Is anybody on i7 2600k?

rv1974 · 18 Jul 2011, 09:24

Would you recommend to build a PC based on Sandy Bridge architecture?
Need your opinions\feegbacks badly!
Thank you in advance.

srx · 18 Jul 2011, 13:53

I have one and I would recommend.

bjornkn · 18 Jul 2011, 15:25

I'd love to see some speccs too, of an uptodate i7 system with graphics, MB, SSD? etc.
I'm fighting with BSDs almost every day now on my 6 year old (never had such an old PC before..) custom XP32 box.
Was originally waiting for the new AMD Bulldozer, but it looks like it is delayed, and I can't really wait much longer... Then I suppose i7 2600K is the one to buy?

srx · 18 Jul 2011, 17:23

Here is my system. Also have an external 2Tb "green" backup drive. Waiting for Thea's GPU render to buy an openCL graphic card.
All in all, very fast for rendering. Who has money, SSD disk for faster data transfer is needed.

mitcorb · 18 Jul 2011, 18:06

I have a dumb question or two, or three:

Where does this page come from indicating the scores?

Why such a relatively low score on the Nvidia card? Seems to have significant video ram.

Why does the page not mention OpenGl compliance?

bjornkn · 18 Jul 2011, 19:38

I wouldn't think that a $50 graphics card with 512MB RAM would do the i7 CPU any justice?
It's actually the second cheapest card at my supplier.

What exactly is the requirement for Theas graphics (GPU rendering) card?

mitcorb · 18 Jul 2011, 23:47

Like I said, dumb question. I saw total graphics memory available 4095MB and did not see the shared memory item.
One thing for sure, that is not integrated graphics, so it could be changed to one with a higher dedicated memory. What is most common, 1 Gig? What would be ideal? 4 Gig?

rv1974 · 19 Jul 2011, 02:28

How long it with you? So far so good?
Sorry for bothering, but could you post your specs please.
Thank you, srx!

bjornkn · 19 Jul 2011, 09:24

1 GB seems to most common, but I think I would go higher for GPU rendering.

Here's my shopping list so far.
Anything "wrong" there?
Maybe faster RAM? Hard to find 4x8GB RAM.
More Watts? Fans? Water cooled?
Win7 Ultimate?
I guess I should look around a bit before buying?
I think I remember that there were some problems with some chipsets and combos with Sandy Bridge?

Intel Core i7-2600K Processor
Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced cabinet
Cooler Master GX 750W PSU ATX 12V V2.31, 80 Plus, 9x SATA
MB MSI Big Bang-Marshal B3,
Corsair Dominator DHX DDR3 1333MHz 16GB Kit w/4x 4GB XMS3 DHX,
EVGA GeForce GTX 550Ti 2GB PhysX CUDA PCI-Express 2.0, GDDR5, 2xDVI
Corsair SSD Force Series F115, 115GB SATA2, 2,5", 285MB/275MB/s
2x Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB, 3,5" SATA 6Gb/s, 64MB Cache, 5900RPM
Samsung DVD±RW Burner, SE-S084F USB 2.0, DVD±R:
OS Microsoft Windows 7 Pro NO OEM, 64bit

mitcorb · 19 Jul 2011, 11:43

@srx:
You mentioned an OpenCL graphics card. OpenCL is open computing language. This is an alternative to CUDA according to wikipedia. OpenCL allows the graphics card to participate in processing non graphics processes. I presume it also would utilize OpenGL for strictly graphics purposes.

@bjornkn: I assume 750W will be sufficient. I have been told that it is better to have plenty of headroom in the power supply, since a 750w unit will easily power a 500w demand, but may not work at all with an 800w demand. Especially if you plan to add devices such as additional drives using on board power.

SSD solid state drives are fairly new in the consumer market, mostly in laptops. They have been used in servers for some time since their reliability was an issue, and could be monitored/replaced in a server situation, whereas a consumer device may be the only one on board and less likely to be backed up. I think SSD's would be ideal since no moving parts, but they are small in capacity by comparison with mechanical drives, or that could have changed yesterday.

srx · 19 Jul 2011, 16:09

bjornk
very good machine. Something like that is my goal too...I'll buy better GPU when I (Thea) need one, and add it to this system, so this cheap card stays for the OS while CUDA (which is Nvidias OpenCL) do the rendering. So I suggest to buy MB with 2 PCI slots for 2 graphic cards. Later on I could replace it with second CUDA - OpenCL GPU. For GPU rendering more RAM on graph. is important.

bjornkn · 19 Jul 2011, 16:58

@srx: I suppose that with two such power hungry graphics cards you'd need at least 1kW PSU then?

