i5 2500k vs i7 2600k

[Djinni]

Projected cases are either the:

Coolermaster HAF 932 Advanced Case- Black (No PSU)
£87.48

or the


Coolermaster Storm Scout Gaming Case - Black (No PSU)
£45.82

[Deleted]

Also, if you're buying a k version of the sandy bridge cpu's you should be overclocking them, the 'k' denotes the cpu being unlocked. The stock cooler can cool a cpu being overclocked but not as well as an aftermarket cpu cooler such as a hyper 212+ or the ones from Noctua

Yeah, just added in the aftermarket cooler in, fuck.. it's £15, less than the shipping... mayaswell use the machine to its fullest potential.

Also:

[Djinni]

Yeah, just added in the aftermarket cooler in, fuck.. it's £15, less than the shipping... mayaswell use the machine to its fullest potential.

Also:

lol.... actually "shipping" is free :P Being a pro-loyal customer I get free next day delivery.

[Sephiracle]

Yeah, When I picked my setup up, I had some coups from Newegg, ended up getting a hyper 212+ for 20 and 8 gigs of g.SKILL sniper ram at 60 bucks. Hard to pass up when you find some good deals.

[Rairu]

2600k* for gaming and video rendering.
2500 for gaming and general use.

As for the cooler use a noctua nh-d14

* Is best for gaming

Agree with this.

[vesseblah]

For the purposes of Virtulisation, how does the i5 2500k compare to the i7 2600k?
Also what clock speeds could one reasonably hope to achieve on each without altering the voltages?

(I'm looking to save a little money on my new build.. but I do do alot of virtulisation with VMWare and VirtualBox.) If it matters at all, I also have little plan for turning the machine off more than once a week.

Around 4.0GHz happens without voltage tweaks.


Hyper threading in i7's is pretty much useless for you since the fake cores can't be use for virtualization at all. In every real server use and in every documentation for real enterprise class server software HT is turned off first because it only messes up the resource allocation, number of real cores as well as large amount of RAM is what's needed.

If you need virtualization server at very low cost you should get a 6-core AMD because those have lot better $/core ratio than Sandy Bridges. If you're planning on using more VM's than you have real cores, the AMD will give better performance in the price point you're looking at. On the other hand if you have one VM up now and then, go for the i5-2500K instead and do some overclocking on it.

[heatrage]

Projected cases are either the:

Coolermaster HAF 932 Advanced Case- Black (No PSU)
£87.48

or the


Coolermaster Storm Scout Gaming Case - Black (No PSU)
£45.82

HAF Case. Check out the 600t and 650t. Got a 600t and love it.

[Djinni]

Around 4.0GHz happens without voltage tweaks.


Hyper threading in i7's is pretty much useless for you since the fake cores can't be use for virtualization at all. In every real server use and in every documentation for real enterprise class server software HT is turned off first because it only messes up the resource allocation, number of real cores as well as large amount of RAM is what's needed.

If you need virtualization server at very low cost you should get a 6-core AMD because those have lot better $/core ratio than Sandy Bridges. If you're planning on using more VM's than you have real cores, the AMD will give better performance in the price point you're looking at. On the other hand if you have one VM up now and then, go for the i5-2500K instead and do some overclocking on it.

Typical day to day usage:
- 4-5 Virtual Machines running typically a server or two and the rest clients, I'd tend to leave this on in the background.
- WoW, this is on pretty much whenever i'm not at uni, since even if i'm not playing, i'm talking to guildies or friends.
- Guild Wars (Yes I often play these at the same time)
- Lots of "smaller" programs: Vent, MSN, Skype, MS Office

Other games include, SC(2), Crysis(2), Bioshock(2), Halo(2) etc..

I will often be doing web design using whichever program happens to tickle my fancy for that specific site, DreamWeaver CS4, WebPlus or sometimes just plain Notepad++ for a quick and "dirty" site.


I was an AMD fan, still am really, but the bulldozer is erring on being released too late to be any use to me. (And its much harder to re-sell stuff if its already been replaced by a cheaper more efficient version a few weeks after you buy it, not to mention it seems Intels hold their re-sale value much better. (no idea why))


On the "cooler" note, my machine at uni is right next to the window, which isn't double glazed and I swear has a hole, other than the obvious air vent. And being sheffield it's not exactly warm at any time of year.

[captin hero]

Also, if you're buying a k version of the sandy bridge cpu's you should be overclocking them, the 'k' denotes the cpu being unlocked. The stock cooler can cool a cpu being overclocked but not as well as an aftermarket cpu cooler such as a hyper 212+ or the ones from Noctua

the K version also has integrated graphics, suppose to be good enough to run WoW
he didnt mention gaming for his rig so he can prob get away without using a dedicated video card, but...
$700+ amd 6990 / nvidia gtx 590
$500 6950 X2 / gtx 580 (perfer the 580 cause a few years down the road u can sLi with another 580($200ish?) whereas crossfire has no upgrade path)
$350 6970 which is between a gtx 570 -580
$250 6950 flash bios (6970) to unlock shaders

not really sure how updated/accurate this is been a while since i looked into it.

