Lost In A Sea Of CPUs! I feel like an old fart... Help :(

[RickyRozay]

Hello everybody!

It's been a long time since I last graced these forums, as you will shortly discover. I've been out of the loop when it comes to hardware etc for a very very long time. I bought my current system probably 2.5 years ago (and chucked the GPU in about 2 years ago), and out of pure curiosity I decided to check the value of the parts online. Maybe it's just me being senile (in my early 20s), but it seems as though the cost of the parts has gone up! My mobo is online for £150, my GPU at £200 (which I could've sworn I bought it for), my power supply is at £200!!!! (I'm sure this is more than I paid!!)

Enough rambling, I am looking to build a PC for a friend who is moving house soon. I thought I knew what I was doing, until I discovered all these different versions of i7's etc... I thought my i7 930 @ 4GHz was a bitchslapper despite being 6 years old, but apparently now it's slow compared to some i3's and i5's?

I am lost and need some guidance, I feel like a pimp who went on vacation and came back to find all the girls went through menopause and turned grey!?!

Ideally I would like to spend £120ish for a motherboard / CPU / ram combo. I have seen glimpses on the internet of people using Xeons which I am more than willing to do, basically anything that will get a decent system on the cheap. I apologise is £120 seems conservative, I am out of touch with the prices of hardware these days and I am willing to be corrected, but I see a lot of YouTubers building budget systems and I don't understand half the stuff they're putting into them anymore.

 

[qubit]

You're not imagining the prices going up. It's due to a mixture of inflation, competition (or lack of) and brexit.

£120 for those three things sounds far too cheap unless you're looking to buy second hand and even then you won't get much. More important though is the performance of the GPU, as this really makes or breaks a gaming system, so go for the best you can, even at 1080p. You need at least 8GB RAM nowadays, too.

 

[Bill_Bright]

If you are researching 2.5 year old parts, they most likely are no longer in production. That means there is a limited supply and when there is a limited supply, of course the price goes up.

But it is safe to say as a general rule, you get a lot more for your money today than yesterday. Many prices fluctuate as commodities - RAM is a good example. But generally for the same money, you get more power or speed today.

Ideally I would like to spend £120ish for a motherboard / CPU / ram combo.

That's a very tall order. You could probably get by with £120 for the motherboard and RAM, but not the CPU too, unless you really want to go budget.

What is the intended purpose of this computer? What is the total budget? What parts are already supplied?

 

[NdMk2o1o]

Used is going to be your best option and the 1366 quads will hold their own and are not beaten by i3's AFAIK so they're still good to pick up in such budget minded systems but you may be able to pick up a 2500k or even a 3570 if you're lucky with a board and ram and I chose yes before reading the thread and realising I was the only person to vote so felt obliged to reply

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

you have missed this sale but if you stick with socket 1366 you could find something like this

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/262700927521?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

 

[RickyRozay]

you have missed this sale but if you stick with socket 1366 you could find something like this

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/262700927521?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Shit!! That would've been perfect!

Anyway sorry everybody I forgot to include the actual relevant information.

This PC will be used for gaming at 1080p. To put this in perspective my current rig seems to handle 1080p in Battlefield just fine (it's the only game I play to be honest). The computer is for a female, so I envision she will be playing those quirky titles that are yet to be released which are most based around story than shooting, but I want an element of longevity in this build as well, and I don't want it to be weak just because she may not use it to it's full potential. For GPU I'm thinking GTX 770 or R9 280X (the only part of my research I actually managed to understand) which should provide pretty good performance if paired with the right parts.

I currently have a case and a Corsair StealthXStream 600W PSU, and I'm sure a hard drive will be easy to source.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

@FreedomEclipse is selling a card like yours in the UK

@RickyRozay i have pmd you an ebay link to a good sale (at your own risk of course)

 

[biffzinker]

For GPU I'm thinking GTX 770 or R9 280X (the only part of my research I actually managed to understand) which should provide pretty good performance if paired with the right parts.

I'd be looking at the AMD Radeon RX 470 4 GB/8 GB or the Geforce GTX 1060 6 GB instead of those older cards (GPU - 280X/770 on those cards is from 2012/2013.)

 

[NdMk2o1o]

I'd be looking at the AMD Radeon RX 470 4 GB/8 GB or the Geforce GTX 1060 6 GB instead of those older cards (GPU - 280X/770 on those cards is from 2012/2013.)

Judging by the budget for the cpu, ram and motherboard I don't think those are an option.... I picked up my 290x for 100 less than a 480 which it can keep up with so there's nothing wrong with older components and I'm betting that power consumption for such a build is nothing more than an afterthought.

 

[biffzinker]

Judging by the budget for the cpu, ram and motherboard I don't think those are an option.... I picked up my 290x for 100 less than a 480 which it can keep up with so there's nothing wrong with older components and I'm betting that power consumption for such a build is nothing more than an afterthought.

Well then perhaps a RX 460 or Geforce 1050/Ti then? Older hardware for the CPU/motherboard I don't see anything wrong with picking but if playing games is involved a more recent GPU might have more impact unless he could find a discounted/second hand Geforce 970/Radeon 290 390.