@mitcorb: PSU is the only thing I've had to replace (twice!) on this 6 year old PC. I did change the graphics card too, but it wasn't really needed..
SSD is supposed to have matured a lot the last years?
After doing a little research it looks like 2TB and above HDDs are typically a lot less reliable than SSDs?
My biggest drives now are 1.5 and 1TB (externals), and I've never had any trouble with any of them. The trouble is with the internal 160GB IDE system drive.
And the prices have dropped a lot for both SSD and huge HDDs recently.
It is always so difficult to choose !

Mk pt · 21 Jul 2011, 16:36

@bjornkn said:

1 GB seems to most common, but I think I would go higher for GPU rendering.

Here's my shopping list so far.
Anything "wrong" there?
Maybe faster RAM? Hard to find 4x8GB RAM.
More Watts? Fans? Water cooled?
Win7 Ultimate?
I guess I should look around a bit before buying?
I think I remember that there were some problems with some chipsets and combos with Sandy Bridge?

Intel Core i7-2600K Processor
Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced cabinet
Cooler Master GX 750W PSU ATX 12V V2.31, 80 Plus, 9x SATA
MB MSI Big Bang-Marshal B3,
Corsair Dominator DHX DDR3 1333MHz 16GB Kit w/4x 4GB XMS3 DHX,
EVGA GeForce GTX 550Ti 2GB PhysX CUDA PCI-Express 2.0, GDDR5, 2xDVI
Corsair SSD Force Series F115, 115GB SATA2, 2,5", 285MB/275MB/s
2x Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB, 3,5" SATA 6Gb/s, 64MB Cache, 5900RPM
Samsung DVD±RW Burner, SE-S084F USB 2.0, DVD±R:
OS Microsoft Windows 7 Pro NO OEM, 64bit

You should buy a GTX560Ti or GTX570. GTX550Ti is weak for gamming and for CUDA/OpenCl.
GTX550Ti only have 192 stream processors/'CUDA Cores', it's a weak GPU.

GTX550Ti review by Anandtech -> click to see how week is GTX550Ti in OpenCl and Cuda

bjornkn · 22 Jul 2011, 09:01

Thanks for the tip
Any idea what's the difference between the plain and Ti versions?
AFAIK the K in 2600K means that it is easy to overclock?

BTW, I get a 404 on that link..

Mk pt · 22 Jul 2011, 12:12

@bjornkn said:

Thanks for the tip
Any idea what's the difference between the plain and Ti versions?
AFAIK the K in 2600K means that it is easy to overclock?

BTW, I get a 404 on that link..

GTX560Ti is better.

GTX560: 336 Shader units /'Cuda Cores'
GTX560Ti: 384 Shader Units/'Cuda Cores'

Copy this link:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4221/nvidias-gtx-550-ti-coming-up-short-at-150/15
And put in your browser.

Yes the K means the cpu as a unlocked multiplier. It means it's easy to overclock and that you can more overclock.

The cpu's have a base frequency [100Mhz] and a multiplier. On i7 2600 is 34x, so 100Mhz x 34= 3400Mhz [3.4Ghz]
On turbo mode the multiplier can reach 38x [3.8Ghz].

If you have a unlocked multiplier the limit of the oc will be the vcore and temperatures of cpu.
If you have a locked multiplier [non k cpu] you can use the turbo mode multiplier and then raise the base multiplier [100Mhz default], but on this Sandy bridge cpu's it's dificult to raise this value.

On previous intel cpu's, like my i7 920, it was easy to change the base frequency: i only have a multiplier of 21x but i could reach 200mhz or more of base clock.
The new Intel cpu's have a embedded gpu - the right name is more SoC [System-on-a-Chip] - so if you change the base frequency of the cpu you will mess with the gpu, because they are linked, and thats why you cant push the base frequency.
If you change the multiplier you only change cpu settings.. this is the reason why have a unlocked multiplier - K versions - is much better to do OC.

[Sorry for my bad english]
MK