I too was also going to wait for Ivy Bridge.... When Ivy Bridge comes out next year, will it be as simple as just replacing the SB CPU or will I have to replace the MB too? Seems to me an upgrade from SB to IB should not cost much. I think the main difference is that IB will support DX11 whereas SB does not have the support. Best regards,JimEDIT: Disregard. I just read the Ivy Bridge thread below this one. Board and CPU will have to be replaced. Still should not be a real expensive upgrade.

You're not the only one who has praised the Mushkin Redine. Your comments pushed me over the edge and I ordered some from Newegg. I haven't ordered a motherboard yet but will probably go with an ASUS Deluxe. Would like to see some more of the initial bugs sorted out first though.Do you have a manufacturer or part number for the USB3 breakout box that ships with the Deluxe? I can't find any thing on the ASUS site about ordering it as an accessory and I'd like that option if I wind up with the Pro or EVO. The only boxes I've seen on the web have USB connectors and are designed to bring rear connections out to the front. I can't find one that plugs directly into a USB header. Thanks.

Hi Kevin,As far as I can tell there is no separate part number for it, although I am sure there must be one. It comes standard with the P8P67 Deluxe MB and as far as I know one can not be sold without the other. I have it hooked up with the USB3 leads that were installed on the Cooler Master HAF 942 case. So now there are two ports at both the back and the front, four altogether. You will love the RAM. I am surprised that more noise is not made about this product (Mushkin Redline 996805 dual channel and 998805 triple channel) since it is substantially superior to almost everything out there, at almost any price. I have 5 sticks now, so have a spare in case one goes bad.Kind regards,

I too was also going to wait for Ivy Bridge.... When Ivy Bridge comes out next year, will it be as simple as just replacing the SB CPU or will I have to replace the MB too? Seems to me an upgrade from SB to IB should not cost much. I think the main difference is that IB will support DX11 whereas SB does not have the support. Best regards,JimEDIT: Disregard. I just read the Ivy Bridge thread below this one. Board and CPU will have to be replaced. Still should not be a real expensive upgrade.

Hi Jim,I will disregard the disregard. :) It really is amazing how much better, but yet how much lower in cost high technology is getting. It cost $6,500.0+ to buy an IBM 455 Thinkpad in (about) 1995. I had it upgraded to 20 MB? RAM at the cost of several hundred dollars. How much money would those inflation/investment appreciation adjusted bucks be worth today in purchasing power? Never mind back that far, look how much you and I had to spend just a few years ago compared with today and Sandy Bridge? My Q9550 build cost me a fortune in comparison while the Bloomfield was less than that. So on it goes. More for less. How many industries can pull that off decade after decade? By all accounts though this is an exceptional bargain for top performance.Kind regards,

Hopefully you get a C batch. I've seen very few of them, but every one of them has been golden!

:Praying:

thanks for the post here. I will be building a 2700k machine in March. Keep the info and tips coming guys. Great thread.

Wow!I7-920DO @4.48Ghz on air cooling!This is one serious overclocking!! Are those black fans also NF-P14s?(I really don't like the Noctua fan's colour. I know it sounds stupid but because my case has a hudge window and looks like an aquarium with all the lights in it, I try to find the balance between performances and aesthetic.)

Sorry David, didnt see the reply, a bit busy these days...4.48 is with looser 8-8-8-24 timings but HT=on for photoshop and 3DsMax, not only is this good but its also packing all dims full Yes, they are Black Nochtua's NF-P14 from a freind who owns the very best PC cooling and modding store on the planet (FrozenCPU) and we have a great time just trying stuff out...As far as mounting goes, I make custom wire clips that fit all fan sizes all the way to 55mm thick and then test for best noise/performance combo, CFM ratings dont mean squat and are usless as they change drasticly form design to design when mounted up against the cooler and the resulting pressure changes the numbers and db figures.Cheers!

It cost $6,500.0+ to buy an IBM 455 Thinkpad in (about) 1995. I had it upgraded to 20 MB? RAM at the cost of several hundred dollars. How much money would those inflation/investment appreciation adjusted bucks be worth today in purchasing power

<Set flag( TechRamble, ON )>I paid like $3K for an PC AT (a 286 CPU for you noobs!) from "AST" a looong time ago with a full 1 MBy of RAM and an extra "math coprocessor" 80287, that I updated later that year to 2 MBy by adding another 1 MBy for $800 ($200 for the ISA board to sport the RAM and $600 for the RAM itself, while the RAM came in 36 individual chips in 4 very nice anti-static plastic "sticks" with 9 chips per stick). It sported a whopping 64 MBy "Winchester Drive" (what a HDD was called back then) with a "stunning" 65 mSec average seek, but it had to be partitioned because the operating system (DOS v. 2.0) was not able to address more than 42 MBy per drive.And this was only 25 years ago...Think what your PC will be like 25 years from today, running MS FSXXXII (at a new FS every 2 years, FS10 + 25/2 = FS32!) with a 3D VC cockpit image at 50K x 50K px projected straight into your... retina at a smooth 120 FPS with photo-real scenery at 7 cm the World over off your 2 EBy (Exa By) flash SSD, all thanks to 128-core hybrid-optical CPUs running at 10 THz (Tera Hz) and 100KCore GPUs, thanks to silicon photonics and polaritonics. Intel's upcoming Lightpeak 10 GBit/Sec universal interface is but a mere "peek" into what the future holds.<Set flag( TechRamble, OFF )>Isn't it amazing how many resources are devoted to developing PCs just for us so we can move from one version of MSFS to the next? :-)Cheers,- jahman.

