Computer Crossroad?

No such thing as an i5 2600k. The 2600k is an i7. The 2500k is an i5. If you don't want to overclock it, then buy a regular 2500 or 2600 (not the k version) and get a H67 motherboard rather than a P67. P67 requires a separate video card while the H67 has the new awesome built in card.

Thanks on the i5 2600K correction. Berit had this typo in his link and I misquoted. Also the reason I thought Microcentre didn't carry it.

So if I'm not going to overclock it, then it doesn't make sense to go i5 2500K route? I see at Microcentre they have a i5 2400 which is about $30 cheaper than the i5 2500K. They don't have an i5 2500 at the moment. They also have an i5 760 at the same $170 price.

Can anyone steer me to a link or briefly explain what these various Intel terms mean? Pretend your talking to a 3 year old because that's about the level your talking to.

- i7 vs. i5
- 1155 socket vs 1156
- How the hundred series processors differ from the thousand series (for example an i7 875 vs i5 2500)

Right -- I probably should've explained my i5-2400 recommendation. You're not overclocking. The i5-2500K is 40$ more than the i5-2400 at microcenter, but only 7% faster.

Sandy Bridge is an entirely new CPU architecture over the hundreds series processors. Stupid move by the Intel marketing team, but the cliffnotes are that the thousands series (so to speak) are faster, the same price, have more features, have an upgrade path, come with an integrated GPU that's actually decent, and are currently the top of the market but priced to kill.

Socket 1155 is the current Intel socket used for Intel sandy bridge processors. Any Intel processor starting with a 2 (2500K, 2400) will use this socket. There are two chipsets that come with this socket -- H67 and P67. H67 allows you to use the sandy bridge processor's integrated GPU, which will be a step up from your current one while also netting you more features/reducing power usage. P67 allows for overclocking, but is more expensive and blocks the integrated GPU.

Intel i branding is stupidly complex. i3s are typically dual cores. i5s can be higherend dualcores all the way up to highend quadcores. i7s are quadcores but with hyperthreading enabled, which is beneficial to highly threaded tasks. For singlethreaded apps or apps that only use 4 cores, the i5 will be just as fast as the i7, and less expensive. For apps that go beyond that, the i7 can theoretically be up to 50% faster (but typically less than 15%).

A 'K' processor allows for overclocking. It must be used with P67 to overclock. An 'S' processor is chosen for it's low power profile, and is likely worth it depending on how long you're keeping the computer for and your price of electricity (as well as the additional cost it has over a regular processor). It also helps for smaller form factors as it puts out less heat.

Jon,

Sorry about that '2500' snafu. Late night with the baby....

I agree that Intel's marketing team makes this horribly confusing. I guess they figure that 95% of the people buying these parts are going to be among the "PC enthusiast" crowd, who of course keep up with this kind of thing on a regular basis. Everyone else just buys it pre-assembled because they don't want to learn all that technical information.

Are you near a Fry's? In my local Fry's ad, they had the new i5-2400's listed at $149 last week. I think normally they go for about $195/$200. Not sure if they are on sale any more. But they do this quite frequently (as does Microcenter) as a means to get 'enthusiasts' into the store.

Seeing that the budget it a bit tight, you could modify things a little:
$150 for processor i5-2400 (assuming you could get it from Fry's or Microcenter for around that price)
$100 for motherboard (and possibly a little less....depending on features)
$40 for 4GB of memory -- 4gb will not be ideal if you are a heavy LR or CS user, but you can 'get by' with that much and then add another order of mem sticks when you get your tax rebate!

That prices you in at just under $300....and these prices probably won't fluctuate much in 3-4 months time.

And if you need to know what motherboard to buy, just ask -- I'm sure one of us can recommend a couple of good ones. Newegg is usually particularly good in this area. That way, you don't have to worry about buying the wrong board with the wrong chipset!

~Matt

P.S. Hope that 1DsMkII is treating you well. I've actually been thinking about doing the exact same upgrade from my 40D.

Thanks guys for breaking all that crap down for me. It is very overwhelming when you are trying to get your arms around all this.

Matt, your idea to go with only 4 gigs day one and add more later makes a lot of sense. So it looks like targeting about $150 for a processor and going either with the i5 2400 or 2500 if one becomes available is the route to go.

I found this motherboard at Microcentre which appears to meet my needs as I see them. Things I like about it are: supports SATA 6.0, USB 3.0, upgradeable to 32 gig, but 16 gig without buying anything, PCIE slot (I'm assuming will be compatable with my graphics card). Am I correct in thinking the PATA controller will run my current IDE DVD's? If so that will save me another $30. Am I missing anything?

