laterna wrote:What are you looking at in regards to performance? Are you a gamer or a video encoder/ animation guru etc?
Basically, the SB series is the newer architecture, which included a shrink of the lithography process down to 32nm. The bloomfield series is a 45nm lithography process.
In english, this means that they are able to fit more compnents (ie more processing power) on the same spame for a processor.
However, the sandybridge series only supports Dual-Channel ram vs the Tripple Channel ram of the bloomfield series. ie 2,4,8,16 RAM vs 3,6,12,24gb of ram.
Although this sounds like a huge, importand feature, you only gain 6-8% more performance in triple channel. Performance which is *unoticable* in real life application (read:gaming). Furthermore, the triple channel controller, is worse in certain situations (I think its write speeds).
Basically, you're looking at a newer, and more efficient (wattage) system with the SB series.
You listed a bloomfield series motherboard. I'm not trying to sound snob or anything, but there is a whole different series of motherboards for sandybridge (ie you can't put a SB processor in a 1366 series motherboard)
What is your knowledge and "hands-on" willingness? Are you willing to overclock? Are you looking for a system that you simply finish building, turn it on, and forget about it? You can get a lot of "free" performance through overclocking, but it requires more setup time, and loads of "testing" time.
Also, understand that if you wish to engage in your first overclocking "adventure" you need to get a proper aftermarket cooler. The simple normal series sandybridge cooler is not an extremely small, and inefficient cooler. Personally, I overclocked my 2600k processor to 4.5 (from its basic 3.2(or 3.6 I can't remember) and with a Prolimatech Megahalem cooler, it stands under load at 45 degrees C. Another reason to buy an aftermarket cooler is noise. The stock cooler will run at extremely high temperatures when under load, and the fan will spin at 80%. Thats A LOT of noise coming out of it. Although I personally have a knack for silence (my own rig is sitting at 16dB under load) it comes down to what YOU want.
Read through my post, and reply each question. The more information you give us, the more I will be able to help you with what you need.
I don't have the patience to break up the quote, so I'll answer in bullet points
And thanks for the tip on the Mobo/Chip compatibility, these are the sort of things amateur builders need to know.
-I am a gamer primarily on this machine, with occasional photoshop/illustrator use. I have a Mac laptop and other Apple gear for the A/V stuff that I do.
-I have a good deal of hands on experience, I've been a desktop support tech and have very little fear of working with hardware, this will be the 3rd mobo I've had in this box in 5 years, as I tend to upgrade parts as I need them on this machine.
-I have never actually overclocked anything, though I'm familiar with the process. I was always a bit worried about burning up parts that I had spent hard earned money on. The Core2 Conroe 2.4 Ghz chip that I have has never appeared to be the bottleneck on this system, so I haven't felt the need.
-It's good to hear that air-cooling will still work on CPUs that are running at stock speed. I am interested in experimenting with a liquid cooling system, but that may be a topic for another thread.
I thank you guys for bringing me up to speed, I tend to lose track in my old age.
