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There's some new motherboard technology coming up with Ivy Bridge, and I'm sure AMD will follow suit later in the year or early 2013. If you bought a current AM3+ board then in a few years when you upgrade I wouldn't be surprised if you ended up getting a new motherboard anyway. In my opinion the most future proof option would be to wait for Ivy Bridge in March or April. It will be about as cheap as Sandy Bridge was, and of course you can get one of the lower end ones and still have a very powerful computer. Current GPU prices should drop a little once the next generation comes out in December too.

Iceburg wrote:This Graphics card (due to the factory overclocking and a good review on toms hardware
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/ATI/ATI+6900+Series/Gigabyte+Radeon+HD+6950+OC+1024MB+GDDR5+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+?productId=47002

You mentioned that you were planning to overclock your CPU, correct?
If you can overclock your CPU, then you can overclock your GPU. Save yourself some money and get a GPU with the original clocks, there's nothing special about factory overclocks.

Iceburg wrote:The whole sand bridge/ ivy bridge thing confuses me to be frank, why intel find the need to give all there CPUs a stupid name is beyond me!!

Bulldozer, Steamroller, Piledriver. Every company does it, it's a part of developing technology.

whatshisname55 wrote:You mentioned that you were planning to overclock your CPU, correct?
If you can overclock your CPU, then you can overclock your GPU. Save yourself some money and get a GPU with the original clocks, there's nothing special about factory overclocks.



Bulldozer, Steamroller, Piledriver. Every company does it, it's a part of developing technology.

Sometimes the companies only use higher quality parts for the factory overclocked versions. I know that for a fact on the 570's gainward uses for the GLH versions, not many people can achieve the clock speeds they give, and you can still OC the OC'd cards higher (got mine stable at 835, from a stock of 732 is not bad , but the OC version started at 800). It all depends how much higher it is OC'd to. But to keep their customers happy and ensure that they don't have to replace too many, they generally check which are the better chips and use them on OC'd versions, as not all chips are created equally.

Iceburg wrote:I was originally looking at building this last year, and I can not believe how much has changed in a year, I could always wait.. but then it will be worth waiting a bit longer... and i will always be waiting.

The whole sand bridge/ ivy bridge thing confuses me to be frank, why intel find the need to give all there CPUs a stupid name is beyond me!!

The bigger changes will happen at the end of this year. The new GPUS are going from 40nm gate sizes to 28nm, which allows both Nvidia and ATI (the chips are being made at the same place, just different designs), to raise clock speeds by 45% if they want to compared to current components.

Also Intels '3D transistors' will be available on the Ivy Bridge chips, as well as it being a gate decrease from 28nm (not sure??) to 22nm. So again expect performance boosts, and seeing as its not all that far away I would personally wait.

I made my latest machine in April where I didn't really want to wait 8 months... but you could wait 2ish months, Ivy bridge may be released around the same time Sandy was (5th Jan) and the new GPU's are set for an early 2012 release most likely.

Pedz wrote:Also Intels '3D transistors' will be available on the Ivy Bridge chips, as well as it being a gate decrease from 28nm (not sure??) to 22nm. So again expect performance boosts, and seeing as its not all that far away I would personally wait.

Sandy Bridge is 32nm. Basically Ivy Bridge is a second gen of Sandy Bridge, taking what made SB so good and improving it's efficiency.

Iceburg wrote:Cheers for the replies guys. I think im going to go for a 6950.

My current build plan is
Gigabyte AM3+ AMD 990 AX SB950 DDR3 ATX
Phenom II X4 980 3.7ghz
Gigabyte ATI Radeon 6950 870mhz 1gb pci-e
Corsair vengeance blue 8gb (2x4gb)

But now ive started thinking of a bulldozer CPU... has anyone got any experience with these? the FX-4 3.6ghz seems great for the money.

Cheers guys

get teh 2gb 6950 so you can unlock

also nice choice on the mobo, have a gigabyte my self, loving it, and the backup bios thing is great as well

Haswell will be early 2013 assuming the pattern stays the same.

One thing I don't agree with though. There's no reason you would need that 850w PSU. As you don't appear to be interested in SLI GTX 580's or GTX 590, you could drop down the wattage a lot. I'd say 650w should be perfectly fine for what you're planning.

I'm planning an upgrade using Ivy Bridge, I'll be adding in a second GTX 570 for SLI and will be running well under the max of my 750w PSU. Since you're planning to get IB and 7***/6** series GPU then the power requirement will be very low. I would suggest a Corsair HX or TX 650. The main attraction to the HX series is modular cables, if your not worried about cable management then go for the TX, however, since you are wanting to keep good airflow a modular PSU might be a good investment.

Based on personal experience, I recommend going for an i5 2500K. Gaming wise it performs just the same and will save you over $100. The only reason anyone should go for an i7 is if they are looking to do heavy video encoding and such. The benefits of hyperthreading are only seen there and not in gaming.

In the end it is up to you. If a possible 3-5 extra FPS is worth $100 to you, go for it.