Oh noes, not another upgrade thread..

[Telsa]

Good evening,

Long long time reader and lurker, first time poster, yady ya

It's time for an upgrade! Current specs are..

Mk1 Phenom Quad 9950BE (Clocked to 2.9ghz)
Asus M2N32-SLI-Premium
4gb Kingston DDR2
2x GeForce 8800GTs (SLI - driving primary 24" Samsung SyncMaster P2450H)
1x Quadro NVS 290 (powering secondary and tertiary Dell 1907s)
Coolermaster Elite case
2x striped 500gb WD Caviar Blacks
Various other storage disks
Scythe Fan Controller (can't remember model - shiny though )
Asus 'Silent-Knight' CPU cooler
Various fans

I guess my main criticism is that it's loud and hot! The Phenom idles at ~47 degrees, and ramps up to 75-85 under load on a hot day. The cards are quite close together (with the little NVS in the middle) making that whole area hot. The 8800's touch over 100 degrees with heavy gaming, and the fans get bitchy noisy (even now, when I'm web-browsing!)

I've been toying with the idea of water-cooling for a while now, as a way of dropping temps and *especially* noise, but I'm guessing it's not really worth it on a system that's getting too far past it's sell-by date in terms of socket-types and technologies. I'm happy to go Intel for the first time of my life (Yes, I know Bulldozer is coming, but that i5 2500k looks like an awesome chip, on a socket-type that's still to receive a new gen of CPUs..)

Rambling over.. My questions (I guess) are..

1. Would a more modern card trash the SLI'ed 8800s? (*sniff* they've done a great job..)

2. Assuming the new build is an i5 2500k, SSD and more modern single-GPU setup, is it worth water-cooling to keep the noise down? Or will I be better off with more expensive air?

3. With a new card, would there be a benefit to keeping one of the 8800s for driving secondary monitors, or perhaps as a PhysX ****?

4. Is it worth any sort of system upgrade to the machine as it stands now (mostly cooling and an SSD I guess) or is it worth starting with more modern socket-types at this stage?

Machine is mostly used for gaming / media / music / couple of small VMs

Thanks in advance guys!

Telsa

 

[olivier renault]

Good evening,

1. Would a more modern card trash the SLI'ed 8800s? (*sniff* they've done a great job..)

Yes, and run cooler, less power, and quieter.

2. Assuming the new build is an i5 2500k, SSD and more modern single-GPU setup, is it worth water-cooling to keep the noise down? Or will I be better off with more expensive air?

I'd go with quiet air. At least it would be cheap (£30-£50) to get something reasonable and quiet. With water, you have to go the whole hog.

3. With a new card, would there be a benefit to keeping one of the 8800s for driving secondary monitors, or perhaps as a PhysX ****?

I wouldn't bother personally. But how much would you get selling the 8800? At least they make a decent backup if your card bites the dust.

4. Is it worth any sort of system upgrade to the machine as it stands now (mostly cooling and an SSD I guess) or is it worth starting with more modern socket-types at this stage?

I would keep some things, like the caviar blacks and the fan controller maybe. But not the rest. The case might do for a while if you are happy with it.

 

[Telsa]

Bump for the evening doods?