Recommend me a new system!

alexx

alexx

alexx

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Joined
18 May 2006
Posts
785
My current system has done me well for the past few years but I've got itchy feet and wouldn't mind an upgrade.

I'll probably sell my old system but not sure what it's worth either.

I don't have a budget but I guess I'd like to spend around £500 - the main point is that I'd like to get best value per £1 and not the latest gear, just a worthwhile update on the current system.

Current Spec:

q6600 G0 run at stock
Corsair H30 cooler
P5Q Pro Mobo
8GB OCZ Ram
Corsair PSU (probably keep this)
Asus Xonar DX (probably keep this)
Geforce GTX 260 BFG (probably keep this)

Then I've got a a few 1tb drives but I am interested in a SSD

I run premier, after effects, photoshop and lightroom batches and thats about as intensive as it gets - my current system is decent I just fancy it snappier and usb 3!
 
Is it heavy use on after effect/Photoshop or just light personal use?

You mentioned keeping the PSU, sound card and GPU, which i would do. Are you able to keep the case, or do you need a new one?

You gaming aswell?
Bothered about overclocking?
 
I'll keep the case it's a Akasa Omega so nice and solid.

It's not personal work nope its professional - but realistically my workflow isn't that heavy other than 5 channels of 1080 video - then AE projects are only 30 seconds long or so and the worst case is rendering about 10 layers of psd files.

The only other thing I do is dabble in Cinema 4d which takes the longest to export out of all the above.

Not sure if I keep the cooler? or if the old system is worth putting in a media center case or something similar if all the resell value is pretty much lost on it now?

I'm probably going to run my two 1tb drives in mirror raid (never done this but think its about time to be safer. Also got a esata external 1tb that I'd like plugged in all the time.


Re overclocking - I've never had much luck in the past - not sure if its me or the motherboard as the go 6600 runs cool and is apparently a good combo with the p5q pro but I never seem to get it that stable... haven't tried for a year or so tho.

But ideally yes if I can get more bang for buck I will - does intel speedstep still work with overclocks so its not running on max all the time?
 
what operating system are you running ?

you should be ok with the Corsair H30 if it can handle the 1155 socket, i know the h40 does, not sure on the h30.

as for your old kit, would have thought you should be able to get about £150 miniumum for the cpu/mobo and memory.

unfortunately due to idiots you now need 1,000 posts for access to the members market :(.

edit:

1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £173.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £109.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED316G1600HC11DC) £77.99
Total : £373.37 (includes shipping : £9.50).
 
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Thanks for the suggestion - do you think 16gb of ram is worth it? suprised how cheap it is really!

also I think the h30 has a 1155 plate, I'll have a look - it made a few clicking noises for the past month or so that seem to have stopped again?

Thanks for the suggestion - any idea roughly how much faster this setup will be and will it oc?
 
the corsair coolers do seem to have clicking "issues", seen a few mentions of it on the h60/80's.

might be worth a look in the overclocking/cooling section (http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=7)

didn't include an ssd to start with, wanted to make sure the rest was ok, then see if we could fit a 64 or 128gb into the budget :).

crucial m4 or samsung 128gb will take the total to around £460.

memory wise 16gb is reasonable, could go with 8gb and upgrade at a later date if you would prefer to, personally if the budget is ok i'd go with 16gb.

should be noticeably quicker than your current system, or something isn't working right :D.

will overclock, to what limit is as usual down to the processor, but 4-4.2ghz seems to be a reasonable target from what i've seen.
 
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Sounds good - what about running 2 crucial 64gb ssds in raid0 as I see this is an option from overclockers? is raid0 easy to setup and pretty damn safe or riskier than straight drives?
 
never really seen the point of it tbh, in my experience it tends to give people a false sense of security.
 
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