twin 640gb Western Black Hard Drives
along with a 1.5 Terrabit Green Drive
Antec P-180B Case
Corsair 520 Watt Modular PS

So assuming my Radeon isn't the current problem, the Case, Power Supply, GPU, and Storage all should be fine.

So I'm leaning towards a 3570K, probably 8 gb's ram but will buy a 4 slot motherboard so I can drop more in later, New Motherboard, New CPU Cooler(will probably fool around OC'ing it a bit), and a Solid State Drive.
I don't really have a set budget, but I don't want to get carried away.

I was looking at the current system guide and the motherboard seems excessive for what I need, that is probably where I need the most advice, along with a solid budget cooler. Any good deals or Combo's out there I'm interested, not microcenter though, its just to far away and the tax kills the pricing anyway.

I hope to do a little Overclocking, some minor gaming, and a lot of Photo editing, Crossfire or SLI are not neccessary, either are an overabundance of extra USB's or the like.

Thanks in advance

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 10:22 pm
by auxy
Bashiba wrote:
Phenom 9850 Quad Core OC'ed to 2.8
Probably the source of your current problem.
Bashiba wrote:
So I'm leaning towards a 3570K
Good!
Bashiba wrote:
probably 8 gb's ram
Bad. If you're buying a Core i5 and a big MicroATX or ATX board with 4 slots, then buy 16GB, because A) it's still pretty cheap and B) if you buy 4GB sticks then you'll be limited at 16GB without replacing sticks, which leaves you with 4GB sticks laying around.

THAT SAID, a 7770 is pretty underpowered for a Core i5 system. You'll be GPU-limited in everything, especially at 1080p. I wouldn't bother with a Core i5 if you're only going to have that GPU; a Core i3-3220 will serve you fine and still be miles faster than your current Phenom -- even in heavily threaded apps. It's not overclockable, but you should examine whether you really need to OC anyway -- and how many hours have you spent fiddling with a dodgy OC and then being annoyed when a game crashes right in the middle? Sure, I still do some OCing myself, but based on what you said ("a bit"), I'm probably "a bit" more hardcore with it than you. ( ̄ω ̄;)

So, that's my recommendation. Get a cheap Core i3, a cheap MicroATX B75 board, stick your 7770 in it, and be done with the matter. Get a little bitty case; your wife will think it's cute. I know gamer d00ds always want the big full tower ATX cases and full-sized ATX motherboards, but try and divorce yourself from your preconceptions and consider what's more convenient. (─‿‿─)

With respect to your other questions; for the SSD, I'd look at the Samsung 840 series or the OCZ Vertex4 series. The 840 Pro and Vector are better drives, but also pretty pricey, and quite frankly in most situations you really won't know the difference.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 10:45 pm
by JustAnEngineer
Bashiba wrote:
Here is my current rig
MSI K9A2 Platinum Board
8gbs Ram
Phenom 9850 Quad Core OC'ed to 2.8
Radeon 7770
Twin 640gb Western Black Hard Drives
along with a 1.5 Terabyte Green Drive
Antec P-180B Case
Corsair 520 Watt Modular PS

Intel Core i5-3570K

Asus P8Z77-V LK
or ASRock Z77 Pro3
or Asus P8Z77-M Pro

CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo

Because you listed Photo Editing as one of your major uses of the PC, I agree with auxy's suggestion for 2x8 GiB of PC3-14900 / PC3-15000 or 2x8 GiB of PC3-12800 DDR3 memory that runs at CAS 9 at 1.5 V or less.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 8:07 am
by flip-mode
The 3570K is fantastic, but consider skipping it and getting the Xeon E3 1230 v2 for nearly the same price.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819117286
It works with socket 1155 motherboards. It is not an unlocked chip, but it is hyperthreaded, so 8 threads.

