Introduction
With Intel's official Core i7 launch coming up within the next few weeks, the time to choose which parts you'll need for your new build is now. Whether or not you "need" an upgrade is going to be something only you can answer, but our in-depth preview from last week should be a good starting point. By the end, you should feel a lot more confident about your decision.
In that article, we mentioned that there would be a few considerations you would have to bear in mind if considering an upgrade, or a brand-new build. One of the more important is memory. In the preview, I mentioned that it's best to upgrade to a memory kit that's designed for X58/Core i7, because previous DDR3 kits may have an issue with the new motherboards.
It didn't take too long before I experienced this first-hand, but I did have a workaround. That was to boot up the machine with a kit I knew would work, manually change the voltages and timings, then swap back. After that, the PC booted fine. It goes without saying that this is not an ideal solution for most people, especially if you only have one DDR3 kit on hand. Nor is it much fun having to tweak every-single timing setting in order to have absolute stability.
If money isn't a huge issue (and assuming you're upgrading to i7, it probably isn't), you may be better off opting for a special kit designed exclusively for the platform. That way, you can avoid any potential headaches, and know that you'll be installing a kit designed with this specific platform in mind.
With Intel's official Core i7 launch coming up within the next few weeks, the time to choose which parts you'll need for your new build is now. Whether or not you "need" an upgrade is going to be something only you can answer, but our in-depth preview from last week should be a good starting point. By the end, you should feel a lot more confident about your decision.
In that article, we mentioned that there would be a few considerations you would have to bear in mind if considering an upgrade, or a brand-new build. One of the more important is memory. In the preview, I mentioned that it's best to upgrade to a memory kit that's designed for X58/Core i7, because previous DDR3 kits may have an issue with the new motherboards.
It didn't take too long before I experienced this first-hand, but I did have a workaround. That was to boot up the machine with a kit I knew would work, manually change the voltages and timings, then swap back. After that, the PC booted fine. It goes without saying that this is not an ideal solution for most people, especially if you only have one DDR3 kit on hand. Nor is it much fun having to tweak every-single timing setting in order to have absolute stability.
If money isn't a huge issue (and assuming you're upgrading to i7, it probably isn't), you may be better off opting for a special kit designed exclusively for the platform. That way, you can avoid any potential headaches, and know that you'll be installing a kit designed with this specific platform in mind.
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