One of you mentioned making sure to buy 1.5 V RAM. Care to elaborate a bit. What is the difference? I don't mind going this route, just like to know why. If it makes a difference, my power supply is 350 W, which I assume is on the low end of acceptable for this system.

Oh, meant to say Matt, that the 1Ds was a very pleasant surprise about 2 months ago. I was looking to upgrade from my 30D to a 5Dc and a great deal on this fell into my lap. I'm really enjoying the learning curve and figuring it out. The biggest negative is learning the button layouts. Things that used to be instinctive now take time, especially in dark or flat light. Everthing else is a plus. Do it, and you won't regret it one second.

Im in the same boat with my e3200 intel dual core and my new 7D. I got my taxes filed and my new sandy bridge setup is $1601 shipped. I went for the 2600k and a 128G Crucial SSD.

J-Blake wrote in post #11715046
Your idea to go with only 4 gigs day one and add more later makes a lot of sense. So it looks like targeting about $150 for a processor and going either with the i5 2400 or 2500 if one becomes available is the route to go.

A lot of it depends how convenient Microcenter or Fry's are to you. I'm pretty close to a Fry's myself, but Microcenter is over 2hrs away (one way). Plus, there's California sales tax on top of that....so often Amazon ends up being just about the cheapest place to buy things.

I started off with 4gb, then bumped up to 8gb, then sold 4gb to a friend and now have 2x2gb and 2x4gb for a total of 12gb. Definitely like my 12gb now....but 4gb was doable for a short time.

I found this motherboard at Microcentre which appears to meet my needs as I see them. Things I like about it are: supports SATA 6.0, USB 3.0, upgradeable to 32 gig, but 16 gig without buying anything, PCIE slot (I'm assuming will be compatable with my graphics card). Am I correct in thinking the PATA controller will run my current IDE DVD's? If so that will save me another $30. Am I missing anything?

If you need the IDE controllers, that looks about like your best bet. There are a couple of other cheaper ASUS boards....but no IDE controller. Also, Amazon has the same board for about the same price....if you want to save on sales tax.

350w should be enough for people not pushing a nice video card and only 2 mem sticks at stock speeds. How old is the power supply (psu)? That's the main issue. In my experience, I've seen more psu's fry than hard drives. If any of the rails are unstable right now, you might not know that until you stick it in your new computer.

So it might not be a bad idea to upgrade this while you're at it, if the psu is 2 years (or more) older....especially since you can get a top quality one for $50 that should be plenty of power.

As for the voltage question of the memory....I've only seen this question come up in relation to latency questions, and only among overclockers. Just about every motherboard I've seen can run 1.5v and 1.65v memory equally well. IMO, this is just not going to be an issue for someone who is content to run at stock speeds and don't plan to do major tweaking.

Argh. My friggen back button on my mouse just caused me to loose everthing I just typed.

Let's try this again

Microcentre's about a 1/2 hour away, so it's really not to bad. I've been going there ever since it opened. No Fry's in the area, though I do go to San Diego now and then for business. I was just there so probably won't be back for a couple months. Plus, it's hard to return things from CO if need be.

If the psu goes, will it take out components with it? That would be my biggest fear. If not, I don't see a down side to riding this one out a little longer. The one you linked looks like a great deal, but goes against the keeping it as cheap as possible for now rule. Might be a good idea to upgrade this when I upgrade the RAM, unless I'm risking bigger problems.

As far as the RAM goes, I'm planning to get a 4 gig stick of DDR3-1333. I can envision a day when I'll have 16 gig, so no sense going with 2 x 2 off the bat. What is the significance of the PC-10600 vs. PC-10666? I'm sure I want one vs the other, I just don't know which or why.

1.5 voltage is typically the same price anyway, and is safer to use with Sandy Bridge.

Your old PSU may kill the rest of your components if it dies. May. I doubt it because you have one 95 watt processor and then ~30-40 watts of fans, ram, hard drives, usb devices.

You also don't need a videocard if you go for that Asus mobo. For ram PC-10600 vs. PC-10666 is just how far out they carry the multiplier. It's all DDR3 1333.

Jon,

Yeah, don't buy from Fry's in San Diego if you live in Colorado. It's always possible to get something that's DOA in the box, and then you'll really be hosed if you bought it a few states away! You're better off getting something from Microcenter...or just ordering from Newegg or Amazon, since they both have really good return policies and quick shipping.

As noted by SP1207, psu failures are tricky. At the risk of oversimplifying things, it basically has to do with how stable your voltage rails are pumping to your biggest voltages suckers (typically the psu...but it can also be the memory and video card in some systems). When a psu goes out, you might get the traditional 'pop' and then a nasty whiff of something burning....which is pretty obvious that something went bad. I had one crap out on my like that about 9 years ago....and it fried my board.

