I might actually do this!

[[DWC]DarkWolf]

I scrounged up a little cash, and I really want to upgrade the old Opteron in preperaion for Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2. (Weather I need to or not!)

I think I'd get the Asus P7P55D based on Toms' review. I'm stuck between the i5 and the i7 860. I'm leaning tword the i5 and being more likely to buy a full 8 gigs of RAM right off the bat. I'm mostly only interested in game performance, so I don't know how much I'd get out of HyperThreading. On the other hand, the extra $90 isn't that much in the grand scheme of how much time I'll waste away infront of this thing. Another consideration is weather the money would be better spent of aftermarket cooling. (Only gonna go air, either way.)

I'll need to choose memory too. I'm going to overclock, but I don't know much about the newer setups. How much do I want high speed vs. low latency, vs. "screw it and save money?" Looks like $100 4gb kits come in 7-7-7-24 @ 1600 or 9-9-9-27 @ 2000. Or I could spend less on slower timed 1600 for like $85?

I already have a case, Seasonic 500w psu, drives ect. and an HD4870. I'm not worried about dual graphics cards.

[Smythe]

I wouldn't get a socket 1156 chip. I wasn't very interested in it when I read that the PCI Express controller is on die making it harder to overclock and now there's a potential contact issue (http://www.sharkyforums.com/showthread.php?t=318163). It could be a great CPU, but if it were me I'd go with a Core 2 or find the money for a socket 1366 i7. Still if you want to go with the 1156 then find a board that uses a Lotes or Tyco socket especially since you'll be overclocking. The Asus will probably use the Foxconn socket that at this point should be avoided just in case. It may be a little more expensive to avoid Foxconn sockets, but the peace of mind I would think be worth it.

As for overclocking DDR3 I couldn't say as I have no experience with it.

[[DWC]DarkWolf]

You think the ASUS will use the Foxcon huh? I was hoping they wouldn't. I don't know how to tell other than finding users' reports..

I was looking at a 1366 setup on newegg. I'd pretty much have to go with the ECS board due to cost, but I'd have an i7 and start with 6 gigs of ram instead of 4. (well, really for that price the 1156 system would have 8..) My main concern is that the 1366 system MIGHT be pushing the limit of my 500w psu while the 1156 systems seem more eficient. Or maybe that's bogus because the 95w TDP seems like a farce, especially if I'm overclocking. I do not plan to use two graphics cards any time soon, so maybe I'll be fine?

According tom Tom's, the 1366 will recieve 32nm 6 core chips later on and the 1156 will stay at 4. In reality, the chances of me springing to replace a ~$280 cpu any time soon are about zero.

Given my track record, this will be the last upgrade before the next wave of consoles. From what tidbits I've heard, I might well find myself finally buying into one of those. I almost bought a 360 this time around, but I just couldn't do it.

Still, just finding the money for an i5 is hard enough right now. I'd like to go with the 1366, but it'd have to really be worth it. I think if one of the better 1156 boards in the <$150 range can be proven to have a good socket, I'd prefer to go with that.. Will an aftermarkt cooler with whatever mounting it comes with effect the contact of the CPU?

[fluffmonster]

I'd still stick with 1156. Hyperthreading isn't particularly relevant for gaming and certainly nowhere near as important as clock speed, so an i5 should be fine for you.

For the ram, latency has a larger impact than speed. Speed isn't meaningful except insofar as it has to accomodate whatever overclock you are shooting for. For a mild OC, lower-latency 1333 or even 1066 would be plenty good enough. 1600 would be appropriate for an aggressive OC, and 2000 is just a waste of money.

[Smythe]

I think all Asus boards use the Foxconn socket. To get Lotes or Tyco you'd have to with DFI, EVGA or MSI. I believe DFI was the first to switch from Foxconn and any new boards from them should have Lotes or Tyco, but there might be some Foxconn DFI out in the market still. MSI just switched over so it may be 50/50. I think the only 100&#37; Foxconn-free p55 motherboard is the EVGA FTW Classified, but that's a bit expensive. If you've got a Fry's or Microcenter around it may just be better to look there. If not well then maybe you could request a motherboard with a Lotes or Tyco socket from Newegg?

As for your PSU it may depend on how high you want to overclock your CPU and GPU.

[[DWC]DarkWolf]

Hey, thanks for the info. The memory specifics are great, sorta what I was expecting.

I don't have a good local box store like those. I'm friendly with the local small shop, if waranty is it you're thinking off... But they're just gonna order stuff off newegg and mark it up.

The MSI 1156 board sure looks nice, but the Tom's reveiw showed it to have some quirks I guess, and it didn't score particularly high. What about the Gigabyte board? It scored very well, and I don't really need firewire..

Do we have an actual failure rate for the 1156? I mean, a few out of all that have been sold already isn't a big deal. If there's a whole mess of them starting go bad, that's another matter.

Oh, one more question I thought of; Do the i7s tend to come with better stock coolers? Will I want to buy an aftermarket cooler either way?

[Smythe]

The Gigabyte boards use Foxconn as well. I just bought one for a computer I'm building my cousin a few days before all this about bad socket contacts .

I don't know what the failure rate is, but it probably isn't too high right now. It'll probably be a gradual death and the only ones experiencing the problem now are people who were using fairly high voltages. Nonetheless with improper contact even with stock voltages over time there's a good possibility of the socket melting.