The 3570K is still great, but I've noticed that overclocking isn't what it used to be. These days it doesn't make my computing experience any better, all it does is boost benchmark scores. I have 3570K builds that are running overclocked and others that are running stock and they feel exactly the same. I've stopped buying the 3570K and have been buying the regular 3570 laterly, but now that I've found out about the E3-1230 V2 I won't consider anything else. If you do multithreaded stuff, the E3-1230 V2 will hold a definite advantage over the 3570K. If not, then it's a toss up.

I agree with auxy that 16 GB is a good idea. Use 8 GB DIMMs so you leave DIMM slots open for the future.

Also, I've had good experiences with ASRock motherboards in three builds I've done over the last two months. Consider these H77 or Z77 boards:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813157306
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813157301
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813157294

Those are all mATX boards. ATX boards are unnecessary.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 8:16 am
by flip-mode
auxy wrote:
THAT SAID, a 7770 is pretty underpowered for a Core i5 system. You'll be GPU-limited in everything, especially at 1080p. I wouldn't bother with a Core i5 if you're only going to have that GPU; a Core i3-3220 will serve you fine and still be miles faster than your current Phenom -- even in heavily threaded apps. It's not overclockable, but you should examine whether you really need to OC anyway -- and how many hours have you spent fiddling with a dodgy OC and then being annoyed when a game crashes right in the middle? Sure, I still do some OCing myself, but based on what you said ("a bit"), I'm probably "a bit" more hardcore with it than you.


I agree with what you said about OCing, which I think isn't often worth it anymore. But typically my opinion is always get the fastest CPU you can afford. This is a staggered upgrade, Bashiba already has the 7770. If he/she is just doing the CPU purchase now, get the fastest CPU that can be afforded, then when it comes to GPU upgrade time a year from now the CPU will still be totally up to the task. Additionally, CPU's are useful for much more than gaming. Bashiba is still riding a Phenom 9850. That's riding the same CPU for about 4-5 years now. Someone who rides a CPU that long should definitely get the fastest CPU they can. And again, I think the 8 threads of the E3-1230 V2 is potentially a big benefit here as games and other apps take more and more advantage of multiple threads.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 10:18 am
by vargis14
That E3 Xeon CPU seems like a great value...8 threads and I am sure you can OC it with turbo to get all cores to run at least 3700mhz under full load. Never know might be able to get a wee bit more out of it.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 2:05 pm
by Bashiba
flip-mode wrote:
auxy wrote:
THAT SAID, a 7770 is pretty underpowered for a Core i5 system. You'll be GPU-limited in everything, especially at 1080p. I wouldn't bother with a Core i5 if you're only going to have that GPU; a Core i3-3220 will serve you fine and still be miles faster than your current Phenom -- even in heavily threaded apps. It's not overclockable, but you should examine whether you really need to OC anyway -- and how many hours have you spent fiddling with a dodgy OC and then being annoyed when a game crashes right in the middle? Sure, I still do some OCing myself, but based on what you said ("a bit"), I'm probably "a bit" more hardcore with it than you.


I agree with what you said about OCing, which I think isn't often worth it anymore. But typically my opinion is always get the fastest CPU you can afford. This is a staggered upgrade, Bashiba already has the 7770. If he/she is just doing the CPU purchase now, get the fastest CPU that can be afforded, then when it comes to GPU upgrade time a year from now the CPU will still be totally up to the task. Additionally, CPU's are useful for much more than gaming. Bashiba is still riding a Phenom 9850. That's riding the same CPU for about 4-5 years now. Someone who rides a CPU that long should definitely get the fastest CPU they can. And again, I think the 8 threads of the E3-1230 V2 is potentially a big benefit here as games and other apps take more and more advantage of multiple threads.