But lately, all of the bad psu's I've swapped out are more subtle. Often times it might start with a random rebooting or freezing of your system...and then you might go 6 weeks before anything noticeable turns up again. One reason why the system 'reboots' or 'freezes' like that is because you have a voltage rail that can't hold up the constant strain of, say, a 12v drain. The tricky part is that it might not be so obvious at first.

And it's possible that you might have some unstable rails right now in a generic psu....and not even know it because your current system can still operate with that instability. The only way you could know for sure is to hook your psu up to a tester and have it check your rails -- if there's any voltage instability, it will sense it. The problem there is that for most people, buying a $30 voltage checker is not very practical.

The good news is that I think most of the current motherboards provide better insulation for protecting against cheap power supply problems. You can never say for sure, but I think the likelihood of you damaging your new mobo/cpu with your old power supply is probably pretty slim. Chances are that it simply wouldn't fire up at all....OR give you some strange error sounds that something isn't right.

As a general rule though....don't under estimate the problems that a cheap/bad power supply can cause!

I bought my first computer in 1987 owning one or more since and have never seen a psu go. I hope this one's not the first. I had a hard drive fry on me once. Didn't pop like you said, but I hit enter at one point and then everthing locked up. About 5 seconds later I smelled "the smell" and knew something bad happened. One of the chips on the hard drives contoller board melted/burned up and it was dead and gone. I wonder now if that could have been power supply related?

I was looking up Ram in the stores and there appeared to be a corrolation between the PC-10666/10600 number and the volts. At least the several I checked appeared to have the PC-10666 at 1.65V and PC-10600 at 1.50V. Not sure if this is universal across all DDR3 RAM, but I checked about 4 or 5 of the 4 gig sticks.

We didn't discuss HD's as I don't plan to replace them, but I'm currently booting off a 500 gig drive which I only boot off of and use a 1.5 TB for data storage. Both of these were purchased about 6 to 8 months ago, so are fairly new. Any chance that my current boot drive will work on the new system? Not the end of the world if not, but certainly easier than reinstalling everything.

I've got Friday off and plan to hit Microcentre. I'm not positive that I'm going to buy then or wait until the following week to see the new adds. I guess it depends on their return policy.

J-Blake wrote in post #11721980
I bought my first computer in 1987 owning one or more since and have never seen a psu go. I hope this one's not the first. I had a hard drive fry on me once. Didn't pop like you said, but I hit enter at one point and then everthing locked up. About 5 seconds later I smelled "the smell" and knew something bad happened. One of the chips on the hard drives contoller board melted/burned up and it was dead and gone. I wonder now if that could have been power supply related?

Then consider yourself a 'lucky' one! Maybe you had good power supplies. It's not that some generics/cheapies can't last a while...but rather that they fail at a much higher rate (%) than a name-brand power supply like Antec.

That may be correct....but, frankly, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Just keep track of what memory you buy if you plan to add some later because you generally want the sticks to be identical (if possible). Like I said before, if you aren't planning to overclock, I don't think it's going to make any significant difference (1.5v to 1.65v).

The major issue with plopping your old drive in your 'new' computer is going to be motherboard drivers. It'll probably probably boot up, and Windows might be able to detect some of the hardware automatically....but you will definitely have to install the drivers of your new board. Could potentially be some issues there with some driver conflicts, if the old drivers don't get overwritten properly.

That's why when ever I've put together a 'new' system, I always back up the computer I'm working on and then reinstall everything. It does make for an extra 3 or so hours (backing up first and then reinstalling), but then you don't have to worry about trouble shooting old vs. new driver conflicts.

Let us know how it goes!

~Matt

Thanks for all your help guys. I'll let you know how I make out.

Matt, I see you're beginning to frequent the 1Ds thread. I'm sure we'll be talking there.

Thanks again,
Jon

Just got back from Microcenter and here's what I ended up with:

- i5 2400
- P8H67 Mobo
- 2x4 gig D1333 RAM
- 64 gig SSD
- EVGA GeForce GT430 VC

They also installed the processor, memory and tested it for free. I didn't really care about the test, but it's been 5 years since I installed a processor, and recall it being the only delicate part of an otherwise simple install.

So instead of holding to the $300+ barrier as planned, I ended up spending double. Plus I bought the power supple Matt suggested above from Egghead before I left. Puts me close to $700. A bit higher than I was thinking, but it should be a screamer. At least by my standards.

Anyone see any issues with the video card or SSD? If I need to return/exchange them I can until I open them. Also, should I wait for the new psu to install the lot or throw this together this weekend? I could use my current video card if it makes a difference.