|
Regarding 2500K vs 2600K. Tiny bit more clock speed, larger cache, and Hyper Threading support. Some people say they can feel the difference Hyper Threading makes with Windows 7. *shrug* I'm uncertain if it's worth the extra $100. Might not be the best bang for the buck, but I think I would probably get it.
Regarding the 6990. AMD's 4870x2 gave me ulcers from all the driver issues with that dual GPU card. And that 6990 price is still pretty crazy (card is popular with bitminers, so sells well). Unless you are planning to quad-fire at some point, I'd probably just buy to 6950 or 6970 cards instead. AMD cards are a bit noisy so you might want to look for one with better third party cooler on it. Though stock 6950s could have their shaders unlocked, not sure if that's still possible.
And regarding buying now vs waiting. Sandy Bridge-E and the X79 chipset comes in November. This is a replacement of the high end Core i7-9xx and X58 products. Sandy Bridge-E will be similar to current Sandy Bridge chips, but with quad channel memory support, larger cache, and no graphics core. An entry level Core i7-3820 will cost about $300, but expect the first X79 motherboards to also be very pricey.
The mainstream Sandybridge and Z68 products get a node shrink in early 2012, called Ivy Bridge and Z77. CPU architecture is not changing, but the graphics core is said to be much better. There are some improvements to power management as well. Z77 will finally include native Intel USB 3.0 support.
Unless you need a heavy duty motherboard with lots of PCI-E lanes (such as you ARE going to quad-fire two 6990s for example) or want an expensive 6 core processor (starts at $600), I probably would not wait for Sandy Bridge-E. Ivy Bridge and Z77 sound nice, but it's an unknown number of months away and the CPU is just a die shrink, so probably not worth waiting for either.
|
