New to Intel (sort of)

[Maedar]

Hey all,

So I am finally moving back to Intel based machines after about 10 years or so of using AMD. Just bought and currently am waiting on delivery of my parts.
I have built one Intel based system (2600K) for a friend of mine about 6 months ago, and it seems to be ok but we left everything stock and have not done any Overclocking.

I am curious if anyone has ran similar hardware/configuration and if so, if anyone wants to pass along some wisdom it would be appreciated. I have not overclocked a processor since the good ol' days of the Celeron 300's and some tips in this area with the new BIOS's would also be appreciated.

What I will be putting together is as follows:


ASROCK Z77 OC Formula MB

Intel 3770K I7

Samsung 830 256 GB SSD as Boot

2X WD 1TB Black Edition (have not decided on Straight or Raid installation, have 2 more matching drives and could do a nice RAID 1+0 (Thoughts?))

Kingston HyperX Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 1600 Model KHX16C10B1BK2/16X X2 kits for 32 GB's total. (this is probably overkill but I have had my RAM usage hit 14GB's on my current AMD rig and I want to get into more CPU and RAM intensive work like some CAD/CAM; and, the price was reasonable)

ANTEC Kuhler H20 620 (have always wanted to do liquid cooling so this will be in use only until I start to plan and build a true liquid cooling setup.

Kingwin ABT1220 Power Supply

Nvidia brand GTX660Ti (thinking of either going to a 680 or SLI another 660Ti, current card runs rock stable with a modest software overclock which I am hoping will not be needed on the INTEL based system)

Creative SB X-Fi sound card as primary and will be using integrated sound as secondary

LG lightScribe DVD combo drive (not terribly high end but love using light scribe)

Possibly use Intel PCI-E 1000 NIC if I have any issues with onboard NIC (pulled from old Windows Home Server build)

I also bought all new SATA cables just in case what comes witht he board are not adequete and wanted to make sure I don't use any of my older SATAII cables by mistake and bottleneck anything.

Anyway thanks for the read and thanks in advance for any tips or tricks anyone may want to offer.

[wazza300]

Re: New to Intel (sort of)

have you already bought these components?
things i would consider changing is the ram for 16gb of samsung green(in my sig) its dirt cheap in the u.s and overclocks very well
other thing would be the psu,do you really need 1220 watts? its overkill imo,750-850w at the most is plenty juice for these boards/cpu's,you could save yourself some money on those two components and put towards a single gtx 670???


oh and how cheap is the samsung 840 pro 256gb compared to the samsung 830 256gb? if its similar price choose the 840 pro,its alot faster

[Maedar]

Re: New to Intel (sort of)

Hey Wazza, thanks for the reply.

I already have the SSD, and the power supply. I used to run a dual and sometimes a triple 5870 setup, till two of the cards went belly up on me. Gave the last 5870 to my girlfriend for her PC and picked up the 660Ti. If I have any issues with the RAM I will check out your recomendation, its not on the QVL but that doesnt always matter...

[kick]

[wazza300]

[Maedar]

Re: New to Intel (sort of)

Hey Kick,

Because I have been out of the OC scene for too long I wanted something with the raw power in case I don't have much luck in OC'ing. I would say over half of my old celeron 300's running on the old tried and true Intel BX platform didn't OC as well most people saw. I just don't seem to have a lot of luck in getting components that will take the OC. I am a tad hesitant about getting into it this time around but it sounds like the basic principals are the same, just instead of Dip switches the changes are al being done by BIOS profiles and recovery seems easier. (no more having to clear and/or pull a CMOS battery, don't miss those days...) I did have an old AMD Supersocket 7 300 that hit over 500 once though... That was pretty cool.

The HyperX memory is on the QVl for the board, mainly the reason why I got it, plus the $20.00 instant off per kit, made it fairly reasonable, and it didn't have that insane blunt tooth heat sink design, man I hate that...

Good to know about the USB thing, I think I will dig out an old PS/2 keyboard just to be safe.

As for the video card naming/classification system, yeah what a pain in the a$$, you might get a faster gpu or whatever but the rest of the card is knee-capped and runs like crap.

I checked Newegg for that RAM Wazza was talking about, they are sold out for now, I will keep watching for it though, pick up a few sticks when I get brave enough to try higher OC's.

