Z68 Sandy Bridge upgrade

[M31]

I know I said in an earlier thread I'd hold out for Ivy Bridge (I7 920 @ 4GHz just now) but I cant wait ... so sue me

Looking to buy these parts in a couple of weeks, the motherboard has good reviews on Hexus, don't like the layouts of the current Z68 Gigabyte boards and not too sure about MSI? Had great experiences with Gigabyte and Asus in the past though.

I'd assume Z68 boards overclock as well as the old boards ... right?

Also not 100% sure about the memory, would a jump to Corsair 1800 MHz memory be better ... pretty sure it wont but I need to be sure, the one below ...

(8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Twin Pack Vengeance, DDR3 PC3-14900 (1866), CAS 9-10-9-27 XMP, 1.50V)

I'll also need to buy a new win 7 OS, currently on Win 7 Home Premium 64, is Ultimate worth it?

These are the parts I've provisionally priced up so far for your inspection

8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.50V £79.34

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40 GHz, Sandy Bridge,1155, Qd Core, GPU 850Mhz, 95W, Retai + Free Game* £239.00

Asus P8Z68-V PRO, Intel Z68, S 1155, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 2200(OC), SATA 6Gb/s, RAID, ATX, HDMI £158.02

60GB OCZ Agility 3 SSD, 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s, SandForce 2281, Read 525MB/s, Write 475MB/s, 50K IOPS £101.52

Total
£587.47

The SSD will be for OS and I'll add a couple of larger SSD's for flight sim later.

Only two area's I'm not 100% sure about are motherboard and ram, am good to go for all other parts, 2 x GTX570's SLI, HX1000, drives case ETC.

Cheers.

[Ket]

If I was building a new system I'd get;

Asrock Z68 Extreme4 (and not just because I'm helping Asrock, its genuinely a very good board )
4x4GB kit of G.Skill Ripjaws PC12800 (Z68 and P67 Extreme4 boards love G.Skill, both boards got my kit to over 2200MHz)
i5 2500K. Pocket the savings and wait for IB, it should be a straight drop-in, just a UEFI update required.

I probably wouldn't bother with a SSD, still far too expensive for the capacities offered IMO. Faster memory speeds do help, but it depends on the primary use the system will have, in my case my system needs to be good at everything, so fasr memory is important.

[M31]

Thanks for your thoughts.

Asrock eh? As you can see I'm a casual enthusiast who only swats up when its upgrade time ... last I knew of Asrock was that they produced cheap and cheerful low spec boards, but that's obviously changed.

Should have mentioned I like to buy from Scan and they don't have these boards, I get free delivery from them and the prices are cheaper than Overclockers UK and the service is better IMHO ... I'd like to stay with them and get all the parts together.

I'm actually now looking at the Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3, Intel Z68 Express, S 1155, PCI-E2.0 (x16), DDR3 2133, SATA 6Gb/s, RAID, ATX £269.62 with 2 x 16 lane PCIe slots for my SLI, also if I'm going to drop an Ivy Bridge CPU in later it makes sense to get as well specced board as I can, this board has no CPU graphic output but that is of no concern to me.

I'd go as far as saying my current Gigabyte UD5 X58 is the most stable reliable board I've owned and I've owned plenty of top end Asus, Abit and others before ... so leaning heavily towards this Z68 UD7 unless there is something show-stopping about it I don't know about ?

I own a Vertex 2 SSD already and its true what they say ... once you have tried them there is no going back, so I'll go ahead with this.

So my remaining concerns for this upgrade are ...

1: will the 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.50V £79.34 be suitable for the Gigabyte Z68 UD7 and overclocking ?

2: Windows 7 64 HP or Windows 7 64 Ultimate ? I'm guessing the former and that's what I use on my I7 920, also what's the deal with Win 7 OEM and Retail ? OEM is tied to one motherboard for life I think ?

Thanks for looking

[Bobsama]

Just built a new system with a 2600K, Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD4-B3, and 2x4GB Patriot G2 DDR3-1333. Nothing show-stopping so far. Me mixing up the PWR and RST headers (and thinking I had a dead board for about 5 minutes) was the closest thing to show-stopping.

Biggest remark so far is that they're well-built physically and look fantastic in a windowed chassis.

Oh, and my vote goes for Windows 7 Professional. All the features of Home Premium plus some really cool power stuff like free XP Mode, Remote Desktop, domain server support, file encryption, and a bunch of other cool features not in Home Premium while costing less than Ultimate.

[M31]

Just built a new system with a 2600K, Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD4-B3, and 2x4GB Patriot G2 DDR3-1333. Nothing show-stopping so far. Me mixing up the PWR and RST headers (and thinking I had a dead board for about 5 minutes) was the closest thing to show-stopping.

Biggest remark so far is that they're well-built physically and look fantastic in a windowed chassis.

Oh, and my vote goes for Windows 7 Professional. All the features of Home Premium plus some really cool power stuff like free XP Mode, Remote Desktop, domain server support, file encryption, and a bunch of other cool features not in Home Premium while costing less than Ultimate.

Thanks for that, I'll go with Win 7 64 Professional

That just leaves me with my choice of ram for the Gigabyte Z68 UD7 and overclocking it to 4.5 GHz + confirmed as a good choice and I'll start ordering parts ASAP before I change my mind again

Cheers

[Ket]

Sometimes its not a good idea to stay with one place when buying stuff. On this occasion you won't be getting best value for your money.

G.Skill Ripjaws £109, FAR better timings than that crap Vengence kit and will blow that Vengence kit utterly out of the water when it comes to OCing.

P67 Extreme4 £105, packed to the gills with features, loves G.Skill RAM, and I can personally vouch fo its perfection. Every bug I told Asrock about has been fixed.

i5 2500K £163, performance differences between 2500k and 2600k are marginal to non existent in 98% of scenarios. Take the saving and put it toward a IB chip.

60GB OCZ Agility 3 £95, free delivery, and you can get all the other stuff apart from the G.Skills I linked to off this site as well.

I've bought from all of these places in the past and can vouch for their reputability.

[M31]

Sometimes its not a good idea to stay with one place when buying stuff. On this occasion you won't be getting best value for your money.

G.Skill Ripjaws £109, FAR better timings than that crap Vengence kit and will blow that Vengence kit utterly out of the water when it comes to OCing.

P67 Extreme4 £105, packed to the gills with features, loves G.Skill RAM, and I can personally vouch fo its perfection. Every bug I told Asrock about has been fixed.

i5 2500K £163, performance differences between 2500k and 2600k are marginal to non existent in 98% of scenarios. Take the saving and put it toward a IB chip.

60GB OCZ Agility 3 £95, free delivery, and you can get all the other stuff apart from the G.Skills I linked to off this site as well.

I've bought from all of these places in the past and can vouch for their reputability.

Thanks for taking the time to look out those parts, much appreciated

I'll grab that ram and the SSD from the vendors you linked to, this ram is definitely good for overclocking ... yes?

My heart is now set on the Gigabyte Z68X UD7 B3 though, just read a mini overclocking review of it on the OcUK forums and the guy (not OcUK staff) finds it a fantastic overclocking board and has given detailed instructions to get to 5GHz ... I'll be happy with 4.7 ish, have a look at it, its a good read.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...php?t=18279474

Going to start ordering parts on Monday morning, so if there are any last minute words of advice from anyone ... now is the time to post them

Cheers.