Is this upgrade worth it?

kronos_100 · 23 Jun 2009 at 09:06

Hi, I’m currently looking to upgrade my system a wee bit £300-450 budget. The main reason being slight instability (freezes every so often) the main culprit is my striker extreme II and OCZ memory.
Also recently I’ve been looking at overclocking the system but I’m finding it difficult to get it stable (it’s not even stable at set timings).

So my remedy is:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650
Corsair XMS3 DHX 4GB DDR3 1600C9DHX
and maybe Coolermaster V10 (not sure if it will fit over the Corsairs)

So guys what’s your opinion?
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Current spec:
Intel X6800
Striker II extreme
4GB OCZ DDR3 PC3-12800 Platinum EB XTC (7-6-6) Dual Channel kit
XFX GeForce 8800 Ultra
Western Digital Raptor X 150GB HDD
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 750GB
Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II
720W Enermax Infinity EIN720AWT
LG L246WP-BN 24-inch
Zalman GT1000 Z-Machine

JonJ678 · 23 Jun 2009 at 10:03

How confident are you that its the motherboard & ram combination that's the problem? Freezes doesn't sound right for this, does it pass memtest and intel burn test at stock settings?

The coolermaster V10 is not worth looking at. Thermalright TRUE, noctua, fenrir titan are the current favorites and all are better than the V10.

The asus - ocz bad reputation doesn't seem to be very well founded anymore. I've certainly had no problems at all with three sets of ocz and two asus motherboards

kronos_100 · 23 Jun 2009 at 10:42

The striker II has had quite a lot of lockup/freeze problems since it was released, a lot of it is down to memory problems (just look at the asus forum). I totally agree that the Asus-OCZ things isn’t a major problem anymore but with the Striker II it seems to be.

The memory won’t run at stock timings so I’ve had to loosen them a little to get them running at all. Also increasing the mem voltage even a little stops the system from booting. These are my second set of modules and I’ve tested them with memtest and they come up clear. Looking at other forums there seems to be a lot of people having the same probs with this board and it goes away when they swop the memory (usually to Corsers).

Cheers for the CPU fan advice, I currently have a Zalman but when overclocking the temp is getting to 70...eek

JonJ678 · 23 Jun 2009 at 11:17

Ah. In that case, yes, I agree fully. I'm not familiar with your particular board, as I tend to stick with intel chipsets. P45 is my current favourite. On the bright side, that's still quite nice ocz and should have a reasonable resale value.

I've only heard good things about corsair ram for compatibility, every time I buy new I intend to go with them. The ocz aftersales support is keeping me loyal so far, but it would not do so if their ram didn't work with my board.

Zalman seem to have fallen in the leaderboards somewhat of late. The one I recommend most is the Thermalright true, especially if you're willing to lap it. Combined with a good fan it's more expensive than most, but very good. It's beaten by wood water cooling, and occasionally a review shows some exciting new cooler just beating it.

Until recently I used it with a q9550, temperatures were around 60 at 1.3625 V. Frustrating to hit a limit on what voltage I'm prepared to give it before I hit temperature issues, but says good things about the cooler. It also ran a 3.6ghz dual core passively at under 70. Mine is lapped.