Quad or i7 and PSU/General Choices for my upgrade?!

gord · 19 Jun 2009 at 23:00

Ok, so in anticipation of ARMA2. I'm looking to do an upgrade, but I'm not so up to date on all the latest hardware. I've been checking out some reviews and it doesnt look like theres much of a jump going for the i7 over the quad.

Current Spec
E6550 stock
2GB RAM
8800GTS 320MB

Questions:

1. Should I go Quad or i7?
2. Have I missed anything abot i7s I should know?
3. Is the 4890 the best bang per buck card around?
4. Should I go for 4 or 8GB of RAM?
5. Will my Corsair HX520 power the Quad option? Or even the i7 option?
6. Will I see a marked improvement in performance over my current rig?
7. Are SSDs worth it yet for a system drive? Do they increase performance considerably?

Quad Option
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.83GHz 12MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor
XFX ATI Radeon HD 4890 1GB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Kingston HyperX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel (KHX8500D2K2/4G)
Total : £358.88

i7 Option
Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366)
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
XFX ATI Radeon HD 4890 1GB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
OCZ Gold 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel
Total : £583.44

Any help is much appreciated! As always!

karlos103 · 19 Jun 2009 at 23:11

what about the i7 4ghz bundle for £589 i think , all you would need then is a graphics card .

owenbglos · 19 Jun 2009 at 23:13

lots of questions ill try and answer some of them tho lol

1. i7 without doubt if budget allows i upgraded from a e6300 unbelieveable difference buddy
2. not really theyre cool running and gr8 at anything multitasked i play a few games and can encode video and game at the same time and thats impressive
3. imho at the mo yes but depends at what res u game
4. i7 is triple channel so personally i have 6gb of patriot from ocuk and its wicked fast
5. depends on ur card that u take ( if it is a 4890 i cant see why it wouldnt)
6. HELL YES!!!!
7. i bought a vertex its seriouslly quick i put windows 7 x64 on it and it boots my whole system in about 20 seconds so imho it really is a awesome combo

personally that i7 setup is ok mate but dont forget to factor in the cpu cooler u would be killing eityher one of them with stcok cooling

as regards the i7 setup i would go for

i7 920
bgrade gigabyte ga-ex58 - ud3r from ocuk ( see clearance lines is a bargain at £114)
titan ferir cooler
cheapest 4890
patriot 1600mhz ram
comes to about £570

any more help u want or questions let me know

owenbglos · 19 Jun 2009 at 23:15

oh forgot to mention what is ur budget mate?

gord · 20 Jun 2009 at 01:12

Well, I am saving for a Z4 so its generally "as cheap as I can, but without compromising value for money". If I can do a decent upgrade for under £500 then I will. I'm going to read some more i7 comparisons tomorrow and see if they are worth it. Thanks for your input so far.

Mattus · 20 Jun 2009 at 02:51

gord said:
1. Should I go Quad or i7?

Depends. The quad has next to nil upgrade potential, but it also offers similar gaming performance to the i7 for much less money.

2. Have I missed anything abot i7s I should know?

Bear in mind that the i7s do overclock fearsomely well. When you need a bit more power, you can generally get a 50% OC out of the i7 920, which isn't to be sniffed at.

3. Is the 4890 the best bang per buck card around?

I'd say so, yes.

4. Should I go for 4 or 8GB of RAM?

With the quad, 4 will be enough for gaming. With the i7, you'll want triple channel which means 6GB.

5. Will my Corsair HX520 power the Quad option? Or even the i7 option?

It would power either with plenty to spare.

6. Will I see a marked improvement in performance over my current rig?

Gaming: with multicore aware games, yes; with less advanced games, no
General Windows usage: not really
Heavy multitasking or audio/video work: yes, a lot.

7. Are SSDs worth it yet for a system drive? Do they increase performance considerably?

They do make a big difference, but IMHO they're still too expensive to sacrifice the rest of your system for if you're budget-conscious. After all, you're not going to notice much difference when you're actually in the middle of a game.

gord · 20 Jun 2009 at 17:06

That's a great breakdown, thanks Mattus.

Think I'm settled on just doing the Quad upgrade for now. I don't see the i7 boosting performance enough to warrant a new mobo etc. Although it is interesting my PSU could handle it if I wanted it to. Is there somewhere where I can see what new components draw the most power?