2014 PC Upgrade

jamo2oo9

Okay so I got my PC upgraded during the summer this but the gaming speeds weren't up to my standard and therefore I wasn't able to enjoy the games/sims I use. Currently I have a AMD FX-8320 at 3.8Ghz with Gigabyte 970A MoBo, 4GB of RAM and EVGA GTX 660 Ti SC.

I'm thinking if going to Intel i7 Sandybridge gen but the price is rather high so I can wait till the New Year during the after Christmas sales and buy it there.

My wishlist for the upgrade is
Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155
ASRock Z77 Extreme6 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard


I intend to overclock my CPU up to 4GHz, maybe higher if it's stable enough and temps are low so as a result, I will need a water cooling kit. The thing is, I haven't got a foggiest clue about them, what to get and how to set it up so could someone advise on this? I won't be OC'ing my GPU as it runs perfectly right now, only the CPU struggles to process the power for my FSX so I think I only need to watercool the CPU only and buy two more fans for my HDD bay and the mobo itself. Also, is the motherboard suitable for the OC'ing part for the i7?

For the OC'ing, will I need a new PSU? I have 700W PSU. I don't remember the manufacturer but I can check later tonight when the machine is turned off.

For the i7 and Z77 mobo, that costs up to €475 so I'm expecting that to go down a bit over the next 7 weeks. How much can I expect the price to go down by?

markbreen17

If you're just gaming, there is minimal difference between an i5 and i7. Get a 4670k on the z87 newer platform and a decent cooler

Nolars

just get anther 4gb of ram and a new gpu. Dunno why you are changing.

Son Of A Vidic

Personally OP, I'd stay clear of Haswell if you want to OC. Much better to go the Ivy Bridge route with the 377OK. Haswell runs too hot and was very much geared for mobile devices, not PC OC enthusiasts. I'm about to order a long overdue new build myself and I just wouldn't touch Haswell for OC.

jamo2oo9

markbreen17 wrote: »

If you're just gaming, there is minimal difference between an i5 and i7. Get a 4670k on the z87 newer platform and a decent cooler

Corvus suggested not to get Haswell at all as it's not really built for PC OC'ing. I'm only upgrading for my game FSX and i5/i7 run very well with it compared to AMD CPU's.

Nolars wrote: »

just get anther 4gb of ram and a new gpu. Dunno why you are changing.

RAM isn't the issue otherwise I would've gotten lots of OOM's when playing it and I haven't gotten one since I bought 4GB RAM. FSX has a limit of using 4GB of RAM so it's not lacking it.

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

Personally OP, I'd stay clear of Haswell if you want to OC. Much better to go the Ivy Bridge route with the 377OK. Haswell runs too hot and was very much geared for mobile devices, not PC OC enthusiasts. I'm about to order a long overdue new build myself and I just wouldn't touch Haswell for OC.

Note taken, was going for Ivy Bridge anyway as it's cheaper and supposedly better to run on FSX than Haswell.

Here's the updated list then
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 M Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM

Are these good for FSX? I intend to OC from 3.4 up to 4GHz. Turbo is at 3.8Ghz.

If so, could anyone guide me on what to get for water cooling? I only want to wc my CPU. Not sure if my MoBo needs to be WC when OC'd?

Redfox25

Looking at your specs as is.
does your current mobo allow over clocking ?
If so oc the hell out of that cpu.
I have a fx6300 pushed to 4.4
Your cpu should do something similar.

add 4gb ram.
Have you a ssd? Will boost game load times.
your gpu is not the newest but its hardly crap either. Try those fixes first.
Also make sure your drivers are up to date.

hope that helps

Redfox25

You can add a simple air cooler for an oc. Little need for an expensive water cool fir what you had in mind.
Unless you want to ofc

jamo2oo9

Redfox25 wrote: »

You can add a simple air cooler for an oc. Little need for an expensive water cool fir what you had in mind.
Unless you want to ofc

Can air really cool it well? I would've imagined that wc would be the best thing to cool it down if OC'ing

Redfox25

See it depends on what your doing.
If its a simple OC then air should do the trick, you might need to add another fan or two to your case to help it.
If your going for an extreme OC then water is what you need.
You should be able to push your AMD from 3.8 to 4.5 with a hyper evo 25 euro cooler.
Depending on getting it stable, every chip is different after all.
Your PSU should be fine.

jamo2oo9

Redfox25 wrote: »

See it depends on what your doing.
If its a simple OC then air should do the trick, you might need to add another fan or two to your case to help it.
If your going for an extreme OC then water is what you need.
You should be able to push your AMD from 3.8 to 4.5 with a hyper evo 25 euro cooler.
Depending on getting it stable, every chip is different after all.
Your PSU should be fine.

I already have 2 fans in the case along with the stock cooler for my current CPU. How much is a simple and extreme OC'ing? The i5 that I'm interested in is 3.4GHz and I'm looking to OC it up to 4-4.2Ghz. Would that be extreme. It does have a turbo speed of 3.8Ghz.

It's the cores that I need, Intel CPU's work much better for FSX than AMD's do mainly because Intel's cores process more power than AMD as FSX is a single-core application and multi-core processor doesn't combine with it well. Multi-core processors would be perfect for the latest gaming software like BF4 or COD: Ghosts but I'm not into that as I've Xbox for it. Only using my PC for FSX and general internet browsing.

BloodBath

The extra 10% performance of the Haswell offsets any lower overclock you will get. Go for the latest gen.

SterlingArcher

blood Has a point , going haswell is the smarter move.
Intel's next in line Broadwell cpu, will also run on the haswell mobo socket.

So if you decide to upgrade in the future be less costly. But up to you.

jamo2oo9

I have thought about Haswell but if I get Haswell now, I could get Broadwell as well without getting a new mobo but I don't have that much money to access so this would be my last upgrade for at least 2-3 years other than upgrading GPU if necessary and maybe an addition of an SSD and even by then, Intel will have a new socket released by then. They won't be sticking with 1150 for a long time.

I'm told the performance difference between Haswell and Ivy is minimal when it comes to gaming so I'm not gonna bother putting in extra cash just to get the latest generation of CPU's. I'll stick with Ivy for the time being and it's supposedly to work very well for FSX too as Haswell has cooling issues as Corvus said above.

Redfox, I did OC up to 4.1 but it got quite unstable so I had bring it back to 3.8 and I've left it there since. My CPU isn't the best and it doesn't work very well with FSX at all. As for SSD's, the speed doesn't matter for FSX, it just increases the loading up. It has no improvement in its performance nor its graphics. My 660 Ti is probably the best GPU I've bought so far. It's capable of running BF3 no problem so I don't need to upgrade a new GPU at the moment.

All I'm looking to do is upgrade my CPU and MoBo which in this case, I'd like to go for Ivybridge gen and I would like to know if I need a watercooling kit for cooling when I OC it and if so, what do I buy because I have no clue about water cooling.

Son Of A Vidic

BloodBath wrote: »

The extra 10% performance of the Haswell offsets any lower overclock you will get. Go for the latest gen.

At best 10%, but that's not for gaming. Anything I've read and reviewed still indicates it runs way too hot. You will achieve higher, cooler and more stable overclocking by using Ivy bridge.