 

[RickyRozay]

This was the video that initially got me onto this train

He got a motherboard and CPU and RAM for £100, and it said i7 860... According to the internet this is for some reason better than an i7 930 despite being called an 860 because it's a different socket or something? You can see why I started to become confused

 

[uuuaaaaaa]

Keep an eye on this deal:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gigabyte-...659924?hash=item33c2ddfbd4:g:MZ0AAOSwal5YJwT5

And that includes that lovely Prolimatech Megashadow

 

[dorsetknob]

I7 860 is socket 1156
your better off looking for socket 1366 same as you have...... with a good motherboard they overclock like Shit falling out of DT Ass

Suggest you read the Xeon owners thread for Appreciation and idea's

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/xeon-owners-club.211143/page-74#post-3554178

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I have two 970s and three 8GB DDR3 kits up for grabs if interested.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Personally i wouldnt go anything higher than 970 on socket 1366.

@Durvelle27 is running a 480 on 1366 but i think hes taken a bit of a hit graphics wise and @Knoxx29 with his 1080

 

[tabascosauz]

I am lost and need some guidance, I feel like a pimp who went on vacation and came back to find all the girls went through menopause and turned grey!?!

Ideally I would like to spend £120ish for a motherboard / CPU / ram combo. I have seen glimpses on the internet of people using Xeons which I am more than willing to do, basically anything that will get a decent system on the cheap. I apologise is £120 seems conservative, I am out of touch with the prices of hardware these days and I am willing to be corrected, but I see a lot of YouTubers building budget systems and I don't understand half the stuff they're putting into them anymore.

Personally, I don't think you'll get those three for 120GBP. Perhaps quite an old system (at best LGA1156 as mentioned above), but if it's LGA1156 it's not an upgrade anymore, since you're already on LGA1366.

If you decide to hunt for old deals on eBay, you may get better performance and i7s. What you trade for it is the possibility that the hardware has been abused through activities such as litecoin mining (and may break down on you sooner, as it's old to begin with), as well as newer technologies.

If you decide to go for a new Skylake platform, you will have to step down to an i3 for example. However, modern i3s are very capable gamers due to high IPC and clockspeed, and multi-taskers if given enough RAM to work with. You also get up-to-date features like PCIe 3.0, USB 3.1 (depending on board, and all USB 3.1 is still managed by a third-party controller on the board), native SATA 6Gbps, M.2, DDR4, better 802.11ac wifi (depending on board), etc. What you give in exchange is obviously performance.

Well, not exactly. i3s are plenty capable nowadays, but obviously you aren't getting "top-of-the-line" stuff compared to the rest of the Skylake family.

I7 860 is socket 1156
they overclock like Shit falling out of DT Ass

 

[dorsetknob]

Personally, I don't think you'll get those three for 120GBP. Perhaps quite an old system (at best LGA1156 as mentioned above), but if it's LGA1156 it's not an upgrade anymore, since you're already on LGA1366.

your reading skills need refreshing or your comprehension of what you have read !!!!!

The Critical line you need to read again is

Enough rambling, I am looking to build a PC for a friend who is moving house soon.

PS if you want a 1156 Asus Maximus 111 formula Motherboard and a I7 860 a Deal can be Done inc 4x 2gig PC10600 Ram

 

[slozomby]

1366 boards are getting hard to get ahold of and thus the price is inflated ( people like them for overclocking xeons).

you'll probly have an easier/cheaper time looking for a used i5 2500k or 4570k w/ board ( or their i7 counterparts) . reasonably overclocked these will handle most anything thrown at them.

 

[dorsetknob]

1366 boards are getting hard to get ahold of and thus the price is inflated ( people like them for overclocking xeons).

see post #1837
getting pricy but new boards can be found i know i found some

 

[RickyRozay]

1366 boards are getting hard to get ahold of and thus the price is inflated ( people like them for overclocking xeons).

you'll probly have an easier/cheaper time looking for a used i5 2500k or 4570k w/ board ( or their i7 counterparts) . reasonably overclocked these will handle most anything thrown at them.

That's a good shout I assume the new architecture i5's are better than old architecture i7's clock for clock? Also does the i5 not having HT vs the old i7 having HT make any difference to performance?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Asus-P8H6...4003bc9&pid=100009&rk=1&rkt=2&sd=272439502222

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intel-DQ6...476758?hash=item3f6ec70696:g:PAcAAOSw44BYIKpq

How about these?

 

[slozomby]

the i7's will have a slightly higher clock speed and ht. for most things this wont make too much of a difference. clock for clock you get some improvement. I'm sure theres a chart around here somewhere about ipc gains per generation. I know going from Nehalem to Skylake was massive. broadwell to skylake not so much.

i'd stay away from intel branded motherboards. they don't overclock well.

everything after Nehalem you want a K at the end of the chip id if you plan on overclocking.

here's a link to what you can expect from each generation of chip.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation/9