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Good buy?
(5 posts, started )
Good buy?
hi guys, Im thinking of buying some new hardware...E8600cpu and a 780i SLI Motherboard bundled with 2GB OCZ SLI 800MHZ RAM free. The package costs £250. Is this a good buy or what can i get better for the same price.

Thanks
I'd say that sounds pretty good.

But then again, the only person who can tell if it's a good deal is you, since you're the one that has to pay for it.
#3 - amp88
A few questions:

1. What motherboard is it?
2. Do you plan on overclocking the CPU?
3. Do you plan on running SLI?
1. Nvidia 780i SLI
2. No...unless you advise it?
3. Yes
#5 - amp88
Quote from banister :1. Nvidia 780i SLI
2. No...unless you advise it?
3. Yes

In that case it is a good deal, but something else comes in now as to whether or not you should buy it. The reason for this deal is probably the fact that the socket the E8600 runs on (socket 775) is being phased out to make way for Intel's new i7 architecture (socket 1366). This new socket design means that the current crop of socket 775 CPUs will most likely be the top of the range ones you'll be able to get (which means you won't be able to just pop a better CPU into your motherboard in a couple of years when you want more speed). If you can't afford to wait for i7 to come down in price (which could take 3-6 months to become viable) then go for the above deal but realise you probably won't have a lot of headroom to upgrade the CPU in the future. If you can afford to wait for the i7 to come down then you can do that and buy the bottom of the range CPU (at the moment that's a quad core chip called the i7 920, clocked at 2.66Ghz). The performance of that chip will be lower in single or dual core applications than the E8600 but not by much. However, it's a quad core chip and when overclocked the performance from the 920 will be far better than the standard E8600. It will also give you a lot of headroom to expand your CPU in the future (2-3 years down the line you pick up the 'new' low range CPU in the line which will give you a big boost in performance).

As for whether or not you should overclock your CPU the answer depends on what you'll use it for. Obviously if you want SLI you're either a gamer or you do other graphics intensive things like rendering and graphics work. So, you would benefit from overclocking in this case. The process itself is not difficult and there are plenty of guides and other sources of information to help you out. I'll give you an example of how much extra performance you could get from overclocking. My CPU (a Q9450 (one of the Socket 775 CPUs)) comes from the factory clocked at 2.66GHz. It's now overclocked to 3.38GHz (over a 25% improvement) and that means it gives me a very noticeable increase in performance when gaming and when encoding movies. The i7 CPUs are even better for overclocking than mine. Overclocking can void your warranty and it does produce extra heat and consume more power, so you should research the idea yourself and come to your own decision on whether or not you want to do it. The bottom line, though, is that Intel's CPUs for the past couple of years have been very good at overclocking and most of the 'enthusiast' market does overclock.

Good buy?
(5 posts, started )
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