Newbie wanting to upgrade/overclock

littlescrimbler

littlescrimbler

littlescrimbler

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4 Feb 2010
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104
Hi, i'm a newbie to the overclocking world but have experience in hardware etc and would really like to upgrade the core components of my setup.

I currently have (built in August 2007):

EVGA nForce 680i SLI SKT775 7.1channel audio DDR2 ATX Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3GHz Socket 775 4MB Cache 1333MHz FSB
OCZ 4GB (4x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 Memory NVIDIA SLI Ready CL4 Unbuffered 2.1V
Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATAII 7200RPM 16MB Cache - OEM Caviar Blue
Point Of View 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3 Dual DVI TVO PCI-E Graphics Card (with Thermalright HR-03-PLUS for nVidia 8800GTX)
BFG Ageia PhysX Accelerator
Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Soundcard - Fatal1ty Professional Series
Coolermaster 1000W RealPower Modular PSU - 4x 6pin and 2x 8pin PCI-E, 8x SATA

i built that originally for doing some decent gaming on, but recently my priorities have changed and im looking for an upgrade to suit my new needs. I have a budget of around £800

My activities mainly consist around video editing and encoding (mainly hi-def stuff), watching hi-def video, Playing the odd game here and there, Photoshop, Music production etc. I also store a lot of data across 8 hard drives.

I was therefore thinking that my best bet would be just to replace the mobo/cpu/mem for my needs and possibly a hard drive upgrade. Ideally i would like a mobo with 10 sata ports, but 6 would be sufficient has I have a couple of PCI cards which have two internal sata ports on each -a bit messy but gets the job done.

Would putting my 8800gtx cause any trouble with what i want to do? From what ive gathered video editing etc is cpu intenstive and so im hoping i wont need to upgrade the GPU unless it bottlenecks something that I will be doing a lot of. The card is powerful enough for the games that i want to play.

I was thinking for the hard drives.. putting a couple of 1tb sammy f3's in raid 0 to get a decent capacity system drive as well as improving speed immensley over my current 500gb wd drive. would ssd be worth the extra cash at the moment?

As for the core setup i was thinking of getting either:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-030-OE&groupid=43&catid=339&subcat=

or

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-043-OE&groupid=43&catid=339&subcat=

are these ideal choices for someone new to overclocking? or as somebody quite competent would i be better buying the parts individually and doing it myself?

Also is it worth waiting for the i7 930? ive read its not going to make any difference once they're both overclocked.


thanks for time reading this, any info & advice is grately appreciated!
 
You'd save a fair bit doing it yourself. It's not that hard to overclock, just takes a little time and patience.

The 930 (I think) is 32nm so should run cooler and overclock better than the 920. Other than that it will be the same.

I don't think SSD's would be viable as to get a decent size you need a heavy investment (Could be wrong on this)

Your 8800 will be fine in there.
 
thanks very much for the response and valuable information. I think ill have a go at doing it myself.. worse case scenario is that i dont get the overclock that i want.

i also presume that 6gb of memory will be enough (i suppose i can always add late on) for what im doing, especially with it being so fast compared to my current 800mhz stuff.

i have to agree with you on the ssd's based upon what ive read to date -plus i really cant afford 1 let alone 2 to run in raid 0.

may i ask what would would be the best cooler for an i7? is it worth getting the h50 that ive read so many good things about or would a decent size heatsink & fan do the job. im obviously looking to have this system for at least 3 years, so imainge the lower the temps the better.

i will wait till the 930 is out (at the end of this month, right?) to see what the consensus is on its overclock-ablity compared to the 920, price, and if it def is 32nm (ive heard multiple contradicting views).
 
