Want to make an upgrade to i7

ciaron454

ciaron454

ciaron454

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Hi guys, so basicly i want to upgrade my computer to an i7 rig but dont have a lot of money sadly, so i was wondering what can i scavenge from what i currently have and to what i should get.

Current Rig

Q6600 Intel Quad Core 2.4Ghz
4GB of DDR2 800Mhz RAM
74GB Western Digital 10,000 RPM Raptor
500GB Samsung Spinpoint F1 7200RPM
74GB 7200RPM Branded drive (unsure on what brand it is exactly :P)
Gigabyte GA-VM72-S2 Motherboard (Most likely got the name wrong, box is in the loft so i cant check right now)
Samsung 20x Lightscribe DVDRW
Antec 300 Case
1 x 140MM Antec tricool fan, 2x Lian li 120mm fans and 2x 80mm fans
Corsair 650w PSU
ATi 4850 512mb Powercolor
Artic cooling freezer pro 7

And so basicly, i want to upgrade to a DDR3 / i7 rig as my current one is starting to struggle a bit, admitedly i do use a lot of stuff simultaniously on it.

What upgrades i do want to be able to do

I want to eventually be able to crossfire when i do get enough cash (or SLI if you think i need to change my card) and get a decent sound card too.

And so to recap, what parts should i swap for new parts and which ones. Also what do you think i can sell the replaced pieces for?

Thank you for reading my post and i hope you can help

Edit: I use Windows home premium 64bit :D

Edit 2: i wouldnt mind switching to AMD and same with swapping ATi graphics with nVidia
 
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you basicly just need a mobo, i7 cpu, cpu cooler, DDR3 RAM and if you want to crossfire another hd4850

the rest can be salvaged and kept :)
Hooray
 
ciaron454 said:
And so to recap, what parts should i swap for new parts and which ones. Also what do you think i can sell the replaced pieces for?
Click to expand...
CPU, RAM & mobo. Not sure about prices but you could try listing here & or checking auction sites.

An AMD Phenom II upgrade is feasible & might be cheaper. You could opt to keep your current DDR2 RAM to keep costs down...
  • AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 940 Black Edition 3.0GHz (Socket AM2+) - Retail + Battleforge Game £147.82
  • Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4 AMD 790X (Socket AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £83.99
  • Sub Total : £231.81
  • Shipping : £9.50
  • VAT : £36.20
  • Total : £277.51
or go DDR3...
  • AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 810 2.6GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £135.99
  • Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £99.99
  • OCZ Platinum AM3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Dual Channel (OCZ3P1333LVAM4GK) £41.73
  • Sub Total : £277.71
  • Shipping : £9.50
  • VAT : £43.08
  • Total : £330.29
If the system is for gaming, swap CPU(s) for the X3 720 which is as good & even faster in some games.

Keep the 4850 & get another one later for Crossfire.
 
ahh well there you go a man that knows his prices and specs, i don't usually do specs but there you go lol :)
 
Yes this is for gaming and a lot of stuff which falls under the "general" category

As a price range? i dont have one as im currently out of work (damn recession) but im sure i can get a few £ together, maybe 100-200 and i guess i can add the sale price of what bits im replacing get sold for.

Also thanks HP7909 for the suggestions ill take a look

Any others guys?
 
Agreed with the assesment by SAS. Here is a spec based on it:

565i7upgrade.jpg


That is a low budget, but extremely capable i7 upgrade. If you have the extra £60 - the Gigabyte UD5 is a very nice board, but in terms of shear performance the one I specced should be perfectly fine. Also, I added a second 4850, if you don't need the extra graphics power then please ignore this.
 
team effort andi :) lol

basicly the same stuff i would think of going for maybe different RAM, but thats just personal choice i suppose
 
Have you overclocked your current system?

If not, investing in a cooler like this and this fan would allow you to hit 3.5GHz. That extra performance would be much cheaper than upgrading to i7 immediately and you would have the best air cooler to transfer over to the i7 when you do eventually upgrade.
 
3.5Ghz from a Q6600 you say? :O

Currently my Q6600 isnt overclocked, but i do have some temps for you, When Idle its around 30c but i left it on full load for an hour once and the highest temp i got was 50c

Do either you or S.A.S have msn so we may discuss this further?

Oh i would also like to add, i dont care about how much noise my machine makes, i want the best performance :P
 
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Those are some good temps- you can hit 3.0GHz on your current cooler i'm betting. What is the exact name of your motherboard? - use cpu-z to find out. Depending what it is - it may limit your overclock before temperatures do.
 
yeah got that already :P

Wasnt far off my guess though, my MB is a Gigabye GA-73VM-S2

Also if you need to know, its the Kentsfield version of the Q6600
 
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is it the G0 stepping?

Edit: actually, I just realised that is an nvidia board - they are pretty annoying to clock. I have seen 3.5Ghz clocks on intel p35/45 board - but I think you will have trouble getting it much past 3.0GHz (which you no doubt found).

Out of interest, what are the situations you find your PC struggles with?
 
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An oveclocked Q6600 won't struggle with much. So personally I'd take the free route and overclock your current chip, rather than dropping hundreds of notes on i7.

Even if you find that when your cpu is overclocked it's still slow (which is very unlikely) then all you've lost by overclocking is time.

That said, if your current board won't overclock your chip to 3.2ghz+ then it may be worth buying a cheap P35/P45 mobo (second hand perhaps) to get a decent clock, that'd still be a better upgrade for the cost then going i7.

ALso, when you say that it's slowed down, how fresh is your Windows install?
 
Ben M said:
ALso, when you say that it's slowed down, how fresh is your Windows install?
Click to expand...

Its not so much slowed down, just starting to struggle a bit with the newer games. I dont know if you play world of warcraft but if you do, in Dalaran my FPS drops from 30-40 yet in games like CSS with max settings at 1240x1024 is 250 and with minimum about 350.

So i just want to upgrade for now as i've been looking for a while and decided to do it (hence the new raptor :P)
 
If its lagging, would it not be more to do with the graphics card? Maybe adding an extra 4850 or simply getting a faster single card would be a plan. I say this because most games (especially WoW) do not need the fastest CPU in the world to run well (never mind a 3GHz q6600).
 
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