Advice on 2600k bundle

[elsk]

Hello Hexus community, I am new here so apologies if I am posting in the wrong place.

I am looking to upgrade my gaming rig with one of SCANs lovely 2600k bundles.

The 2 bundles that I am looking at are as follows

Edge - Intel Core i7 2600K - Overclocked to 4.7Ghz roughly £500

SLIK - Intel Core i7 2600K - Overclocked to 4.8Ghz roughly £650

The first questions is about RAM. The bundles come with 4GB of Corsair Vengeance with the option of an upgrade to 8GB.

The question is, is there any point in having 8GB of RAM? Will this effect the overclock of the CPU which is advertised at 4.7?

The second question is motherboard, there are many options available but I am not sure which to go for. I am looking to go for the Edge bundle so I am looking at a cheaper Mobo.

From what I understand Asus have been a little unreliable lately so I am looking at the Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 Intel Z68 Express Socket 1155 Motherboard as an alternative.

Is this Mobo any good? Is it stable? Or should I go for one of the many Asus boards on offer?

Thank you for your time.

[Shimi269]

Hello, well it depends of what you are going to use on the PC apart from Games, 8GB is very good if you use heavy applications, such as Photoshop, it also allows you to have more applications open at the same time when compared to a 4GB, I upgraded my laptop to 8GB and it have never reached 100% use, maybe 70%, and I use very heavy programs on my laptop. What do you use on your computer as far and heavy software? (Also it is useful and there are some games out there that even use the 4GB RAM, so the extra will make is future proof)

The Gigabyte board you have chosen is a good choice, they are good boards when it comes to Over Clocking, so it will help with your i7 clock. Out of that or the Asus, I would say the Gigabyte board, although you are much better youtubing each board, I did that and found that the brand new GigaByte Z68X-UD5 was the board for me. If you choose the SLI Bundle (good bundle) then the GigaByte board will work well with it.

P.S. You posted in the correct place haha

[Rob @ Scan]

Hi elsk,

Regarding the RAM, for the price difference, i'd go for 8GB. It really depends on what you're using the system for as to whether you'll need it! but it's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it!!

Your choice of RAM won't affect the overclock at all, the bundles are soak tested for 24 hours to ensure stability.

As for the motherboards, i would go for the best you can afford, both the Asus and Gigabyte boards are superb!

Stability wise, whichever components you choose, all the overclocked bundles are fully stress tested to ensure theyre stable before theyre shipped.

Regards
Rob @ Scan

[elsk]

Thank you for the replies.

I do a lot of work with Photoshop, HD recording and streaming so I will probably need the 8GB. It is good to know that overclocking is not effected by the amount of RAM.

With regards to motherboards I have found very little in the form of reviews and videos to support the Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 Intel Z68 Express where as the Asus P8Z68-V PRO Intel Z68 seems to be all over the place and I am hearing some good things.

Both motherboards seem to be very good, does any one have an argument to go one over the other?

A few more things I will add to the system...

I will be hooking up a MSI 1536MB GeForce GTX 580 Twin Frozr II/OC to the board and may add a second at a later date.

OCZ Agility 3 120GB SSD - Solid State Drive will be used to run the OS and a 2TB Hitachi CoolSpin 5K3000 Hard Drive - HDD for file storage.

I already have a decent case, 850 Watt PSU and DVD drive and feel no need to upgrade any of these just yet.

Any comments on the build so far would be appreciated.

[Shimi269]

Nice system, what are you doing for cooling? (presume a H70 will be in there ) but yes 8GB is a good idea as you are running such applications.

Here you go for the Z68 GigaByte boards. I found these videos useful, these are for the UD3 you are intrested in, hope they help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_iqYTmWa5c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDWxeBeSN1E

[elsk]

Nice system, what are you doing for cooling? (presume a H70 will be in there ) but yes 8GB is a good idea as you are running such applications.

Here you go for the Z68 GigaByte boards. I found these videos useful, these are for the UD3 you are intrested in, hope they help.

Thanks for the links, both mobo's look awesome so it will be a tough choice.

With regards to cooling I have an Antec 900 case, I have heard that it can be difficult to install the H70 fan into the case as it is not the biggest and already has many fans situated throughout so one of those will need to be removed.

Is H70 so much better than the Dark Rock cooler that it is worth the hastle?

[Shimi269]

Well you are having the CPU clocked really high and it will generate alot of heat when you use it on a full load so a good cooler would be advised

[roamer1711]

I have just had delivered the Vengeance OC with an H70 on the Asus z68 Pro and its fantastic, 8gb Ram seems to make it fly while gaming especially as I am normally running server admin programmes in the background plus a Ventrilo Client. Its a world apart from my old q6600 on 32 bit Vista. I would say if your going to 64 bit windows I would get the ram as at least you can use it.

[avfc85]

I'm looking to purchase the similar spec, ideally looking for advice on what kind of PSU and Case I will require and will be decent ?

[Rob @ Scan]

Hi,

What graphics card(s) would you be running in the machine? This is a big factor in PSU choice!

As for cases, depends on your budget, size requirements and taste really, but the Coolermaster HAF 932 is a cracking case for around the £100 mark!

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/coole...usb-30-w-o-psu