Welcome to the forum :)

I'll try to answer a few of your questions and pose some for you as well. I'm getting the parts together for a media editing rig myself, but on a lower budget. I already have a i7 rig which I use for gaming and general stuff which would do the media stuff no problem. It's just to keep the media stuff away and seperate and gives me an excuse to buy more bits!!!

i7 is the top end because of the hyperthreading tech which would be an advantage with media editing. But don't rule out AMD Phenom x4's or the older socket 775 Core 2 Quads. You've just have to compare the cost of purchase between each.

Also getting a MB with as many SATA ports as possible to match the CPU. I'm going old tech with a 775 socket MB with a Q6700. The MB is a P5Q Premium, purchased from the MM, which has 10 SATA ports, 4 of which are for RAID.

You say you are competent so do a mix and match and OC it yourself. If your not sure before purchasing your "chosen" parts... ask for a spec check here!

If your brave, go for the 2 x 1TB RAID 0 if you can bear the thought of losing the data in the event of a array failure. 2 smaller drives in RAID 0 may be better option for system speed with data stored to your other drives?

SSD only a option for OS and most used apps at the moment. Bear in mind an allowance for software and OS updates!!

The 8800GTX is more than enough and won't cause any problems.

One for you... which media editing software would you reccommend as "must haves"?

Hope this helps :)
 
If you have trouble getting the OC you want, post on here. Plenty of experience users will jump at the chance to help :) The only thing that will stop you getting your OC is your CPU/Motherboard/Cooling. Everything else we can help with :)

"Best" cooler depends on noise vs performance. Which is more important? The H50 is good though.

6Gb should be plenty (though I'm not entirely familiar with what you're doing and how ram intensive it is.)

Raid 5 may be an option. It gives the performance of raid 0 with the security of raid 1.

The 930 should be out at the end of Feb and like you I've heard so many mixed oppinions on it's process. If it does come out as 32nm then it should be well worth the wait :)
 
firstly.. wow, what a friendly forum! experiences elsewhere normally end up with people shouting me down, saying i shouldnt be buying expensive equipment if i dont know how to OC yet or that my specs are stupid for what i want to do. quite the opposite here.. plenty of friendly and veyr helpful posts that actually make me want to ask more questions! my thanks to both of you Essexraptor and reiyushin. Ive read everything you've said and have taken on board your opinions and ideas.

It's time to be honest now and say whats on my mind...

my current setup as mentioned above has actually stopped working to a degree and ive seen this as an oppotunity to do the upgrade i was aiming to do at the end of this year. however, maybe someone can shed a light on why my current rig has stopped working....

i turn on pc one day (vista 64 installed) and i get a BSOD and again and again. i reseat the RAM and everything seems ok. two weeks later i get a call from my partner saying she cant login to windows, the password isnt working. i come home a week later and remove two sticks of ram from the 2nd and 4th slots. pc boots up first time no problem -everything works, but then i get a sys notification saying that i need to activate my OS.. i may be using an illegal copy etc... strange i think. i decide nows the time to upgrade the OS to win 7 after succesfully running it on my latop (that im using now) for a month. i format the system disk and i try to instal the 64 bit disc version, it gets to the point where everything appears to be installed and i will login for the first time.. i get the logo, the screen fades to black, then nothing... i wait 15 minutes, but realise its not right and shut down, i try 2 more installs -1 installing the 32bit version but no luck. ive also tried rotating the sticks of ram, having some in and some out, different positions etc, but no luck. the system performed an auto memory check on two occasions and foudn no problems... and here i am. i can only assume that my motherboard has some damage and/or the memory is damaged. unfortunately i dont have any spare equipment to figure out whats causing the problems and i dont want to blow money if more than one thing is actually damaged.

i was considering spending £200 replacing the cpu/mobo/ram, but it seems silly if i was saving to spend £800 at the end of the year when i have the money now to do the upgrade.
 
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BSOD normally an indication of system instability or hardware failure. The fact that you fail to complete a full installation of your OS ( I take it you never get to Desktop?) would make me think that as well.

have you tried powering up with just 1 stick of RAM, to test them, at a time?
 
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