Current Rig Becoming Unstable - Upgrade Bug Has Me

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Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2008
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So, about 2 and a half years ago I ordered myself a nice little bundle from the good chaps here at OCUK, hardware was along the lines of

Intel Core i7 920 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) @ 3.6Ghz
Biostar T-Power X58
6GB OCZ Reaper PC 1500 (1866Mhz) DDR3
Corsair TX 850W ATX2.2 SLI Compliant Power Supply
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB SATA-II 32MB Cache
LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive - Retail

Its seen some upgrades in that time, I've thrown a cheapo Samsung SSD at it as an O/S drive, the graphics card has been swapped for a much more awesome 5970, the case has been changed to a Corsair 800D, and I have upgraded the cooler to one of the Corsair H80 jobbies, however the upgrade bug has bitten me again.

The current rig has become a little unreliable, its a bit tempremental as to whether it decides to POST or not, and sometimes the USB ports just decide not to work. I figure its done 2 and a half years of basically being on constantly, which is longer than any of my PC's have ever lasted since something like 1996, so I'm not too gutted, and I figure I'm due a new present.

I'm looking at going for one of the Sandybridge OC'd bundles, as I'm a lazy sod. I was also considering throwing one of the Revodrives in there as a gaming drive, however I am dubious about this as there is currently no TRIM support for them... So, I'm throwing myself out there for you my techy friends, imagine a budget of £1000 for

Motherboard, CPU, RAM
Top end SSD
2 TB Storage Drive
and probably new PSU.

All advice greatly appreciated.

Cheers
 
So I've been having a little tinker, and I've got the following items stashed in my basket at present

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE TrackMania 2 Canyon PC Game
Asrock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
Corsair Hydro H100 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/LGA2011/AM2/AM3)
Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-15000C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1866C9)
Corsair Professional Series AX850 High Performance 850W Modular '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply (CMPSU-850AXUK)
OCZ RevoDrive3 120GB PCI-E SSD - (RVD3-FHPX4-120G)

Really unsure about the RevoDrive at the moment, the rig will mainly be used for gaming (at 2560x1440) HD Video Encoding, and HD Video playback.

Opinions please?
 
any reason you dont just plonk for a new mobo ?

as for your spec, go for the 2500K unless you do a lot of video editing to make use of the ht on the 2600K.

cooler wise have a look at the antec kuhler 620.

have a look at the cheaper corsair 8gb no need for the dearer stuff.

mobo wise have a look at the extreme 4 gen 3.

ssd wise have a look at the crucial m4 128gb.
 
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The new cooler is really a waste if you already have the H80, unless you want to overclock yourself and aim for 4.8GHz+ then you really won't get much extra benefit from upgrading (even then the H80 will do the job just fine). Also as mp mentioned there's not much benefit from going for the higher spec RAM, Sandy Bridge just doesn't see much of a performance boost from it.
 
Thanks for the advice so far guys, the main reason I don't just want to plump for a new mobile is that I want some new toys to play with I think. I plan on using the spares I gain from taking the old one apart to build my mum a new PC, she is using something about 10 years old at the moment and it really is about to melt.

I'm looking at 2600K over a 2500K mainly because of the HD video encoding I do, and also because everything that I have read so far leads me to believe that the 2600K is in general a better overclocker than the 2500K. In an ideal world I'm going to be looking to push the 4.8-5 Ghz barrier, thus the premium motherboard and considering a better cooler.

From what you guys have said I'll drop plans for the H100 for now, I think the H80 will do the trick, especially as I have upgraded the fans on it. I take it nobody is really sold on the RevoDrives for now then? I could make a sizeable saving by swapping one of those out for a Crucial M4.

Any other suggestions? Cheers.
 
 
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