New System for Windows 7

Mikey · 21 Sep 2009 at 17:03

Looking at giving my system an upgrade, but not wanting to break the bank.

Currently running:
Intel Q6600 (original one)
4GB RAM
Nvidia 9800GT
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS-3 V1
SATA drives / DVD-RW
Noctua HSF
Antec 300 case.
Vista x64 (Windows 7 RC x64 at the mo)

I'm starting to looking at these i5/i7 machines and not sure what's the best route.

I play GTA a little bit and do a bit of VMWare etc.

Wondering about an SLI motherboard and then getting another 9800GT 2nd hand.

Windows 7 Pro x64 on order.

Budget I reckon is circa £300-£400

DIABLO · 21 Sep 2009 at 17:16

You still have a pretty powerful machine the only i would think of changing on that budget is the graphics card maybe a new harddrive if you bought your current drive at the same time as your cpu etc. Do you overclock the cpu?

UKDTweak · 21 Sep 2009 at 17:21

For the money, and considering the fairly high spec you already have, I would agree with DIABLO, spend the dosh on a new VGA card and maybe an SSD for windows to live on.

If your not already, OC that Q6600, should be good for 3ghz easily

Mikey · 21 Sep 2009 at 17:29

UKDTweak said:
For the money, and considering the fairly high spec you already have, I would agree with DIABLO, spend the dosh on a new VGA card and maybe an SSD for windows to live on.

If your not already, OC that Q6600, should be good for 3ghz easily

Haven't o/c the q6600 as it never was cool enough. I was going to get another 4gb ram, but thought with the new DDR3 it wouldn't be a good move.

Mikey · 21 Sep 2009 at 17:32

I also want to look at raid 0 again, but my current board doesn't do it well

UKDTweak · 21 Sep 2009 at 17:36

Well if your still on the standard Intel cooler, then spend a few £ on a better cooler such as:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-017-AR&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

This should be enough for 3ghz
or

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-000-XG&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

I use this and got my Q6600 to 3.6ghz

Mikey · 21 Sep 2009 at 17:37

Got a noctua at the mo.

dr4g0nf1y · 21 Sep 2009 at 17:41

or

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-015-ZA <---- very under rated

edit: sorry you hadn't posted when I looked lol

DIABLO · 21 Sep 2009 at 17:44

You got a noctua heatsink yet you're at stock speeds? If i was you i would investigate why your cpu runs to hot with a noctua cooler for you to overclock.

Mikey · 21 Sep 2009 at 17:45

I'll look into clocking it again, but didn't have good results last time (Xmas 08)

Mikey · 21 Sep 2009 at 17:46

DIABLO said:
You got a noctua heatsink yet you're at stock speeds? If i was you i would investigate why your cpu runs to hot with a noctua cooler for you to overclock.

Hotter than I wanted, but far cooler than my Arctic 7 HSF

I'll look into it again

Not running any temp software with Windows 7 atm

I used to be ok with overclocking, but spend more time with proliant servers to bother at home etc.

Mikey · 21 Sep 2009 at 18:39

After seeing the shift demo, that may make me change anyway!

Mikey · 20 Oct 2009 at 11:01

What would be a bigger upgrade, a move to the I5 or an SLI based system?

Still toying with the upgrade idea and although I don't normally do finance, the 0% at OCUK is tempting..

I could easily spend £700 that route!