[wazza300]

Re: New to Intel (sort of)

overclocking is pretty straightforward on these cpu/boards,you should be able to hit 4.5ghz with decent cooling

[kick]

[wazza300]

Re: New to Intel (sort of)

is micro centre in the usa? i think samsung green are on sale there too

clock for clock the ivy bridge cpu's are roughly 300mhz faster than sandy bridge,with any chip some have high voltage vid and some lower,the poor thermal paste used on the internal heatsink on ivybridge might limit you in overclocks,with sandybridge they soldered the heatsink to the core

[Maedar]

Re: New to Intel (sort of)

Yeah Kick, the a series of the cele's. My buddy and I worked in a mom and pop style computer store back then, we both ordered 300a's at one time, ordered the exact same build, and his OC'd like crazy and mine was a piece of crap. If I remember right they were getting the best OC's from the Malay chips. I think our chips were only seperated by like 10 or 15 cpu's... Luck of the draw I guess. And who knows could have been the RAM, MB, anything... We would get these chips in by the case load and OC them silly for customers. I remember something about the old AMD's and having to pencil in a channel on the chip to unlock them or some such nonesense, can't remember the exact details and don't think we ever did one...

Wazza, i will check, never heard of Micro Centre, but that doesnt mean anything. I didn't know about the difference in the internal sink mounting, good information to have. On your 3770k, overall how happy are you with it, do you do any video work or anything like that? I have a fairly decent DVD collection I want to push over to my server and the time it takes to encode on an AMD is insane, hoping this will be 30-50% faster, if not I guess I can always use CUDA off the Nvidia...

[profJim]

Re: New to Intel (sort of)

Store Locations | Micro Center
From time to time that have some excellent specials, but I think that these deals are in-store only.

[wazza300]

Re: New to Intel (sort of)

im happy with my 3770k,im upto 4.6ghz now and 79c max

i havnt had the time to use it much yet,im still looking out for an ssd and maybe a graphic card,i have a spare 5770 im using atm,and i swap the 7850 out of my z68,i do a bit of video encoding for my youtube channel and it doesnt take long at all

im still using my z68 for the most part but ill eventually swap over to using the gigabyte more and probably sell my z68

[kick]

Re: New to Intel (sort of)

Whatever about solder,TiM and people ripping caps off cpu's and putting in their own TIM.. even if it does drop temps a lot.sheesh.
rip off cap .. apply tim,lap cap and apply more tim to interface to cpu cooler..lifes too short.
ivys have a higher tj max anyway,ive read .

Im messing around now to see how slow I can get the fans running under load :)
Oh Maedar. the p67 board has cpu temp control on fan speed.You set a temp,the range on mine is 50-65C as a point where the fans will spin up to full speed z 77 may be the same.
There is a seperate temp point for chassis and cpu4 pin fans.
In my case 4.8,60c wont come up unless your benching,just like Waz probably,if you have the rans running at about 1500 rpm.

Im still interested in the samsung memory.(the stuff I have now needs 10 timings and 1.6 v for even 1600,2133 capable memory would be something to play around with at least :)



Ill wait till Pj dips his toe in the new machine water with benchmarks to make us cringe before another major change

pencil lines..ahh yeh, never got to that on amd.The 820D,part of intels earliest dual core tech..sort of a piggyback arrangement(monitoring only gave readouts from one core ,and the unread one got hotter and failed first.
That cpu had a pad blocking technique,using insulating tape where you could clock it up to 5 ghz or so,mine didnt like anything over 4,the unmonitored core kept failing I suppose!

[wazza300]

Re: New to Intel (sort of)

heres the samsung green @2133mhz and only 1.55v dram voltage

[Maedar]

Re: New to Intel (sort of)

Wow Kick, yeah i remember that too, pulling and replacing caps, all the fun stuff... Fun times.

Parts started rolling in lastnight, hope to see the rest of the stuff today actually and start the build. If anyone is interested I will post some pics of the build, open for critique and suggestions. I was going to do an un-boxing video as a first post on youtube but I am like a little kid on Christmas day, wasn't able to wait to get the camera out and set up, besides, not really getting anything all that new anyway.

I saw that Micro Center site ProfJim, they have the RAM Wazza was talking about but its pricey compared to other vendors, I think I will wait. I see you are in Tacoma, I'm a bit north of you, Marysville/Lake Stevens area...

Wazza, even upping the voltage a bit are you having any heat issues with those sticks of RAM? I will not be using a big CPU cooler to help cool the RAM but was thinking maybe the top case fans will help move enough air around them to keep them cool...?

Also, whats the benchmark utility everyone uses today, is it still SiSoft and 3D Mark/Advantage?