[AlfredNTheFettuc]

So I want to upgrade my trusty old 3.0 GHz Phenom X4 945. I'm planning to get an i5-2500k (LGA1155, that's the newer one, right? Those numbers alway confuse me). My GPU is GTX 570 1280MB and I need a CPU that will not bottleneck it anymore, is that a good choice? I'm no expert, so I want to know if I'm thinking of the right processor, or if should I upgrade at all (or just invest in a good fan for overclocking).

[yojo2]

Yes, i5-2500k it will be a great choice. If you aren't in hurry you might wait for new Ivy Bridge CPUs, which will be out in the end of April.

[AlfredNTheFettuc]

Hmm, never heard of them as I'm never up to date. What are the advantages? If they're worth the naturally coming high price, I might wait a bit, or else I'll just buy a 2500k then because it'll probably get a price drop.

[Wolf68k]

You'll be fine with the i5-2500K
The Ivy Bridge is the next line of Core i series. For the most part they are the exact same as the Sandy Bridge but with a better GPU built in. They will be faster, but not by much. Let's put it like this; for just the CPU side of things, the planned high end i5 will be the 3570K which will have the clock speeds as the i7-2600K. The 2500K is 3.3GHz so the 3570K 3.4Ghz. The 2600K is 3.4GHz the top end IB i7-3770K 3.5GHz

The only 2 things that the IB brings is PCIE3.0 support and natively DDR3 1600.
Real quickly, the Sandy Bridge natively supports 1333MHz but that doesn't mean you can't Run 1600MHz RAM but you'll have to "over clock" it to run at that speed. When I said natively I mean that when you let the mobo auto detect the RAM it'll automatically go to a setting.

[AlfredNTheFettuc]

IT's alright, I have 1333Mhz RAM anyway. But I might upgrade that too.
So now I have to know if there's a price drop once Ivy Bridge comes out, or I'll just get 2500k now.

[Wolf68k]

There's no way to know that until they come out. However the Sandy Bridge is already cheaper than what the planned Ivy Bridge is going to be, at least that's according to the wiki page for IB.

[finn4life]

Not trying to be an ass or anything, but just to be clear you know you will need a new motherboard right?

[AlfredNTheFettuc]

QUOTE (finn4life @ Sunday, Mar 4 2012, 23:38)

Not trying to be an ass or anything, but just to be clear you know you will need a new motherboard right?

Yeah. I'm buying it together with one now that you mention it.

[Slamman]

I mentioned in our Tech Bulletin thread, any updates about Ivy Bridge, you'll see a rollout pickup steam next year, or at year's end, but the highest price will be under $400, but as you know, some of the best mobos cost $400 now, so expect you're paying $1K for a top grade PC upgrade, that's with everything, BTW. The prices are predicted to be in line with Sandy Bridge, no $1000 CPU in the lineup