due and upgrade courtesy of the taxman

nicnac1 · 15 Apr 2009 at 11:32

Mr taxman has very kindly decided to refund me £290 today

not entirely sure why but certainly not complaining!!

I run the following system, can anybody recommend any upgrades for that sort of amount?

Abit ip35 pro M/B
Q6600 @ 3.3
tuniq tower
4gigs ocz nvidia ram
Zotac geforce 260
Hitachi 300G hard drive
Vista 32

it runs pretty sweet at the moment but i know there's always room for improvement

Many thanks for any help

racerboy59 · 15 Apr 2009 at 11:34

What do you use it for?
And what monitor have you got?

nicnac1 · 15 Apr 2009 at 11:55

I use it for the usual games, COD4 and 5, Crysis etc. however I'm actually a training pilot so i tend to use it for Flight simulator X which is fairly CPU dependent.
I run a 23" Samsung monitor which is fine for my needs.

Kennysevenfold · 15 Apr 2009 at 12:22

SSD.?

Couldnt sli on that board :/

D D Danneh · 15 Apr 2009 at 12:25

Another HDD? Perhaps an SSD?

Or you could save it for i7?

nicnac1 · 15 Apr 2009 at 12:33

Yeah i was considering another HDD. my Hitachi one is not particularly fast and was pretty cheap. (bought it in a panic lol)
It's also a shame about the SLI unless i got a new MB.
Will a SSD make much of a performance increase?

D D Danneh · 15 Apr 2009 at 12:38

nicnac1 said:
Yeah i was considering another HDD. my Hitachi one is not particularly fast and was pretty cheap. (bought it in a panic lol)
It's also a shame about the SLI unless i got a new MB.
Will a SSD make much of a performance increase?

The SSD will make everything seem "snappier", less waiting for programs to load, faster boot times etc.

With £290 you could buy a Samsung F1 Spinpoint 1TB and an OCZ Vertex 60GB SSD with some left over.

Kennysevenfold · 15 Apr 2009 at 12:41

Product Name Qty Price Line Total

Crucial 64GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (CT64GBFAA0) £143.74
(£124.99) £143.74
(£124.99)

Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103UJ) £73.99
(£64.34) £73.99
(£64.34) Sub Total : £189.33 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Expresspak Next Day
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £7.75 VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £29.56 Total : £226.64

D D Danneh · 15 Apr 2009 at 12:43

Kennysevenfold said:
snip

Don't the Crucial SSD's use the Jmicron controller? Same as the OCZ Solid Series SSDs? I reckon it'd be worth the extra £30 for a Vertex.

Ducky Spud · 15 Apr 2009 at 12:51

Yea, an SSD would be a good improvement for general system usage.

As for SLI, its about £170 for another 260 like yours is it not? Leaves £120 for a new SLI ready motherboard. Not too sure what you can get for that lol, but a quick scan of OCUK and I found this Asus P5N-D nForce 750i SLi board. Its got mixed reviews, so would probably be better hunting down a better board lol

Sparx · 15 Apr 2009 at 12:52

nicnac1 said:
Will a SSD make much of a performance increase?

A lot.

nicnac1 · 15 Apr 2009 at 13:03

Yeah, I think I'll put off the SLI for a little while.
SSDs are sounding good. So could I install the OS and all programs onto the SSD and leave pictures/music on my old hitachi one?
what do i need to look for in a good SSD?

redeye_uk · 15 Apr 2009 at 13:04

Get a new sound card and some decent 5.1 speakers

Something like this and this

And then you could even get one of the Samsung SSD's too!

Ducky Spud · 15 Apr 2009 at 13:08

Ive been asking recently in the hard drive section of these forums. Was basically advised to go for the OCZ Vertex series. For a little bit extra you could get the 120GB version

D D Danneh said:
Don't the Crucial SSD's use the Jmicron controller? Same as the OCZ Solid Series SSDs? I reckon it'd be worth the extra £30 for a Vertex.

This was mentioned a bit to me, basically the Jmicron controller is rubbish and cant handle the data rate and is all stuttery... thats my interpretation of what Ive read anyway

haha.

Mikeey44 · 15 Apr 2009 at 13:13

you could spend it getting a sick set of tools to make flight sims more realistic!