Potential system upgrades

Hady · 14 Jan 2010 at 14:23

Hey guys, I was hoping some of you techies could cast their expierenced eyes upon my new list of upgrades and answer the almighty will it make a big enough difference question.

I use my rig for gaming mainly and some encoding etc.

I currently Have:
QX9650 OC'ED to 3.5GHZ (Having too much trouble trying to get it stable past this speed)
ASUS STRIKER II EXTREME Motherboard
2x 2GB OCZ PC3-10666 1333MHZ 7-7-7-21 timings *stock* Dual channel
Asus GTX 280 *stock*
10kRPM Raptor HDD

I am thinking about purchasing the following
Intel I7 D0 920 OC'ED to 4.0GHZ
GIGAYTE UD5 Motherboard
3x 2GB G.SKILL PC3-16000 2000MHZ 9-9-9-24 timings Tripple channel
Possible ATI 5970 (as soon as I can get hold of one of these ********).
10KRPM Raptor HDD

I may well possibly stick with the GTX 280 if the performance increase from changing the cpu and ram has given me enough of a boost.

I will be looking forwards to reading what you guys have to say.

Many thanks H.Tagg

Hady · 14 Jan 2010 at 23:46

neo-omega · 14 Jan 2010 at 23:48

Why not get an SSD instead of the 10k rpm drive?

1337z0r · 15 Jan 2010 at 00:05

If you have the cash the i7 platform is a worthy investment and offers tons of power, the sysem you specced is very good although as neo-omega said I would invest in a SSD drive or two of them in RAID 0.

neo-omega · 15 Jan 2010 at 00:20

Because TRIM is not supported in RAID for SSDs currently the degradation is embarrassing! You're much better off with one larger SSD than 2 in raid.

Hady · 15 Jan 2010 at 00:44

I should have mentioned I already own the 10k Raptor its from a previous computer system. Thankyou for the speedy replies.

koooowweeee · 15 Jan 2010 at 09:49

you should be able to get that chip way past that with that board ive got a q9550 at 3.6 and the only thing thats stopping me from getting higher is the heat. so ive ordered a new water kit he he. what cooling have you got now?

bJN · 15 Jan 2010 at 11:25

To answer your question, the difference when encoding and rendering will be very noticable, this is the area that i7 excels in.
In gaming you would see a large improvement if you were to purchase an HD5970, however I don't feel that the cost of those justify them just get (Crossfired HD5850 perhaps? The difference will still be very noticable and two of these should beat the HD5970).

Hady · 15 Jan 2010 at 13:21

koooowweeee said:
you should be able to get that chip way past that with that board ive got a q9550 at 3.6 and the only thing thats stopping me from getting higher is the heat. so ive ordered a new water kit he he. what cooling have you got now?

I am cooling the QX9650 with a Thermalright IFX-14 CPU Cooler my idle temps are as low as 16c idle and 45c load maximum at stock levels. I just dont understand why I cant clock it past 3.5ghz (probably becuase im a total noob at oc'ing).

Which water kit did you order btw?.

Hady · 15 Jan 2010 at 13:23

bJN said:
To answer your question, the difference when encoding and rendering will be very noticable, this is the area that i7 excels in.
In gaming you would see a large improvement if you were to purchase an HD5970, however I don't feel that the cost of those justify them just get (Crossfired HD5850 perhaps? The difference will still be very noticable and two of these should beat the HD5970).

Considering you can purchase x2 5850's for £437 and one 5970 for £530 your suggestion seems like a good idea, I thought that a 5970 was as fast as x2 5870's any idea on that one?.