You pretty much nailed my thinking here flip-mode, I want to get something that will serve me for a good 5 years, and down the road if I start gaming heavier again I will upgrade the GPU - which was basically a stop gap at a time when I didn't really want to spend to much on it. I'm more worried about the CPU handling Photoshop and some other niche software well and being able to multitask, I wouldn't even consider the dual core recommendation as I tend to be running a lot of things at once. The Xeon option looks pretty good, I'm also considering the 3470 as well just because it seems like a pretty bang for the buck as well, especially if overclocking the 3570k isn't producing much in the terms of real world performance increases. I also haven't ruled out the AMD 8350 either, I have always had good luck with AMD chips and the 8 core's would probably serve me well.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 4:18 pm
by auxy
flip-mode wrote:
The 3570K is fantastic, but consider skipping it and getting the Xeon E3 1230 v2 for nearly the same price.
I don't ... really ... agree with this. The Xeon E3 is pretty great if you want HT, but HT isn't all that useful if you aren't doing some really seriously multithreaded workloads, and you lose out in the iGPU and to get one in a Xeon you end up paying Core i7 prices. (1245v2, since there is no 1235v2). A lot of folks probably think, "Ah, who cares; he has a discrete GPU!", but this is naive thinking -- Intel's QuickSync is the absolute fastest video transcoding tool around, and you can always use the iGPU for extra displays. I use mine to hook up two monitors, leaving the third for USB and only my single gaming display hooked up to my GPU.
flip-mode wrote:
The 3570K is still great, but I've noticed that overclocking isn't what it used to be. These days it doesn't make my computing experience any better, all it does is boost benchmark scores.
I do mostly agree with this. I noticed a marked difference in a few games going from 3.4Ghz to 4.4ghz, and my boot time got a lot shorter, but as far as overall system usage, it really didn't make that much difference. Even with a Vertex4 for my system drive I'm still I/O limited before I'm CPU-limited in a lot of things.
flip-mode wrote:
I agree with auxy that 16 GB is a good idea. Use 8 GB DIMMs so you leave DIMM slots open for the future.
Thanks for the endorsement! Shame this board doesn't have a karma system.
flip-mode wrote:
Also, I've had good experiences with ASRock motherboards in three builds I've done over the last two months.
Me too! I've built machines with the Z77 Extreme6 and the Z77 Pro4-M lately and they've both been rock solid. I've just ordered a Z77E-ITX for myself!
flip-mode wrote:
Those are all mATX boards. ATX boards are unnecessary.
Agreed! I run SLI on -- well I used to run SLI on MicroATX!
flip-mode wrote:
I think the 8 threads of the E3-1230 V2 is potentially a big benefit here as games and other apps take more and more advantage of multiple threads.
I ... don't. Simply speaking, "lol". Even still it is a minority (a large and growing minority, but still...) of games that will make full use of a quad-core CPU; you can see this in benchmarks where the 3570K matches or nearly matches the 3770K (and remember, the latter has more cache and a higher clock.) Even the mighty 3960X with twelve threads usually bends its knee to the 3570K in game or single-threaded benchmarks. I do realize what you're saying about holding onto the CPU for 5 years, and I recognize that in 5 years the market may have changed; still, Intel isn't planning to mainstream hex-core or multi-core (8+) systems with Haswell or Broadwell, and the 3570K is quite a lot faster than the 8-core Jaguar processors (which have lower IPC and a paltry 1.6Ghz clock) going into the next-generation consoles; I think it's very safe to say that the extra threads will be of no use for gaming in the next 5 years.

