Sandy Bridge Buyer’s Guide
by Zach Throckmorton on June 17, 2011 3:20 PM ESTWhat Can You Build for $2000?
There’s certainly a case of diminishing returns as you go up the price ladder. Our budget system checks in at under $500, our midrange build goes for less than $1000, and now we’re moving all the way up to $2000. There are areas where this system will be close to twice as fast as the midrange build, but that’s mostly in games and comes courtesy of the graphics card(s). If you’re looking for all that gaming performance without dropping two grand, take the midrange build and add the GPU(s) and power supply from the list below—you’ll get 85% of the CPU performance and 99% of the gaming performance for under $1400. But there are other benefits to be had; here’s the full list of parts.
| High-End Core i7-2600K System | |||
| Part | Description | Price | Rebate |
| Processor | Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge | $313 | |
| Motherboard | ASUS P8Z68-V PRO LGA 1155 | $205 | |
| Memory | Patriot Gamer 2 Series 8GB (2x4GB) PGD38G1600ELK | $85 | -$15 |
| Graphics | EVGA 015-P3-1580-AR GeForce GTX 580 1536MB GDDR5 | $470 | -$30 |
| Primary Storage | Intel 510 Series 120GB SSD | $280 | |
| Secondary Storage | Samsung SpinPoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB HDD | $60 | |
| Optical | LITE-ON iHAS124-04 DVD Burner | $25 | |
| Power Supply | Corsair Professional Series AX750 750W PSU | $170 | -$20 |
| Case | Corsair Obsidian Series 650D | $200 | -$20 |
| CPU Heatsink | Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 CPU cooler | $27 | |
| OS | Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit | $100 | |
| System Total | $1935 | $1850 | |
If the Core i5-2500K is so amazingly capable, then why spend almost $100 more on the Core i7-2600K? On the surface, it’s only clocked 100MHz higher at stock, can only turbo 100MHz higher, has only 2MB more L3 cache, and doesn’t have more cores. However, it does have Hyper-Threading, so if you use multithreaded applications—like many video encoding, rendering, and compression applications—you’ll definitely benefit from going from the Core i5-2500K to the Core i7-2600K. For the more typical office and Internet applications, though, the performance difference is negligible. One other thing to note is power consumption—the Core i7 pulls ever so slightly more electricity than the Core i5. That is, even though the i7 is much more capable at certain tasks than the i5, it doesn’t use more juice. You can get a good idea of how the two chips compare, and whether what you do benefits from Hyper-Threading, by looking at our Bench results.
We’ve paired the Core i7-2600K with the ASUS P8Z68-V PRO that we recently reviewed. It sports a plethora of ports along with headers for case front USB 3.0 ports—in addition to the usual front USB 2.0 and Firewire ports. , Like many other high-end Z68 motherboards, the P8Z68 also supports SLI and CrossFire, so whether you choose the AMD or NVIDIA graphics route, the board has you covered for dual-GPUs. However, that doesn’t mean we have to start with two graphics cards, which brings us to the graphics configuration.
In speaking with our resident graphics expert, we came to the agreement that the best overall experience will be had by sticking with a single GPU—at least until you max out that component. You won’t have to deal with CrossFire or SLI headaches, driver updates (and game profiles) become less of a hassle, and everything just works as expected. As such, we’re recommending NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 580 for our high-end setup, currently available with rebates starting at $440. Just to be clear, for a similar price you can actually get better performance by going with dual GPUs, but CF/SLI scaling is never perfect and occasionally has issues with new releases that might take a couple months to get worked out.
If you’d still rather go with CF/SLI, you can pick up a pair of Radeon HD 6950 2GB cards for $460 (after $40 MIR), or you can cut costs even further by grabbing a pair of GTX 560 Ti cards in SLI for $400 (after $60 MIR). You can see how the single GPUs compare in our GTX 560 Ti review, and CF/SLI scaling is generally similar as you can see in our HD 6990 review. The performance edge tends to be in favor of 6950CF, and the 2GB 6950 cards will also have an edge at 2560x1440/2560x1600 and higher resolutions—and really you should have at least a 27” WQHD panel if you’re looking at this sort of graphics setup. But going back to our primary recommendation, the GTX 580 performs nearly as well in current games, it won’t have any CF/SLI idiosyncrasies, and if you’re really looking for a high-powered gaming setup you can always add a second 580 later.
For storage, we’ve gone the SSD+HDD route once more, only with a higher capacity, higher performance, and higher quality Intel 510 SSD this time. We’ve kept the same 1TB HDD for mass storage, but you can always go with a 2TB drive (or additional HDDs) if you need more capacity. We discussed the SSD particulars with Anand before settling on the Intel 510, and again there are some viable alternatives. If you’re after the absolute fastest 120GB SSD, OCZ’s Vertex 3 IOPS MAX is what you’ll want, but retail pricing currently starts at $310 shipped. For $30 less, Intel’s 510 120GB may not be quite as fast, but Intel’s reliability track record is definitely better than SandForce based SSDs. Realistically, outside of extremely taxing storage workloads—workloads most home users will never actually run—any of the latest generation of SSDs will be plenty fast. If the IOPS MAX is the most expensive 120GB, the OCZ Agility 3 120GB is on the other end of the spectrum and comes with a downright affordable price of $200 (after $30 MIR) by comparison. Worst-case performance (i.e. reading uncompressible data) takes a pretty big hit, but otherwise the Agility 3 and Vertex 3 120GB SSDs are very comparable and you save $60 compared to the Vertex 3. You’re still taking more of a risk with SF controllers, but as far as performance goes the SF-2200 drives are the current performance king.
