i5 Spec Check Please

[Broken Arrow]

So my 3.5 year old C2D based system is really showing its age and I want to upgrade to an i5 Sandybridge setup. Will be used for a mixture of gaming (not cutting edge FPS stuff), acting as a media centre for streaming films to my PS3, browsing, some office work, etc. Current spec:

E2180
Abit IP35 Motherboard
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
GeIL 4GB DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4890 1024MB
Samsung SpinPoint T 320GB HD
Corsair HX 520W PSU
Lian-Li PC-7B PLUS II Aluminium Midi-Tower Case
Vista Home Premium

Of that I am only planning on keeping the case, PSU (assuming it will cope) and graphics card (to be upgraded later). Looking for value for money without skimping on quality. Current thinking is:

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor
MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** *WITH FREE MSI GRENADE*
Cooler? Suggestions appreciated. Looking for reasonable cooling potential without being noisy.
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9)
Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003)
Windows 7 Home Premium

Would like to stick to a budget of ~£450-500. I am pretty happy with the spec but my main worry is whether the PSU will need replacing; not planning on running multiple graphics cards but would like enough breathing room to upgrade to a modern mid-range card in the next few months.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Plec]

Cooler? Suggestions appreciated. Looking for reasonable cooling potential without being noisy.

The Gelid Tranquillo is a very capable and quiet cooler at £25.

 

[olivier renault]

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £164.99
1 x MSI P67A-GD53 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** *WITH FREE MSI GRENADE* £104.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit £68.40
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £32.99
1 x Antec High Current Gamer 620W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £56.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £29.99
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
Total : £496.93 (includes shipping : £10.50).



About the hard drive, couldn't fit a HD and win 7 with decent components. I figure you can always add a bigger HD later, since you are using a 320 GB at the moment.

PSU will be good enough for any single GPU setup.

 

[Reaper 392]

your PSU should be fine. any mid range graphics card will use less power than what you have so far.

if you have the 1156 socket mountings available for your current cooler then i would advise staying with that, because 1155 and 1156 sockets share the same mounting equipment. you may need some more thermal paste if you do this. i would recommend arctic cooling MX-4, which can be found from a famous rainforest for £3.95
if not then go for the gelid tranquillo

if your DVD drive uses an IDE cable (massive ribbon cable) then you will need a replacement SATA drive, because

for the motherboard i would go with the Asus P8P67 LE because it has similar specs, but its cheaper.


for graphics cards, the lowest you could sensibly go is the GTX460, ati 5850 or ATI 6870. anything lower than that will be a downgrade

 

[Jony27]

out of topic but want to ask a question to olivier.
what font and size do you use for chrome, because i want totry out that cart viewer, but my chromes font seems to be blured, my res is 1600x900 if that helps.

 

[olivier renault]

just the regular stuff. Times New Roman, 100%, medium. Same thing on the laptop.

 

[Broken Arrow]

Thanks for the advice guys, will have a think about what has been said. Definitely grabbing the Tranquillo for cooling.

 

[Broken Arrow]

Ok so after listening to the feedback I think I am going to go for:

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor
Asus P8P67 LE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** *LOWEST UK PRICE*
Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366)
Arctic Cooling MX-4 Thermal Compound (4g)
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9)
Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003)
Sony Optiarc AD-7260S 24x DVD±RW SATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599)

And stick with my existing PSU/gfx card/case. Thanks for the help guys.


EDIT: Sorry, one final question - would it be worth me getting the 8GB Kingston RAM deal for future proofing?