Of course, Bashiba may want to do other things with his CPU, and in that case the story is quite different. ┐( ̄ー ̄)┌ From what he's said though, it seems as if gaming will be the most demanding task he does.
Bashiba wrote:
I'm more worried about the CPU handling Photoshop and some other niche software well and being able to multitask, I wouldn't even consider the dual core recommendation as I tend to be running a lot of things at once.
Photoshop just isn't demanding anymore. Processors are so fast now (starting with Nehalem, really, but especially the "Bridge" chips) that it annoys me a bit to continually hear it dragged out as a demanding task. The i3 would handle that just fine. I sell a lot of Trinity-based systems, and they handle "heavy" desktop loads like Photoshop and Premiere while multi-tasking just fine -- and the Core i3s are quite a lot faster than Trinity.
Bashiba wrote:
The Xeon option looks pretty good, I'm also considering the 3470 as well just because it seems like a pretty bang for the buck as well, especially if overclocking the 3570k isn't producing much in the terms of real world performance increases.
The 3470 is not a terrible idea, but if you plan on messing with video at all consider that the 3570K does have the fastest Intel HD 4000, which improves performance using QuickSync.
Bashiba wrote:
I also haven't ruled out the AMD 8350 either, I have always had good luck with AMD chips and the 8 core's would probably serve me well.
Not if you want to play games! Or, really, do anything that requires good single-threaded or good floating-point performance. The FX chips aren't terrible, but given that you're apparently not averse to spending ~$240 on a CPU, I wouldn't even consider them. They're a joke compared to that Xeon, and even the Core i5s can utterly destroy them in most tasks.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 6:22 am
by Chrispy_
I would be tempted by the E3-1230 V2, otherwise stick with the i5; Like others have said, overclocking a CPU isn't anywhere near as useful as it used to be. I aparrently have a 4.5GHz 2500K in this box, but I can't honestly say it's much benefit over the stock clock which would turbo up to 3.7 in my 2500K's case.

Get yourself an Asus mATX z77-based board with the best UEFI BIOS going around and as many or as few SATA/USB3 ports as you want based on which model you pick.

Same RAM recommendation as others too - 2x8GB, specifically 1600MHz no slower than CL9 and no hungrier than 1.5V.

The Antec P180 is a great case (I used to have one) but it's a bit of an outdated monolith these days, and building a PC inside it is a horrible, nasty thing to do (it was the 120MM fan between the PSU and the lower drive bays, coupled with the rather poor cable management options that really drove me to ditch mine). If you're interested in getting something practical yet quiet, the Fractal Define Mini is a good option, and it will still hold a lot of drives. My favourite is the Lian-Li PC-A04B which looks a little bit old fashioned at first but is perhaps the most enjoyable mATX case I have ever worked with. I also added a couple of those foam sound-dampening sheets on the assumption that when the various fans and drives start to age and vibrate a bit, the lightweight side-panels won't be as likely to shake at the same time, though since the only fans that aren't low-RPM fluid-bearings are on the 7950, I don't really expect that to happen.

Oh, and as a "long term" platform user, buy a basic Noctua tower cooler. It's a little expensive but quality is good, and the main advantage is that Noctua will ship you free mounting kits for new platforms when they come out. My NH12-something has been going for years now, well into its third type of CPU socket....

As far as SSD's go, I think we've reached the point last year where most controllers are *fast enough* for the moment, given the SATA3 limit. As a desktop/workstation user, my preference would be for something that excels at IOPS regardless of transfer rates - Samsung 840 or OCZ Vector. My reasoning for this is that sequential reads/writes are largely irrelevant when they're all in the 450MB/s or greater category. Even quite old SSD's are capable of this. The new fight is for performance consistency and that needs a fast controller that can defrag quickly, or a surplus of capacity to allow over-provisioning.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 6:45 am
by Firestarter
auxy wrote:
Bashiba wrote:
probably 8 gb's ram
Bad. (....) if you buy 4GB sticks then you'll be limited at 16GB without replacing sticks

careful, if you're looking to run Windows 7 Home Premium, you'll be limited to 16GB regardless. Not an issue for most, but it doesn't make sense to prepare for 32GB if you're going to be limited by the OS anyway.


Chrispy_ wrote:
I would be tempted by the E3-1230 V2, otherwise stick with the i5; Like others have said, overclocking a CPU isn't anywhere near as useful as it used to be. I aparrently have a 4.5GHz 2500K in this box, but I can't honestly say it's much benefit over the stock clock which would turbo up to 3.7 in my 2500K's case.

