[O/C]December 2009 Overclockers Buyers Guide

December 2009 Overclockers Buyers Guide
by splat

Just in time for the holidays! If you are looking to get started with overclocking but aren’t sure what components to put together, then you have come to the right place.

All of the systems below focus on achieving the highest possible processor overclock for the least amount of money. They are each listed as complete systems to make it easier for beginners who are looking for a brand new build but less attention was spent on actual system performance. Technologies like RAID and Multiple GPU setups are outside the scope of this guide but should also be considered depending on your specific needs and budget. Each list of parts also shows an OC/$ metric which is the Average OC % divided by the Total Cost. The Average OC is obtained from the HWBot listing. It’s not an exact science but it does give a quick way to compare the different setups.

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Discuss this article below. If you are interested in contributing to the front page (www.overclockers.com), please feel free to contact me.


Thanks,
sno.lcn

Nice work splat. I would make some serious changes though. (Must be an intel guy )

First of all

$140 for a "budget" AMD board? WTF? I spent $100 on my "high end" 790FX board. I think you can safely drop this number about $80. To the $60 biostar board for instance.

Sempron listed in budget generally unlocks to a dual core, so "effective OC %" could be doubled.


Purchasing the same ram for P55 and AMD is a bad idea as well. P55 really needs high speed DDR3, AMD needs tight timings and speed is not as important. I do like that you went DDR2 for the budget platforms though, since this will be a piecemeal upgrade for most OCers, the ram is like a "freebie"

For high end, I would suggest socket 1366 as the intel side. More longevity in that socket. i7 860 is an excellent upgrade path for p55, but I would not sink $300 on a chip for a budget platform (which is what p55 is) go X58 and i7 920, and triple channel ram. But I guess that is personal opinion.

thanks for the article splat

+1 nice work, overall, it will give people a great idea of good parts to purchase for the budget ranges.

I think we can all pick apart anyone's budget/mid/high end rig choices, though I have the same concerns Neuro has for the AMD board. The MSI 785GTM E45 is half the cost and actually overclocks quite well.

Im interested Neuro in your statement about the P55/AMD ram being a bad idea. I was thinking that since they both have IMC's that tight timings would still be preffered across both platforms.

No SSD's in extreme at least? (I have a weird sense of deja vu, where did I say that before......?)

I always appreciate some good writing on a compilation like that. With that said I was reviewing the graphics cards of the system we have:
Budget: GTS 250
Mid-level: GTS 250
High-end: GTX 260
Extreme: 5970

I'm assuming that this is a new gen gaming build. Obviously you'd want to tailor your solution a bit depending on what you play. Older games tend to rely more upon a CPU than a GPU so something like WoW will see a much better gain from a higher end CPU and less on the GPU.

Secondly I'm curious why the fixation with the 250. Your quote seems a bit high per Newegg. The 5770 seems to be premium priced now, but for only $10-$20 more you can get a next gen card than normally runs better.

thanks guys, glad you like the article. I'm by no means an authority so I welcome all advice.

Neuromancer said:

Nice work splat. I would make some serious changes though. (Must be an intel guy )

First of all

$140 for a "budget" AMD board? WTF? I spent $100 on my "high end" 790FX board. I think you can safely drop this number about $80. To the $60 biostar board for instance.

Sempron listed in budget generally unlocks to a dual core, so "effective OC %" could be doubled.

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Basically, I went to newegg, hit AMD 790FX motherboards and looked for what they had, then searched for the lowest price. Right now they have a Jetway for 80, a Foxconn for 100, then a DFI for 135. I don't trust Jetway and Foxconn, maybe it's just me attaching stigma to them. So the next choices are the DFI with SB600 and the DFI with SB750. I chose the DFI w/ SB750 because it is supposed to be the better clocker. Unfortunately, it is a very pricey board but it will definitely stand up to anything you throw at it, even if you upgrade the proc later. If you end up sticking to air cooling and low voltages then a cheaper board can definitely be used, but I have personally been limited by my cheap motherboard choice several times in my overclocking life so I wanted to make sure that didn't happen here.

Neuromancer said:

Purchasing the same ram for P55 and AMD is a bad idea as well. P55 really needs high speed DDR3, AMD needs tight timings and speed is not as important. I do like that you went DDR2 for the budget platforms though, since this will be a piecemeal upgrade for most OCers, the ram is like a "freebie"

For high end, I would suggest socket 1366 as the intel side. More longevity in that socket. i7 860 is an excellent upgrade path for p55, but I would not sink $300 on a chip for a budget platform (which is what p55 is) go X58 and i7 920, and triple channel ram. But I guess that is personal opinion.

thanks for the article splat

Click to expand...

The choice of the 860 over the 920 was a tough one for me too, and I debated it for a long time. Ultimately I chose it because of the overclocking percentage and for that reason alone.

EarthDog said:

+1 nice work, overall, it will give people a great idea of good parts to purchase for the budget ranges.

I think we can all pick apart anyone's budget/mid/high end rig choices, though I have the same concerns Neuro has for the AMD board. The MSI 785GTM E45 is half the cost and actually overclocks quite well.

Im interested Neuro in your statement about the P55/AMD ram being a bad idea. I was thinking that since they both have IMC's that tight timings would still be preffered across both platforms.

No SSD's in extreme at least? (I have a weird sense of deja vu, where did I say that before......?)

Click to expand...

Picking anything other than a budget system is very difficult because everyone does different things and has different needs. So, like I said before, I tried to focus solely on OC/price and moving up incrementally. This is just supposed to be a jumping off point for beginners who have no idea where to start. Just like any purchase, people need to make their specific choices based on their needs and budget.

No SSDs, as I said before, because the focus is overclocking and hard drives play no roll in that. Pick what you need for the overall system performance you need.

Quigsby said:

I always appreciate some good writing on a compilation like that. With that said I was reviewing the graphics cards of the system we have:
Budget: GTS 250
Mid-level: GTS 250
High-end: GTX 260
Extreme: 5970

I'm assuming that this is a new gen gaming build. Obviously you'd want to tailor your solution a bit depending on what you play. Older games tend to rely more upon a CPU than a GPU so something like WoW will see a much better gain from a higher end CPU and less on the GPU.

Secondly I'm curious why the fixation with the 250. Your quote seems a bit high per Newegg. The 5770 seems to be premium priced now, but for only $10-$20 more you can get a next gen card than normally runs better.

Click to expand...

graphics card is a very specific need that changes drastically based on what each user needs. Some people might need no graphics card and a very powerful processor while some people might need a very cheap processor with a very powerful graphics card. As I've said before, the focus of this guide was specifically the processors and overclocking so I picked graphics cards that I thought an average user might pair with each build. It's entirely debatable and totally outside the scope of this guide.