Advice on these computer parts

[n00bz0rd2]

I'm starting to upgrade my old computer to something fairly modern. I use my PC mainly for some high end gaming.

I'm looking at this CPU/Mobo/RAM bundle from eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Core-i7-950-Gi...#ht_6196wt_905

Is that an overkill? Do I need an i7? I know Sandy Bridge CPUs are coming soon but they are pretty expensive and obviously I can play catch up with the CPU market for ages.

Also, I'm getting nVidia GTX 460 Super OC (well 2 of them for SLI). I'm pretty happy with my GFX card choice but should I consider something else?

[Ganty]

Iirc, I7's are quad cores, and very few games can utilise 4 cores (at the mo).

Personally, I'd be tempted to get the fastest clock speed dual core and put the extra cash towards RAM or your gfx card.

[evilsatan]

I built a gaming PC recently for my mate who plays Eve online. I used an Intel i5-760 (quad-core CPU, I have the i5-750 in my office machine). It runs two clients at a time on the highest settings with ease and he plans to add another GTX460 for SLI to play 4 clients.

Intel i5 760
Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD6
1TB Western Digital WD1002FAEX Caviar Black 3.5" SATA III
G.SKILL RipJaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel
1GB Palit GTX 460 Sonic Platinum, 4000MHz GDDR5, GPU 800MHz, 336 Cores, 2x DL DVI-I/ HDMI/ D-Sub
Freezer 7 Pro V2

Might be worth mentioning what games you play though as some require a lot more resources than others.

[n00bz0rd2]

Well, at the moment I've got a Core 2 Quad Q6700 in my machine with 4Gb of RAM. Should I keep that or still update my CPU? Money isn't too much of an issue but obviously I'm not going to go crazy.
I don't mind having an i5, but I thought if I can have the i7 then why not!

Might be worth mentioning what games you play though as some require a lot more resources than others.

Well if I say Crysis, would that give you an idea ? I usually play the most recent games.

[evilsatan]

If money isn't an issue then go for the i7 although I think an overclocked i5-760 will do the job. I do not PC game but am aware that Crysis is one of the more intensive ones

One thing I will say is don't buy off ebay, warranty can be a bit tricky. Scan are my favourite hardware supplier, always very quick, superb customer service and have some great bundle deals on their today only page:
http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

Free delivery available if you search on Google.

Example for today:
Intel Core i7 2600K Unlocked, Socket 1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.4 GHz, 8MB Cache, 95W, Retail + Asus P8P67 Pro, Intel P67 Express, S 1155, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 2200(OC), SATA 6Gb/s, SATA RAID + 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.65V £364.99 £437.99

Intel Core i7 2600K Unlocked, Socket 1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.4 GHz, 8MB Cache, 95W, Retail + 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.50V £304.99 £365.99

Intel Core i7 2600K Unlocked, Socket 1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.4 GHz, 8MB Cache, 95W, Retail + Asus P8P67 Pro, Intel P67 Express, S 1155, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 2200(OC), SATA 6Gb/s, SATA RAID £334.99 £401.99

[n00bz0rd2]

If money isn't an issue then go for the i7 although I think an overclocked i5-760 will do the job. I do not PC game but am aware that Crysis is one of the more intensive ones

One thing I will say is don't buy off ebay, warranty can be a bit tricky. Scan are my favourite hardware supplier, always very quick, superb customer service and have some great bundle deals on their today only page:
http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

Free delivery available if you search on Google.

Example for today:
Intel Core i7 2600K Unlocked, Socket 1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.4 GHz, 8MB Cache, 95W, Retail + Asus P8P67 Pro, Intel P67 Express, S 1155, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 2200(OC), SATA 6Gb/s, SATA RAID + 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.65V £364.99 £437.99

Intel Core i7 2600K Unlocked, Socket 1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.4 GHz, 8MB Cache, 95W, Retail + 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.50V £304.99 £365.99

Intel Core i7 2600K Unlocked, Socket 1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.4 GHz, 8MB Cache, 95W, Retail + Asus P8P67 Pro, Intel P67 Express, S 1155, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 2200(OC), SATA 6Gb/s, SATA RAID £334.99 £401.99

Wow. I was completely unaware that Scan had these kind of deals. I was also unaware that Sandy Bridge is available already and at that price. I think I'm gonna go for one of those bundles!

[evilsatan]

I was shopping with Scan for years until I realised there was a Today Only page, it isn't very well advertised.

[cosmicma]

Example for today:
Intel Core i7 2600K Unlocked, Socket 1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.4 GHz, 8MB Cache, 95W, Retail + Asus P8P67 Pro, Intel P67 Express, S 1155, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 2200(OC), SATA 6Gb/s, SATA RAID + 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.65V £364.99 £437.99

iv'e just bought that bundle from scan a couple of days ago along with the asus ati hd 6950 2gb graphics card and corsair 120gig ssd
i will throw another 4gig of ram in there when get chance to finish it off

that combo needs to be running windows 7 x64 i tried 32bit wibdows 7 and was getting blue screens every now and again but is completely stable with the 64bit version

compared to the pc it's just replaced ( 3.5gig p4 ) it a pretty quick machine