I disagree, it depends 100% on the kind of application or game that you run. That 3.7 figure is only for one core, for 4 cores it's limited to 3.5 by default. If we ever end up getting games that actually fully utilize 4 cores and still benefit from high clocks, that overclock from 3.5 to 4.5 is going to make quite a difference.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 8:54 am
by Chrispy_
Firestarter wrote:
I disagree, it depends 100% on the kind of application or game that you run. That 3.7 figure is only for one core, for 4 cores it's limited to 3.5 by default. If we ever end up getting games that actually fully utilize 4 cores and still benefit from high clocks, that overclock from 3.5 to 4.5 is going to make quite a difference.


well, that's why I said "I would be tempted by" rather than "this is definitely the best choice"

Without being able to predict the future, it's hard to know whether more threads or more performance per thread is going to pan out better, but based on TR and Anand's articles, I am expecting future game engines to make even better use of multiple threads. We are already at the point where a 2C/4T processor is better for gaming than a 2C/2T option. How long before 4C/8T is better than a 4C/4T?

At the same time, if we see games that need more than 3.5GHz of Ivy, will Ivy still be relevant or will it be 2030 by then and we'll all be gaming on our wristwatches?

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 9:01 am
by flip-mode
auxy wrote:
I don't ... really ... agree with this. The Xeon E3 is pretty great if you want HT, but HT isn't all that useful if you aren't doing some really seriously multithreaded workloads, and you lose out in the iGPU and to get one in a Xeon you end up paying Core i7 prices. (1245v2, since there is no 1235v2). A lot of folks probably think, "Ah, who cares; he has a discrete GPU!", but this is naive thinking -- Intel's QuickSync is the absolute fastest video transcoding tool around, and you can always use the iGPU for extra displays. I use mine to hook up two monitors, leaving the third for USB and only my single gaming display hooked up to my GPU.

Good question: how much video encoding does Bashiba do? On the other hand if Bashiba plans to do rendering or virtual machines, or even taking into consideration mulithreaded games, the 1230-V2 makes sense. It's something for the OP to think about. If nothing else, the E3 1230-V2 is an option that I don't think many people know about, and yet it's a great option. If Bashiba still decides that overclocking is important then the 3570K is the only option.

I have two monitors connected to my video card :shrug: What's your setup?

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 9:10 am
by Firestarter
For most games right now and the near future, single thread performance is still the most important metric by far. So in that sense, a Xeon does not make a lot of sense for a gaming PC. For things like Photoshop, Lightroom and Premiere I bet those 8 threads do make a lot of difference though

edit: Oh that Xeon has vt-d as well! Definitely get that Xeon if you're a heavy VM user.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 11:12 am
by Flying Fox
flip-mode wrote:
The 3570K is fantastic, but consider skipping it and getting the Xeon E3 1230 v2 for nearly the same price.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819117286
It works with socket 1155 motherboards. It is not an unlocked chip, but it is hyperthreaded, so 8 threads.

The 3570K is still great, but I've noticed that overclocking isn't what it used to be. These days it doesn't make my computing experience any better, all it does is boost benchmark scores. I have 3570K builds that are running overclocked and others that are running stock and they feel exactly the same. I've stopped buying the 3570K and have been buying the regular 3570 laterly, but now that I've found out about the E3-1230 V2 I won't consider anything else. If you do multithreaded stuff, the E3-1230 V2 will hold a definite advantage over the 3570K. If not, then it's a toss up.

According to Asus CPU support grid:
*Since Xeon CPU is not desktop CPU model, some feature may not able to work on this combination. For detail, refer to support.asus.com
Do you know what is missing?

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 1:41 pm
by flip-mode
No, Fox, I'm not sure. I'm going to look though, as I'm probably ordering one for a workstation build for work tomorow. Probably ASRock based instead of Asus, though.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 2:01 pm
by Flying Fox
flip-mode wrote:
No, Fox, I'm not sure. I'm going to look though, as I'm probably ordering one for a workstation build for work tomorow. Probably ASRock based instead of Asus, though.

http://ark.intel.com/compare/65523,65726

One highlight is VT-d, so if you use that (If you have to ask, then you are not using it. You don't need VT-d to run virtual machines, just VT-x for modern hypervisors.). But a lot of consumer motherboards can enable VT-d anyways? So it is not like what the blurb implied.

