5636256

Re: Building a computer

April 30th, 2012 10:23 AM

Ivy Bridges are out! They fit in the 1155 socket, and look beautiful! I suggest shopping around for prices though, Newegg's got some people bitching about a higher price there than elsewhere.

5636287

Re: Building a computer

April 30th, 2012 01:22 PM

I don't get why Intel is putting so much emphasis in onboard video performance lately. Granted the HD 4000 is roughly twice as powerful as their last onboard graphics, but still WAY short of being able to do anything like current gen gaming well.

These CPUs are also WAY more than you need for a mere HTPC. They make sense in a hybrid laptop setup, if nothing else just to save power, but in the desktop arena the onboard video is next to useless, being only roughly equivalent to a GT 520.

Am I missing something? With a dedicated video card installed does the CPU sense when only the onboard video is needed and use just that? Seems to me your video card is still going to be drawing power, running it's fan, and even at idle, it's probably drawing about as much power as it would handling simple internet stuff.

That said, for around $20 more the 3770k WILL yield a couple FPS more than the 2700k in games. I have to agree with AnandTech's review on the IB chips though. If Intel had committed to more real estate for the GPU portion, instead of making it so small, they really could have given it performance equivalent to entry level gaming GPUs.

As is however, it's really only beneficial to laptop users for the most part. For desktop, it's a good chip to buy if you're building a new system, but not enough better than SB to be worth upgrading to if you're already on SB.