Core i7 build coming up...

[moshpit]

With tax return time within less then 2 weeks for me, I've decided this year to splurge on some sweet parts that will solidify my rig for the next year I believe. I was going to limit myself to 600 dollars for this upgrade, but after researching the various parts involved, I'm going to have to push a bit beyond that limit to achieve my goal of making it through the year without worry.

Update: I went with the Core i7 920, 6Gb Corsair DDR3 1600mhz (still have a 3Gb kit of same ram that I had gotten at first and decided wasn't enough for daily use), and the EX58-UD3R motherboard for this build. Benchmarks all run with Corsair 3Gb kit since I seem to score an average of 300-400 points more with it over the 6Gb kit for some reason in 3Dmark. All timings and voltages are the exact same between both kits so I cannot explain the slight performance difference.



3Dmark 2001 SE


Ci7 920 - 56K 3Dmarks
C2Q Q6600 - 50K 3Dmarks

11% clock for clock advantage for Ci7.

3Dmark 2003


3Dmark03
Ci7 CPU score - 3106
C2Q CPU score - 2395

18% clock for clock advantage for Ci7.

3Dmark 2005


3Dmark05
Ci7 CPU score - 27396
C2Q CPU score - 19862

20% clock for clock advantage for Ci7.

3Dmark 2006


3Dmark06
Ci7 CPU score - 6324
C2Q CPU score - 5131

17% clock for clock advantage for Ci7.

[Uber_Tiny]

I wish I had the free cash to do that. No tax refunds for me this year .

Good luck and I look forward to your feedback when finished. Would really like to hear about Win 7 on that setup!

[moshpit]

I wish I had the free cash to do that. No tax refunds for me this year .

Good luck and I look forward to your feedback when finished. Would really like to hear about Win 7 on that setup!

Win7 is the only OS I plan to install on it. Unless I find a glaring bug with Win7 later down the line, I have to say Win7 beta seems like the best thing MS has done since, well, ever maybe. I've already removed Vista completely on my current rig.

Also, I'm really thinking of changing my motherboard choice to the Foxconn Bloodrage. It has less ram slots and less SATA ports then the UD5 does, but something about that black and red theme just tickles my fancy, and the overclocking reports on it are all VERY positive. Because the Bloodrage and the UD5 are so close in price, I really am having a hard time deciding on which one to go with.

[Uber_Tiny]

I am surprised to see Foxconn making a high performance mobo. Hell, 6x SATA 3.0Gbps Ports imo is more than enough.

However, I would choose Gigabyte over Foxconn because of past experiences with them. That's just me though.

[moshpit]

I am surprised to see Foxconn making a high performance mobo. Hell, 6x SATA 3.0Gbps Ports imo is more than enough.

However, I would choose Gigabyte over Foxconn because of past experiences with them. That's just me though.

I know, that's my sticking point as well. I had one of the 965-DS3 boards for a long time and loved it, was my first Intel based motherboard since the 440BX days. The UD5 is just so solid looking that it's still a major toss up.

[moshpit]

I think it's going to have to be the Foxconn board now. The only other choice is the P6T vanilla version if I don't want to have to buy a new mounting bracket for my TRUE120. If I go P6T, it's a bit more boring of a board then the Foxconn, but I'll save almost 50 bucks on the mobo and an additional 15 or so bucks on the TRUE 1366 mounting bracket.

But with my Windowed case, the Bloodrage would win hands down. The biggest problem with the Bloodrage is availability though.

[moshpit]

Well, I did it. And I cheaped out alot so I could add one more item, a GTX260-216, I lowered the motherboard and ram choices. I went with the Gigabyte EX58-UD3R, 3Gb of DDR3 1333 Corsair, and the Ci7 920. I'll be ordering the XFX version of the 260-216 this weekend. When it gets here, the HD4870 will move over to the wife's machine.

I'm excited. I went to Fry's to get my parts so I could have them same day and if I needed to RMA anything, I could do that same day as well. And since I did it on my lunch break, I was able to burn in the combo all day here in my work's lab. Been purring like a kitten all day

Tonite, Windows 7 goes on it

Edit: Went back for better ram. Couldn't help it. 6Gb 1600mhz seemed a little better :p

[moshpit]

Okay, sorry to be chain replying to myself, just keeping the thread updated with my new info as it comes in

Prewarning: This is more of a perception based impressions session then it is in any way very purely technical. I will come back and post some benchmarks as soon as I get to, but this first part is just how this motherboard is striking my fancy so far.

Received my EX58-UD3R yesterday along with my ram and CPU (see sig below for details), and am absolutely loving this combo. Booted right up and detected my memory correctly first time, no need to fudge with the timings, volts, or anything else to just get up and running. After getting Vista installed, updating it to SP1, and then flashing my bios up to F3, I went into bios and bumped base clock up to 160 for a light OC to 3.2Ghz. No other adjustments made at this point, I only have the stock HSF on it because I need to still order the mounting kit for my TRUE to convert it from 775 to 1366.

So far, no complaints. Great board for the money compared to the others on the market. You give up on 2 extra memory slots compared to the 6 ram slot boards, but if you don't intend to go to 12Gb then it won't matter. I have all the ram I'm going to need for this generation of hardware I'm pretty sure. If 6Gb with room for one more 2Gb stick to go up to 8Gb and maintain triple channel performance (Intel Flex Memory tech) isn't enough to get through this year and into next, I don't know what is. And the chance of 4Gb DDR3 sticks coming out near the end of this year into next means that by the time 6Gb starts feeling small, options will exist.

You also give up SLI to pick this board as it's not one of the SLI certified X58's. Crossfire only for this board right now. BUT, there's nothing fundamentally different enough between this board and the UD5 which does support SLI to prevent possible "modified" bios files to be released out in the wild eventually to allow SLI to work, or even the possibility that Gigabyte themselves may get the cert for it down the line and add it in future bios. Here's to hoping on that one

This makes my second Gigabyte motherboard, the first having been the 965-DS3 and it was a great board. This one easily outclasses it for the generation involved since the 965-DS3 was the lowest end of a mid range chipset, while the EX58-UD3R is more of a lowest end of a very high end chipset/architecture. And it shows in the quality.

[Uber_Tiny]

Awesome, thanks for the detailed update. I can't wait till I have the $$ to get an I7 setup.

[moshpit]

Update time!!! See first post for new added information and benchmarks! It's just the beginning of the benchmarks as well, I have Crysis, Farcry2, Fallout 3, Sins of a Solar Empire and several other games coming up. Also going to run some heavier CPU-centric benchmarks after that.

Please be patient with me though on this, I can only get a little benchmarking at a time done because there's just so much going on at my house right now.