Edit: I see one, ECC support?

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 2:49 pm
by auxy
Flying Fox wrote:
But a lot of consumer motherboards can enable VT-d anywas?
VT-d is a standard feature on the Core-i series. It's only the K-series that lack it, in a bit of shameless artificial market segmentation from Intel...

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 3:06 pm
by flip-mode
auxy wrote:
Flying Fox wrote:
But a lot of consumer motherboards can enable VT-d anywas?
VT-d is a standard feature on the Core-i series. It's only the K-series that lack it, in a bit of shameless artificial market segmentation from Intel...

Yes. The standard i5-3570, for instance, supports VT-d. Still, you can run VM's just fine without it. I don't know why in the world Intel bothered to cut it from the K processors.

Back to the Xeon for a moment, Fox, and your question about what's supported and what is not - no clear answer yet, but I did find this board:
http://www.asus.com/Commercial_Server_W ... ifications
an 1155 workstation board that specifically mentions support for ECC memory. That could be the answer, but it's not 100% clear yet.

Edit: I'm growing more and more certain that it's ECC memory. I think to get ECC memory support you need a C-series chipset....

Edit2: As it relates to the subject of this thread, I'm doubting Bashiba cares about ECC...

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 7:17 pm
by auxy
flip-mode wrote:
Edit: I'm growing more and more certain that it's ECC memory. I think to get ECC memory support you need a C-series chipset....
Edit2: As it relates to the subject of this thread, I'm doubting Bashiba cares about ECC...
Yes, that's correct. I suspect you are also correct about whether Bashiba needs or wants ECC.
flip-mode wrote:
I have two monitors connected to my video card :shrug: What's your setup?
Currently I have two ASUS VS229H-P (22" 1080p eIPS) wall-mounted, a 32" Toshiba HDTV (1080p) sitting nearby, and a 7" MIMO Monitors 720-F USB-attached and USB-powered 480p touchscreen that usually sits on my lap. The HDTV and one of the VS229s are hooked up my iGPU (iHD4000) and the other VS229H-P is hooked up to my GTX460.

Displaying 2D takes an almost negligible amount of GPU power, but the GPU does still have to store that framebuffer in local memory, and I see no reason to use the quite limited 1GB on my GPU for my various desktops when I can use my 32GB system memory (by way of my iGPU) for that. :)

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 7:51 pm
by flip-mode
auxy wrote:
flip-mode wrote:
Edit: I'm growing more and more certain that it's ECC memory. I think to get ECC memory support you need a C-series chipset....
Edit2: As it relates to the subject of this thread, I'm doubting Bashiba cares about ECC...
Yes, that's correct. I suspect you are also correct about whether Bashiba needs or wants ECC.
flip-mode wrote:
I have two monitors connected to my video card :shrug: What's your setup?
Currently I have two ASUS VS229H-P (22" 1080p eIPS) wall-mounted, a 32" Toshiba HDTV (1080p) sitting nearby, and a 7" MIMO Monitors 720-F USB-attached and USB-powered 480p touchscreen that usually sits on my lap. The HDTV and one of the VS229s are hooked up my iGPU (iHD4000) and the other VS229H-P is hooked up to my GTX460.

Displaying 2D takes an almost negligible amount of GPU power, but the GPU does still have to store that framebuffer in local memory, and I see no reason to use the quite limited 1GB on my GPU for my various desktops when I can use my 32GB system memory (by way of my iGPU) for that. :)


I'm going to go out on a limb and assume Bashiba isn't going to be doing all that and probably will do fine with just the video outputs from the discrete video card. If Bashiba is doing a bunch of encoding, then the IGP point is valid. That's a question for Bashiba.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 7:59 pm
by auxy
flip-mode wrote:
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume Bashiba isn't going to be doing all that and probably will do fine with just the video outputs from the discrete video card. If Bashiba is doing a bunch of encoding, then the IGP point is valid. That's a question for Bashiba.
Hehe. You're probably right; I just hate having inactive/useless ports on my motherboard. (✿◠‿◠)

Hopefully we didn't scare him away.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 10:23 pm
by Bashiba
Wow you guys have given me a lot to think about. Luckily for me I got the old system back up and running fine so I don't have to make a snap decision.

