First Ever Computer Build - Keeping Within Budget

[glo]

Why are you taking this so personally? Overclocking the 2100 would put the AMD even further behind, which means you rely even heavier on a better binned chip.

I'll make this easier for you.

- At stock speeds, the i3 2100 (in gaming only) does around 8% better than the 956 BE.
- With the i3 2100 overclocked as far as it can go (100mhz?) the gap would slightly increase.
- With stock cooling, the 965 BE overclocked to 3.8 would gain approx 12% putting it ahead regardless of the miniscule OC on the i3.
- With the 965 BE + a 15$ cooler, overclocking easily from 3.4 to 4.2 and beyond would reverse the tables quite a bit with the 965 ahead by a decent margin.

Make sense?

[DarkBlade6]

http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-P...Review/?page=2

There it is up to 3.8 on stock cooling. That's a 12%~ increase.

Buy a cheapie cooler (coolermaster hyper 212?) for like 15 bucks and you can push it upwards of 4.2+.



Not really.

4.2ghz with a 212...... You wish!!!

[Windbreaker1976]

Alright so anybody?

How can I tell if my RAM will work with my Motherboard? ASUS doesn't have any documentation on their site regarding what RAM is compatible with their P8Z68-V LE board. G.SKILL's site doesn't list the board either...

[DarkBlade6]

Cheap 1.5v 1333mhz 4gb kit :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231396

Good 1.5V 1600mhz 4gb kit :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145343

[Fuzzykins]

Alright so anybody?

How can I tell if my RAM will work with my Motherboard? ASUS doesn't have any documentation on their site regarding what RAM is compatible with their P8Z68-V LE board. G.SKILL's site doesn't list the board either...

It does.
This post is too short.

[glo]

and now you think you can OC with stock heatsink jesus /facepalm

Lol. Calm down bro, you totally can.

http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-P...Review/?page=2

As far as the 212+, a simple google search will net you a ton of people able to push over 4.2. You can even add a second fan for push/pull and go further.

You do realize I was referring to an AMD Phenom right? Not Intel?

[Fuzzykins]

"With that in mind, we set out to overclock the new Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition using the stock AMD PIB cooler and an Asus 790FX based motherboard. With a bump in CPU core voltage to 1.5v, we were able to take the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition to just over 3.8GHz with complete stability--only a ~400MHz increase. 3.9GHz - 4GHz would load Windows, but no amount of voltage allowed us to maintain stability during testing. Remember, Black Edition processors are unlocked, so we were able to achieve this overclock by merely altering the CPU multiplier and voltage in the system BIOS or via AMD's OverDrive utility. As you can see in the screencap above, while overclocked, the 965 BE zipped along at a toasty 65'C+. That's a bit warm, but keep in mind we were using the stock cooler and it's the middle of the summer. While idling, the chip barely broke the 35'C barrier."

1.) Not every chip is binned that well. They list their highest overclock, not their average.
2.) Note that they note that it is rather hot. This could mean without the proper environment, it overheats.

They'll be close in speeds, and Intel's superior architecture (Due to the fact that it's more up to date) will still outperform.

[DarkBlade6]

Lol. Calm down bro, you totally can.

http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-P...Review/?page=2

As far as the 212+, a simple google search will net you a ton of people able to push over 4.2. You can even add a second fan for push/pull and go further.

You do realize I was referring to an AMD Phenom right? Not Intel?

Quote from ur article :

As you can see in the screencap above, while overclocked, the 965 BE zipped along at a toasty 65'C+

Yeah sure you can overclock it for fun with stock heatsink.. then do some benchmark. But you cant run this 24/7.

Yea I know u are talking about a 965BE..

[Optochip]

Alright so anybody?

How can I tell if my RAM will work with my Motherboard? ASUS doesn't have any documentation on their site regarding what RAM is compatible with their P8Z68-V LE board. G.SKILL's site doesn't list the board either...

If you're gonna do a Sandy Bridge build you want 1.5v RAM, other than that you can use RAM that isn't on your "Approved Vendors List". I've used plenty of RAM that isn't on the "Approved" list with no problems what-so-ever.

As far as the 212+, a simple google search will net you a ton of people able to push over 4.2. You can even add a second fan for push/pull and go further.

So now add on a $30 Hyper 212 (and another fan for the push/pull you're talking about) and the time invested to overclock it, run it to make sure it's stable, rinse repeat a few times....

All for which the OP hasn't even stated whether he wants to OC or not, some people are into it (like myself) and others just wanna run stuff outta the box and don't wanna tinker with it.

[Deleted]

i've had 2x a gtx460
it seems to be very faulty atm and i've seen many complains about it.

[Windbreaker1976]

So here's what I ended up going with...

Motherboard - ASUS P8Z68-V Le - $130
CPU - Intel Core i5 - 2500k - Sandy Bridge - 3.30 GHz - $220
Video - EVGA GTX 460 Superclocked External Exhaust 1GB DDR5 - $170
HDD - WD Caviar Blue - 500gb - 16MB Cache - 7200RPM - 6.0 Gb/s - $40
PSU - Corsair 600W Builder Series - $70
Case - Diablotek CPA-3570 ATX Mid Tower Case - $50
Memory - G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series - 8GB (2 x 4GB) Kit DDR3 - 1600MHz - $50
DVD - Sony Optiarc 24x DVDRW Drive - $20

OS - Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 - 64bit - OEM - $95

Total - $845 + some tax and shipping.

Thanks for all the help everyone! Much appreciated!