[Djinni]

the K version also has integrated graphics, suppose to be good enough to run WoW
he didnt mention gaming for his rig so he can prob get away without using a dedicated video card, but...
$700+ amd 6990 / nvidia gtx 590
$500 6950 X2 / gtx 580 (perfer the 580 cause a few years down the road u can sLi with another 580($200ish?) whereas crossfire has no upgrade path)
$350 6970 which is between a gtx 570 -580
$250 6950 flash bios (6970) to unlock shaders

not really sure how updated/accurate this is been a while since i looked into it.

In england we use £££'s :P
and my total budget is £1000 ex VAT. (hence the ex VAT prices)

My projected build is here: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...lding-PC-ideas. seeing as thats a totally different topic, here I just want to compare the 2 processors.

[vesseblah]

here I just want to compare the 2 processors.

There's really nothing big for or against either of the two processors. 2600K may give some unexpected uses and small benefit in math-heavy applications, but it does cost quite a lot more. If your budget can handle it I dont see any reason not to get one, but if you need to cut costs for more important things, CPU is easy fix.

[Djinni]

There's really nothing big for or against either of the two processors. 2600K may give some unexpected uses and small benefit in math-heavy applications, but it does cost quite a lot more. If your budget can handle it I dont see any reason not to get one, but if you need to cut costs for more important things, CPU is easy fix.

£60 more... which when your spending £1000 on a computer, doesn't seem like that much for the "main event".... but yes, I am trying to shave off some ££'s where I can... so I still have some left over... not becuase I can't spend it, but becuase if it's the same for less whats the point in getting the more expensive one. (And when you're trying to convince Dad to buy it for you so you get the VAT off without having to wait a year to claim it back £999 out looks ALOT better than £1000 out)

[Deleted]

£60 more... which when your spending £1000 on a computer, doesn't seem like that much for the "main event"....

If its a CPU primary system then yes; but £60 for general use can yield much greater improvements if spent on another component. Whether that be on a SSD, an improved graphics card, or more Memory for RAM intensive assignments which VMs can certainly qualify.

[vesseblah]

£60 out of £1000 is not much, but when you have for example 60GB SSD budgeted in, spending that £60 for a 120GB model would be worth the tradeoff. Not really a big deal since you arent yet over budget, but something to think about for other people as well who might be reading this thread in the future.

[Djinni]

yeah on the SSD front, i'm still not totally convinced it's worth the money... a few seconds off my boot time, isn't worth it to me, not when my old machine boots up in the time it takes for me to take off my jacket, shoes etc.. and sit down. And an extra second or two off load times in WoW still isn't worth it to me. Since i'll still be waiting for everyone who doesn't have an SSD to load in anyway. And SSD's are too expensive £:GB to even consider using for my level of Virtualisation.

[vesseblah]

SSD is not only about boot times or WoW load times, but the general responsiveness of whole system. It might sound like no big deal on paper if you just look at raw numbers... Firefox might start in 5 seconds off from HDD and 1-2 seconds off from SSD, what's 3 seconds gonna make?

The difference is really incredible when the computer opens programs or folders almost instantly at the speed of thought and you dont have to wait for computer to complete one step before doing next thing. Sure things like rendering video takes a while, but for example going back and forth in folders in SSD happens instantly with no percievable lag at all. On a desktop computer the effect is not quite so pronounced, but sticking an SSD into 5 years old laptop with only 2GB RAM (I have) is like night and day. Working around the GUI and starting programs feels just as snappy as in my new desktop (when the GPU-demanding desktop effects are turned off).

[Wries]

Have an Intel x25-M SSD in my laptop because 5200 RPM drives just outright suck in general and really makes the computing experience bad. The decent 7200 RPM drives use too much battery, and sure in general I'm more of in a hurry when using the laptop since it is what I bring to work.

SSD in my desktop... hasn't happened yet. Heck the WD caviar black in there does a very decent job on being a system drive. It didn't cost an arm and a leg and I don't have to worry about the system drive getting filled up anytime soon.

[Djinni]

Have an Intel x25-M SSD in my laptop because 5200 RPM drives just outright suck in general and really makes the computing experience bad. The decent 7200 RPM drives use too much battery, and sure in general I'm more of in a hurry when using the laptop since it is what I bring to work.

SSD in my desktop... hasn't happened yet. Heck the WD caviar black in there does a very decent job on being a system drive. It didn't cost an arm and a leg and I don't have to worry about the system drive getting filled up anytime soon.

OCZ Agility 3 SATA III 2.5" 120GB Solid State Hard Drive
£154
Read Speed: 525MB/Sec, Write Speed: 500MB/Sec, Flash: MLC, Controller: SandForce SF-2281, Buffer: 0MB



Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 64MB Cache Hard Disk Drive SATA 6 Gb/s 126MB/s <4.2ms 7200rpm - OEM
£95
2TB Capacity, SATA 6Gb/s Interface, 7200RPM Spin Speed, 64MB Cache, 5 Year Warranty


You tell me which....

[vesseblah]

You tell me which....

Both is the correct answer

And then you need to start looking for ways to save £50 here and there.

[Djinni]

Both is the correct answer

And then you need to start looking for ways to save £50 here and there.

lol... well check the second thread I linked: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...lding-PC-ideas
and give me some suggestions? :P