www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

Well guys I tried to fit a pentium 166 into the case the Cloven hooved one so kindly donated but it looked a bit silly sitting in the bottom on it's own and then I found out I couldn't fit a 5 1/4" floppy drive in there so it was a bit of a bust. Thought I'd best do some research.

Sticking with Intel cos I like them it seems the last two generations have both been slated for running hot and generally being a little bit disappointing. The trend seems to be going for more diverse chips with better onboard graphics and power controllers. Jack of all trades springs to mind!

So I was never really comfortable with Haswell and Ivy Bridge seems to be a slightly less good version of the same but I was going to go for a 4770K cos it was the newest!!

Then Rich pointed out that some of the old Sandy Bridge hexacores are being knocked out quite cheaply now. I can get a 3960X for under £500 - they were da bomb a couple of years ago and still pizz all over Haswell now in things like video rendering.



Sooooooo the question is do I go for the modern all singing all dancing but ultimately not enough to swing your pants chipolata

Or go for the older but absolute beast of a chip, bearing in mind that adding a very average graphics card will trounce the Haswells onboard graphics?

Discuss

What will be using the pc for? If gaming then definitely go for an older (or at least not top of current range) CPU to get more value. Use saved budget to buy better graphics carw which is what will count. Fastest CPUs only relevant for video rendering etc. Generalistation but broadly true.

Stuart

I've got a 3960 12 core in mine........I must say, with the amount of sh*t I chuck at it, it's seriously not skipped a beat.

Downside, if this matters, is that with the increased cache, it doesn't have the inbuilt graphics which are quite useful for stuff like video rendering, I'm told. I don't do any of that, so it doesn't matter to me.
I have something like one of these cooling it: http://www.ebuyer.com/411328-corsair-hy ... 9060007-ww

It's quiet and does a great job - you can also get meatier versions too now, but of a bum to assemble though! mmmm http://www.ebuyer.com/410723-corsair-hy ... 9060009-ww

BG

I heard blah blah blah blah blah blah computer blah blah blah blah blah blah....