Rounding things out, Patriot offers a solid 2x4GB kit of DDR3-1600 that overclocks well, is in my experience reliable, and has unobtrusive heatspreaders that go well with the ASUS motherboard’s color scheme. Corsair’s Professional Series AX750 outputs 750W at 80 Plus Gold efficiency and it’s fully modular. It’s about as high-quality as a PSU gets for a reasonable price. This PSU provides clean, stable power 
to this gaming-oriented beast of a computer, with room to spare for two GPUs and a heavily overclocked CPU. (If you do plan on adding a second GTX 580, though, make note that we’ve hit 850W under load using an SLI 580 setup, so you’ll likely need to move into the kilowatt range.)
Housing all of these impressive components is the Corsair Obsidian Series 650D. This case has ample room for a CrossFire or SLI setup, as well as great air-cooling for the heat generated by the CPU and GPU(s) during marathon gaming sessions. It’s also very water-cooling friendly, if you decide to go that route. While I’m not usually a fan of windowed cases, this system is simply too awesome to hide away the internals. We’re coming in slightly under budget for a change, especially if you factor in rebates, which leave us room for a decent midrange aftermarket CPU cooler. The stalwart Cooler Master Hyper 212+ isn’t the best CPU HSF on the market, but it’s quiet, effective, and reasonably priced—and it should let you approach a 5GHz overclock on the Core i7-2600K.
The final tally comes to just $1850 after rebates, which means if you’re still looking for other ways to waste spend your money, you could opt for a higher capacity SSD, add in Blu-ray support, toss in a larger HDD, or look for better cooling. We’re very impressed for just how much you can get for ‘only’ $1850, though, and no one would be unhappy running such a system right now.
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fic2 - Friday, June 17, 2011 - link
I thought the top end Llano was rumored to be $170. Also pretty sure that an i3-2100 would beat it in most things except software that could use all 4 cores of the high end Llano. Plus, with the Llano you really have no place to go upwards without buying a new mb. With i3 at least you could get an i5 or i7 next year for a speed boost. Probably also find the i5 or i7 used once the Ivy Bridges start coming out.TrackSmart - Friday, June 17, 2011 - link
That's the kind of tone I expect from the 14 year-olds who post at Engadget (the comments there are incredibly obnoxious). Would it have been possible to make your point without being a jerk about it?Regarding the actual content of your post (as opposed to tone), have you seen this? http://www.anandtech.com/show/4448/amd-llano-deskt...
It seems unlikely that Llano will have better gaming performance than the 6570 (given that it performs a little worse than a 5570 which is slower than the 6570). And the i3-2100 will
And have you seen this? http://www.anandtech.com/show/4448/amd-llano-deskt... Except for highly threaded workloads, the i3-2100 is generally faster than Llano.
So indeed, it might be a good time to buy. While it's possible that Llano will be cheap enough that it will be a better value proposition, you won't be kicking yourself about the performance differential.
JarredWalton - Friday, June 17, 2011 - link
We already have a pretty good idea of what Llano has to offer: slower CPU but faster IGP. If you care about gaming, as mentioned in this very guide, you'll want to add a discrete GPU regardless. Llano's IGP might look pretty good on a 1366x768 laptop, which is where we praised the performance. On a 1680x1050 or more likely 1920x1080 desktop, if you're playing any games you'll want a lot more than 6550D.just4U - Sunday, June 19, 2011 - link
The article also makes an interesting note that for everyday use you'd be hard pressed to notice much of a difference between the i3 and lower priced AMD proccessors. This is key for just about everyone outside of enthusiasts I think as we have hit a bit of a wall with even the cheapest cpu's being "good enough" "fast enough" for the masses on most applications.mczak - Friday, June 17, 2011 - link
I say it's not good value, get a HD6670 instead.All reviews of HD6570 I've seen were using gddr5, and guess what every single one you can buy is using ddr3 (some even with lower than reference memory clock) - just like HD6450. BUT some of the HD6670 are using ddr3 too actually (especially the cheaper ones, I don't think AMD even told anyone ddr3 cards of HD6670 would exist) looks like the real cards are all at least 95$ which moves them close to HD5750/HD6750 levels unfortunately. So if you're going for best performance/price you're probably looking at HD5750/HD6750 from the red team (the HD5770/6770 are no doubt faster but pretty much the same perf/price wise).
