As I said, initial reports seem to suggest they clock higher with lower volts, POSSIBLY because the iGPU has been disabled there's less going through the chip (instruction wise) that's speculation on my part but if you do a quick google you'll see they do clock higher at lower volts
Not a lot in it n I don't think anyone would be overly concerned if they went for the other option
But the IGP is used by quicksync. This really does help reduce waiting times when encoding video providing the software can support it. Infact quicksync is much better than cuda so you can't even say by having a dedicated GPU that will get round it.
The 2500K is still a great CPU for OC'ing had the 2550K been much cheaper I would be inclined to agree with you but seeing as it is essentially a duff 2500K.....i'll pass.
If your coming from a console background you can indeed build a rig that could quite happily live next to a HDTV (save the expense of a monitor). If you owned an xbox the pads are compatible with PCs too
I'd consider this a good base to build from.....
YOUR BASKET
1 x
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £175.99
1 x
EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £127.99
1 x
Gigabyte Z68MA-D2H Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 MicroATX Motherboard £104.98
1 x
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £61.99
1 x
Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £52.99
1 x
OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £46.98
1 x
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £31.19
1 x
Sony Optiarc AD-7280S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.98
Total : £713.08 (includes shipping : £12.50).
Case has plenty of fans and cool lil features for a budget case. The extra fans will help with trying to overclock (4ghz let's say) on the retail heatsink.
Mobo can run two GPUs from either AMD or nvidia, the PSU can certainly handle 2 460s or 6850s (ideally you want to be paying much less for the 2nd GPU, second hand possibly).
That 460 can OC to the F.T.W edition clocks, it's nigh on 6870 performance with cuda support added as well. Money permitting you ideally want a 2GB 560ti or 6950 but they are £200 cards....games are beginning to ask more than 1GB of VRAM this will quickly become the norm i expect.
It's worth mentioning that the nexbox is rumoured to be using the 6670 GPU (£50 to us now). Anything we will spec will be much more capable than a console that isn't even released yet if these rumours are true. Your friends just need to get their head round the fact that even if they lower GFX settings on the PC to run games it will still outshine the consoles......after all the xbox and 360 are just "gimped" computers with their own OS (the dashboard) which is meant to make using the "PC" less daunting.
If you look at the preview for windows 8 you can see that MS is trying make mobile/tablet, console and PC a more unified experience.....the metro UI looks very similar on each. I do believe it's even possible to take control of your xbox through the PC with the new OS.
There are many many ways to swing the build depending on budget and what the end user might want from the system.....after all that's the beauty of building your own rig, making it your own. I may have spent more than is strictly speaking necessary on some components but that was to provide upgrade solutions.
Hope this thread helps your friends see the light. Oh and yes i have owned a PS3 and have a couple of 360s. My AMD X2 555BE (it does unlock to an X4) and a EVGA 460 clocked to 900mhz in my HTPC isn't what i'd call a great gaming system but BF3 looks much better on it than the xbox 360.