Supposedly Foxconn knew of the issue and corrected it, but I guess the bad boards still got out somehow or the issue wasn't really fixed. Also supposedly DFI was the first to completely stop using Foxconn sockets, followed by EVGA and now MSI. So with all these motherboard manufacturers dropping the Foxconn socket, it might be wise to stay away from that socket if at all possible. This is all according to the author of the Anandtech article, Rajinder Gill.

As for your question about the heatsink do you mean 1156 i7 or 1366 i7? Why didn't Intel make the 1156 i5 only?! Damn confusing. Anyways it's just a standard Intel heatsink. The 1156 heatsink is about the same size as 775 and the 1366 is a little bigger due to more heat and a larger die. I'd get an aftermarket cooler for any CPU since you intend to overclock.

[kpxgq]

i would wait a bit and see if the manufacturers phase out the foxconn sociket (or if foxconn comes out with a revision)... most of these boards are semi/enthusiast boards and not OEM so most of the people buying them will be aware of the issues and not buy the defective boards.

[[DWC]DarkWolf]

Eh, yah.. I'd rather not wait too long. I guess maybe I'm overly exited. Anyway, the cheaper EVGA board is pictured with the Lotes socket, and all the others below it have Foxcon. But you guys are saying it's a crapshoot unless you get the $280 EVGA board? That's really silly. I can't understand why they'd make that. What does 1156 have going for it beside it's cheaper than 1366? Don't say better turbo; Anyone looking to spend that much on a motherboard is gonna turn it off and go for broke anyway...

[[DWC]DarkWolf]

So I stayed up way too late last night reading and playing with newegg.. Seems like by the time I get done with an i5 system using the EVGA mobo that maybe has the good socket, and 8 gigs of RAM, it's no cheaper than a 1366 system with 6 gigs of ram. I was also thinking I'd use the Rosewill Fort120 cooler. It gets good reviews on newegg and it's pretty cheap.

The whole thing comes to just under $620. It's too bad about this whole exploding socket thing, I really like the idea of an i5 for <$500 and buy more ram later if I want. I realize the 1366 system has more headroom to upgrade later..

[Nemesys]

I'm curious as to how you justify the need for 8 gigs of RAM.

[[DWC]DarkWolf]

do you think that's complete overkill? seems like 4 is getting pretty standard with 64-bit systems. seemed like it would be good to just get 8 while the same exact sticks are on the market. (As oposed to in a year or two when they may not be.) I'm pretty comfortable with 6 gigs for a while though, if I go the 1366 rout..

[[DWC]DarkWolf]

Well geeze. Just over $400 for a Phenom II 955 with 4 gigs and nice Asus mobo, and a big cooler. I assume any cooler compatable with AM2 should work with al the newer AMD chips? Was looking at this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103040
Maybe that's what I should do? Benchmarks seem to show 2.66ghz intel chips running with the 3.2+ ghz AMD chips, and both seem to reach around 4, but for the price difference on a gaming system? Maybe I'm being dumb?

[Nater]

So so much misinformation and lack of knowledge.

One, the problem with the Foxconn sockets isn't a problem for 99.9&#37; of users. Unless you're doing competitive overclocking/benchmarking with a phase, dry ice, or LN2/LH4 (I've never seen liquid helium used with intel chips, cold bug) you don't have to worry. The reduced contact on the power delivery pins only becomes a problem when the CPU is sucking down over 150W of power. That simply is not going to happen with water or air cooling.

Two, the LGA1156 chips are not particularly anymore difficult to overclock than the LGA1366 chips. Getting to 4.0GHz with either the Lynnfield or Bloomfield platform is not that difficult. The Lynnfield chips generally will need a bit more vcore to reach the 4.2-4.3GHz range on account of the on-die PCIe controller, but not much more. Furthermore, their much lower TDP than the Bloomfield chips will offset this. Heat output will be more or less the same for both chips at similar clockspeeds.

Three. There seems to be this misconception that any LGA1156 processor does not support simultaneous multithreading. The Core i5 does not support SMT, however the Lynnfield-based Core i7 processors do support two threads per core just like their Bloomfield counterparts.

Unless you need gobs of PCIe lanes (triple SLI or SLI and a RAID HBA) you're better off getting a Lynnfield system. It'll save you about $100-$200 that you can spend on something else, maybe get an SSD. Finally, I think that AMD is pretty much irrelevant at this point. The consumer Nehalem variants have pushed AMD out of the mid-range and relegated them to the very low-end of the market.

[[DWC]DarkWolf]

Ok. Thanks for the pep-talk Nater. I do want an 1156. I think at least to start I'd prefer to OC to around 3.2 and let turbo take it to ~4.0 with one or two cores active. I tend to agree about AMD right now, I've not seen any benchmarks comaparing an i5 or i7 860 to an overclocked Phenom, both running in the 3.4 to 4.0ghz range. There might be a reason for that. Do you think there's any reason to go with an i7 vs. i5 for a primarily gaming system? I don't see it if there is.. I don't know if the 860's slightly higher multiplier will make my life any easier, or if there's any speed binning going on. (is the i5 the same core with HT disabled? I assume...)

My concern is that the problem will certainly effect an extreme overclock much more qickly, but if there's a large number of power pins making poor or no contact it's hard on the remaining pins. With my upgrade cycle, and the fact that the next gen of consoles may cause me not to upgrade for even longer than usuall, I really don't want this thing to go bad in even two or three years of air-cooled overclocking.