Trying to predict how much of a performance increase I will see in int

[Dan3345]

I was waiting until I had the extra cash again to upgrade, but it does seem to be a better idea to buy the motherboard now and then sit on my 1100T until IB comes out. Which I have heard will be sometime in April. And I know this will sound juvenile but my family generally sends me a few extra bucks on my birthday which is in April so if ivy bridge is not to different in price (like say $60 over an i5 2500k) I may just go straight to that. Although it all really depends on the price. And I cannot buy a motherboard and then not instal it for months while the warranty fades away.

[hoofhearted4]

there is no rush. i dont understand why you are in such a hurry to swap out your 1100T for a 2500k and then eventually to IB....save your money, and buy the mobo and IB at the same time when you can afford it.

[Dan3345]

Ehh, the only rush is to get the parts at the cheapest price.. The i5 doesn't seem to be going on sale anytime soon, but the mobo is $20 bucks cheaper right now, which is why.

[FMod]

That's just saving pennies (and losing more at that). It's not like it's $100 cheaper, token discounts like $20 can go up and down in a day. You won't want that mobo anyway once IB comes out, they will have Z77 chipset. It's not certain how it's going to be different, it may be significant or not.

 

Pricing is here - $225 for the one you want vs $216, but 2500K actually sells for $230, so it seems to be the same. Of course 2500K prices will probably start dropping then.

[Dan3345]

That's just saving pennies (and losing more at that). It's not like it's $100 cheaper, token discounts like $20 can go up and down in a day. You won't want that mobo anyway once IB comes out, they will have Z77 chipset. It's not certain how it's going to be different, it may be significant or not.

 

Pricing is here - $225 for the one you want vs $216, but 2500K actually sells for $230, so it seems to be the same. Of course 2500K prices will probably start dropping then.

 

From I have read and I am not saying its true just its what I have read.. Is that z77 will only be different from z68 in that, it will be IB ready out of the box. z68 will require a bios update but then will be fine.

[FMod]

Z77 will also have USB 3.0 support, possibly more SATA 3.0 ports, possibly native PCI-E 3.0 support, likely more flexible PCI-E lane configurations. Also, if there are any new CPU features, Z68 will not support them. Although anything major like SB-E style clock rate control is unlikely.

[Dan3345]

Z77 will also have USB 3.0 support, possibly more SATA 3.0 ports, possibly native PCI-E 3.0 support, likely more flexible PCI-E lane configurations. Also, if there are any new CPU features, Z68 will not support them. Although anything major like SB-E style clock rate control is unlikely.

 

I only have 1 HDD, and I only would get 1 SSD, so thats 2 out 4 6 gb'per second SATA ports being used right there on the motherboard I have picked out. The mobo I have picked out also has 3 extra 3gb'per second SATA ports. It doesn't need native PCI-E 3.0 when a simple bios update and Ivy bridge cpu will enable it anyways. The mobo I have picked out has enough usb 3.0 ports for my use (4 I believe), and I have not heard of any new Ivy Bridge features other than improved hyper threading, and overall performance increases. 20-40% better speeds per clock than sandy bridge. Again if all we are talking about is the mother board I think I am set. I have looked up what MSI is releasing on April 8th for z77, and it seems to be more of the same only with out of the box ivy bridge support. Sapphire is also releasing some new z77 boards but sapphire in my opinion is crap and I would never buy from them..

 

Edit: I double checked, the board I am considering is not z68, it is P67. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157265

 

I am also considering this board here

 

I am still looking but I really do not see any huge improvements with the z77 over z68/p67, unless there are features of ivy bridge that we do not know about yet, that only those boards would support, that they themselves are not telling us about. Which would be lying because Asus for example came out with new boards just recently which boast being the only boards ready for ivy bridge. I would assume as the consumer that "ready for ivy bridge" means that they will support all of the features of the new CPU line not just some, not just backwards compatibility, but all. Am I wrong?

Edited February 20, 2012 by Dan3345

[hoofhearted4]

thought you were getting this board

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157264

 

 

if your getting an SSD and an HDD, get the z68.

Edited February 20, 2012 by hoofhearted4

[Dan3345]

thought you were getting this board

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157264

 

 

if your getting an SSD and an HDD, get the z68.

 

That's weird I thought I was too, those boards look identical accept for the price and the North-bridge difference..

 

Ok guys I didn't think I would do this so late in my planning, but I am. I have decided for two reasons to switch to this MSI board. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130611

 

Reason 1. being OC Genie while not for hardcore Overclockers is very tempting to me, and two I know many people who own and are very happy with MSI products and the quality is definitely there on MSI boards. Chances are the ASRock is good too, but with MSI I know for a fact what to expect and what I am getting. This board has all the same features and more (UEFI bios, it is a z68 chipset, THX audio chipset, and while this may be very vain, it matches the overall asthetics of my case that I have now).

 

And guys while I do greatly appreciate the help as always, I think buying the 2500K is set in stone. From what I am reading about the Ivy Bridge the performance gains over Sandy Bridge are minimal, and the real improvements come from the integrated graphics. Which of course would be useless to me anyways seeing as how I have discreet graphics cards. The one thing I am not sure about, is with intel I think you can set one of the video cards to be a physx processor, I would do this with either my second 6950 or with the integrated HD3000 on the 2500k. Or maybe you can only do that if you have nVidia video cards..

Edited February 20, 2012 by Dan3345

[FMod]

I would assume as the consumer that "ready for ivy bridge" means that they will support all of the features of the new CPU line not just some, not just backwards compatibility, but all. Am I wrong?

Just means the CPU will work. No guarantees on features and overclocking.

For instance, with AM3, people who bought AM3 boards and installed Bulldozer only got 2.0 GHz or 2.6 GHz HyperTransport rather than 3.2 full GHz.

With most P67 and many Z68 boards, installing IB and a new GPU still only allows PCI-E 2.0 to work, because of the 16x/8x+8x switch.

It's unclear if there are any new features, there might be, and if there are, they almost certainly won't work on old chipsets. One of the possible major features is base clock rate multipliers, which were implemented on SB-E.

 

One last word, if you're dropping $185 on a mobo, you definitely shouldn't be in any rush. There will always be plenty of $185 mobos even on the release day.

 

Reason 1. being OC Genie while not for hardcore Overclockers is very tempting to me, and two I know many people who own and are very happy with MSI products and the quality is definitely there on MSI boards.

Every or about every manufacturer has this feature, they just tout it under different names.

Quality-wise, you get the best quality from Asus and Asrock, both are built by Pegatron. Not sure who makes MSI, probably Foxconn, they tend to be a bit less solid. With Asus you get slightly better overclocking potential (+100MHz) than with Asrock. Stay away from Gigabyte and just about every other brand. Except for EVGA of course.

 

And guys while I do greatly appreciate the help as always, I think buying the 2500K is set in stone.

If you absolutely have to get a 25% performance boost now, but can't wait two months to get a free 15% on top of that, well, your choice. But you're really about a year late to the party, buying products as they are nearing the end of their lifecycle will cost you more in the long run.

 

The one thing I am not sure about, is with intel I think you can set one of the video cards to be a physx processor

No, there's no such feature. You can use it to decode/encode h264 video with Virtu software, and you can use both integrated and discrete graphics with software switching.