Just some P55/i5 questions

[Miek]

On all the P55 boards I've looked at, it only says "Northbridge: P55." What southbridge does the P55 use?

 

Here's something right out of a review on Newegg of the i5-760 I will be purchasing: "...Had to bump up the PCH voltage from 1.05 -> 1.078v to get it stable..."

- What is PCH voltage? And is that likely more of a MOBO issue than the CPU?

 

I read that people have had problems trying to get Windows to install while Turbo is enabled, but have gotten it to install successfully with it disabled. Does anyone here have experience with this?

 

 

This will be my first build and needless to say, I'm a little nervous that I'll screw something up. I don't know why, but I am wary of Intel's Turbo Boost for some reason, maybe because it adjusts the speed of the CPU on the fly and it varies instead of being "locked in" to one speed until the user changes it.

Edited July 28, 2010 by Miek

[l1o2l]

What motherboard are you pairing with the i5?

 

PCH is the voltage of the P55 chipset. And southbridges vary between motherboards.

 

There shouldn't be a problem. It should be just plug and play (or install for your case). If there are any problems, post them on this forum and we'll try to get them solved.

 

Bumping up voltages is probably for overclocking. Don't worry. Just be careful and use an anti-static wristband. For Intel Turbo Boost, it just bumps up the frequency of a core to enhance single thread performance. And don't worry, on all modern CPUs there are thermal protection circuits to prevent you from killing your CPU.

[Miek]

For the board, I'll use an MSI P55-GD80.

[l1o2l]

MSI P55-GD80. Damn that's a pretty solid board you chose. What are you planning to run on that? If crossfire, I would go with X58. Otherwise those 3 PCI-E lanes are a waste. Each lane only gets x8, x8, x4 respectively.

[Miek]

I'll probably just be using a single GTX460. I don't really need a multi-GPU setup and this I don't really need a dual 16x link. A single slot at 16x is fine for me.

[l1o2l]

Well, running one GTX 470 will run @ 16x on that motherboard. Hey, if you plan on adding an additional graphics card and have some extra $ (), go for X58 build. (And overclock). Well, its 3 AM...here on the west coast, I'm off to bed.

[Miek]

I *could* do an X58 build, but it'd be a total waste. I only plan on using one video card and I would never be able to fully take advantage of hyperthreading.