Don't do that David this is a great spectator sport and there are many potential players in the wings including myself.

Ditto!

Don't do that David this is a great spectator sport and there are many potential players in the wings including myself.

Hello,We all have heard of the little boy who cried wolf once too often and Chicken Little's "The sky is falling!" Therefore I don't want to risk writing anything hasty or imprudent to my friends and colleagues who only know me by the value of my word. Late last night I installed FSX and Acceleration, took a flight around Seattle, shut it off and slept on it. There was no way I was going to jump into the forums and gush and go on about Sandy Bridge. This morning I added highmemfix=1, modified the shift Z counter and disabled the warning systems in the FSX config file, without adding or changing any other tweaks or improvements. I loaded up the default Baron and took a flight around the default SEATAC airport and Seattle with all sliders full right 100%, full traffic, water back a single notch, auto, airport ground vehicals and boats and ships at 25%.That being said about due reticence, let me give you my first FSX impressions with Sandy Bridge's i7 2600K on a ASUS P8P67 MB with Mushkin 1600 MHz RAM at 6-8-6-24, 580 GTX@900MHz, and an SSD each for the OS and FSX. I had not yet manually touched my bios to change anything except to push a button for extreme overclock. So on stock settings without a single manual bios tweak Sandy Bridge chose for itself 4.6 GHz at board controlled voltage which I saw on cpuz top 1.32v or so, temperatures at around 50c but no more.I wanted to be sure of what I experienced so I repeated the same flights several times with the system rock steady at 4.6GHz with hypertreading on. Remarkaby FSX ran like a different program, still ugly in default dress, but fast smooth and steady. After several runs carefully measuring the results the average level of framerates were 31 minimum, 56 average and 68 high. Even though my i7-930 racehorse was, I think anyhow, one of the fastest in it's breed, this Sandy Bridge is at a whole new previously unattainable level.Mind you not a single addon is installed yet, and who knows what bugs lie in wait to jump in and ruin the party, I have got to say that my first strong impression, not judgment, but initial experience is very favourable, above my expectations and hopes. After all the addons are added on and the CPU is massaged upward or over 5.g (It posted 4.8 at 1.32 volts with hypertreading on, so I don't think it will be a problem) we will get a more complete picture and accurate account. But for now, for certain, this is a huge upgrade from the quad i7-9xx.Please forgive me for this statement being based more on unaudited opinion than objective findings established by accurate comparative analysis. That will come in due course from a lot of us, but I felt that it would be helpful to affirm what others have reported, that there is a substantial and decisive improvement with FSX with Sandy Bridge beyond anything else we have commonly seen, and then some. There must be a lot more at play here than just increased speed, the very nature of how this CPU thinks seems to be in FSX's favour. Is it perfect yet? Well, perhaps not, but it sure seems to be exactly that for the moment.Kind regards,

Stephen,Thank you very much for your prudent but enthusiastic and informal first review.That sounds very promising but as you say we'll see how Sandy deals with complex addons.Im' sure we won't be disapointed!I'll build my rig this week-end <_<:--)

Aaaawwww, can't wait for my Sandy :biggrin:Thanks Stephen for the info!

But for now, for certain, this is a huge upgrade from the quad i7-9xx.

Stephen,You had me shaking in my boots for a bit with this initial review as I just ordered the parts for a SB system from Amazon and it is almost the same SB system as yours. I am getting the Crucial 256GB SSD which I plan to put everything on except for some scenery and the HAF X case. I figure if this is a huge upgrade for you, my upgrade from the Conroe chipset is going to be fantastic and I can't wait to get the parts and get the system up and running. I think it's awesome you are getting the CPU up near the 5GHz range. I look forward to your future input.Best regards,Jim

Thanks for the update Stephen, and glad that your system is up an running. Newegg processed my RMA quickly and shipped my new board out, so hopefully if all goes well this time around I'll be able to enjoy the SB experience as well early next week. I've enjoyed reading up on everyones experiences, it's made a long week bearable. I never realized how much I rely on my desktop! Matt

SpiritFlyer,I just ordered my SB and assorted parts. This will be my first self build computer, but I'm confident I can do it. Do you know of any guides. IE, do this before this?