To answer a few of the questions posed. I don't really do much Video anything these days, pretty much still image editing only along with minor Graphic Design stuff. I do have some minor video projects coming up but nothing big enough to impact my choice. I'm using Windows 7 Pro, so I will go ahead and go with the 2x8gb ram kit to start and probably add the other 16 down the road if I want. My Displays consist of just 2 regular 24 inch monitors so nothing real taxing or unusual.

At this point I guess I'm still leaning towards the 3570k, it seems like its pretty hard to beat for the cash. But still thinking it over and listening to any other ideas.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 10:30 pm
by auxy
Bashiba wrote:
At this point I guess I'm still leaning towards the 3570k, it seems like its pretty hard to beat for the cash. But still thinking it over and listening to any other ideas.
It's pretty much down to 3570K vs. Xeon E3-1230v2. (The "v2" is important! The Xeon E3-1230 is Sandy Bridge, whereas the "v2" designates the Ivy Bridge version.) If you don't need the integrated graphics and you don't *need* to overclock, then the Xeon is fairly clearly a better choice; it'll generally be more stable (due to more aggressive QC on the Xeons and an inability to overclock meaningfully, removing the temptation), run cooler, and has hyper-threading and more cache, for handling heavier and "wider" loads better.

However, if you want to overclock or if you're willing to overclock, the Core i5 will end up giving better single-threaded performance -- possibly quite much better depending on how far you go with your OC -- which is the most important thing for games. (´ペ) ンー

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2013 6:50 am
by flip-mode
Couldn't have said it better than auxy just did. It's a hard choice between those two CPUs! Good news is you really can't go wrong with either.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2013 9:22 pm
by Bashiba
So I originally said Microcenter was off the table, but I have to go out of town this week and will end up fairly close to one, so as long as the snow storm predicted isn't bad I will probably head over there. With there $189.99 3570K plus $50 off a motherboard, its pretty hard to pass that price up if I get over there, but there is another interesting option, they have the 3770K for only $229.

I think I have settled on going with the 3570K plus the Asrock Z77 Pro 3(I'm using the same board in my friends 3470 build tomorrow so I will get to see first hand how I like it).
With tax its $253.19 for the pair, pretty good price.

But with the 3770K that cheap, pretty much the price I was planning on paying for the 3570K originally, should I consider it? Or is the Hyper Threading never going to be a big deal to a user like me with only minor video editing going on?

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2013 9:45 pm
by JustAnEngineer
Hyper-threading may be good for your e-peen rating, but it doesn't help much in currently-available games.
Would you consider the ASRock Z77 Pro4-M at Micro Center?

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2013 10:02 pm
by Bashiba
I sure will, but why the pro 4 over the pro 3? There must be a difference that I'm not seeing, the only thing that jumps out is 2 vs 4 6gb Sata ports, and I can't ever see needing more than 2 anyway.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2013 10:17 pm
by JustAnEngineer
The Z77 Pro4-M has no obsolete PCI slots. It has one more PCIe slot. It has an optical S/PDIF output.

It can also fit into smaller cases.
flip-mode wrote:
ATX boards are unnecessary.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 8:43 am
by Bashiba
I actually have no use for the S/PDIF or an extra PCIe slot, where I actually have a couple of old PCI cards that I might end up using. I'm using a full size case so size isn't an issue. If that's the only reason then the Pro 3 is the clear winner for me, not to mention its $15 cheaper.

Re: Budget 3570K Build advice

Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 6:25 pm
by auxy
Let us know what you ended up with! (=`ω´=) I for one am curious to see.