Or if you really want to get a cheaper card, just step down to HD5570, which is only 65$ instead of 80$ (it's got some less alus but with that low memory bandwidth it probably won't make much difference anyway - just be careful and don't get a HD5570 with ddr2(!!!) memory).
TrackSmart - Friday, June 17, 2011 - link
I agree. Also, if you want to game, it's worth spending just a few dollars more for much better performance. Especially when the 5770 is often on sale for around $100. Sometimes under $100 with rebates.duploxxx - Friday, June 17, 2011 - link
Now I have read and loved lots of info from anandtech site for years, but this must be one of THE MOST STUPID buyers guide I have ever seen.Do we realy need to start believing that for every review Anandtech is posting on the Intel part's you get a kind of bonus, it was already horrible on the computex time, but what happend here? to much AMD lately so you got kicked by Intel Marketing guys to do something in favor??? for every build created you need to downplay AMD for everything????
Succinctly, the second-gen Core CPUs are astonishingly powerful and sip electricity.
I been so impressed by a new CPU as I have by
It’s also a great time to build an Intel-based
if you buy a Core i7-2600K now, you’ll be at the near pinnacle of desktop computing for at least 5-6 months.
It really is remarkable that such a powerful computer can be assembled for less than $500.....but you only have a cpu :)
cuts through genomic datasets like a hot knife through butter, and it noticeably reduced the time it takes me to get answers to my research questions
Video encoders and gamers alike will see remarkably improved results versus even the first-gen Core i5-750. Oh, and rare is the Core i5-2500K that can’t overclock to 4.4GHz on air, with the stock cooler.
.......
WTF is this kind of guide I only smoke SNB, don't wait for BD and x79 guide, if BD can compete your magical 2600K might drop in price or get replaced by just another day.... how does that feel after such an anandtech remarkable praise to buy this stuff NOW, not to mention the additional parts... like an old outdated NV460 ???? or a 580 that really nobody needs unless you have a high-end large screen which is not even within the guide???? low budget antec and biostar just to be able to scratch the expensive 2500K in a 1000$ build and so on....
damn how the hell did you ever get to post reviews in the first place.
JarredWalton - Friday, June 17, 2011 - link
How much will 2600K drop in price if Bulldozer is actually competitive? $100? Intel doesn't sell Core i3 parts for less than about $130, Core i5 stops at about $185, and Core i7 currently starts at around $250 (i7-950). So IF you wait 2.5 months, and IF Bulldozer is competitive, you can save yourself $50 to $100. Generally speaking, if you wait three months, you'll always get at least a $100 increase in performance or decrease in price.Tell me this: what is wrong with GTX 460? It's not as shiny and new as GTX 560! It uses an "old" die spin that results in yields not being as good and clocking not being as high. I suppose we should all throw out anything that isn't less than six months old while we're at it? We apparently shouldn't look at GTX 580 either, even though the text spent 500 words discussing why we selected that GPU. Why? Ryan has tested more GPUs that you're likely to see, and I've used CF and SLI enough to agree, that for $450 I'd rather have a single GTX 580 than any CF or SLI setup. It won't be faster in some games, but the headaches of CF/SLI often aren't worth the performance increases you get when it works right.
But, if you read that paragraph, we already spelled all of this out, including links to where you can buy the alternatives. So, what is your rationale for not wanting a 580 in there? The lack of a large screen? Wait, let me see... "and really you should have at least a 27” WQHD panel if you’re looking at this sort of graphics setup." Wow. Your complaint was addressed right there. And the opening paragraph on the high end helps as well: "If you’re looking for all that gaming performance without dropping two grand, take the midrange build and add the GPU(s) and power supply from the list below."
Sorry you didn't like Zach's review, or apparently any of my editing. I am still in full agreement with Zach: right now is an AWESOME time to buy an Intel desktop, because there's nothing coming out in the next three months on the Intel side that will really make it outdated. Ivy Bridge is the next major revision, and that's still 6 months out. LGA 2011 is not for the mainstream users. Will AMD have something to entice people away? Llano can do something on the low-end (which we already acknowledged in the intro), and Bulldozer might do something at the mid- and high-end, but we won't know until September. For those that don't even care what AMD releases (I know plenty of businesses and users that won't even consider a non-Intel PC), this guide has them covered.
ckryan - Friday, June 17, 2011 - link
Thank you, Jarred.Hell, I'm on my second iteration of my 2500k build -- and my system is basically the $1000 system. My MSI Cyclone GTX 460 is superb for me as a "medium" gamer at 1900x1200. Mine also has an absurd amount of headroom in the tank for those times when a 25+% clock boost is called for. Your conclusions are very much on point. Migrating to SB from a quad core Phenom/Athlon II is worth just for the smile it puts on your face. Apparently some people like to take the fun out of everything -- it is supposed to be fun, isn't it?
marc1000 - Friday, June 17, 2011 - link
yeah, we will always have someone complaining about ANY buyers guide. don't bother with them. I have an old c2duo e7200 (oc to 3.16ghz) and was impressed with the performance of an i3-530 on a notebook. I'm just waiting for some ca$h to buy my i5-2500k....