Small tweeks / upgrades for extra bang?

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Hi,
End of december I'll have my dedicated GFX (finally, still haven't decided on one though), and I'm just wondering if there's any minor upgrades I can make to enhance her gaming performance.
got a thread;
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18355658&page=3

and here's the spec in brief;
i5 25k unlocked
asus p8pz68 gen 3 pro
8gb corsair
800w corsair psu
150 gb HDD

Im thinking at this point maybe an upgrade to 16gb ram? Start of the year I want to get back into gaming proper, its been too long.

Any suggestions appreciated!
Cheers
 
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if there's no real extra buck I won't get the ram then.
I did think about an SSD, but the thing that confuses me is that you get s little space on them. would I be using it to install onto, or just for the xtra headroom?
how exactly will a ssd boost it?
 
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You install your operating system onto the SSD instead of to a hard drive, then install any programs/games you want to be faster onto the SSD too, but then use the hard drive as somewhere to store data and install other programs.

It takes no time at all for anything to boot up, not Windows, not Photoshop, not my programming development tools. I'd say it would take ~3 seconds to boot up Photoshop and Visual Studio at the same time, at the moment I can get to the desktop from cold boot in under 30 seconds, with the majority of that time spent in pre-Windows boot. It is the best upgrade you can do for modern computers!
 
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got a standard corsair h20 cooler and only onboard GFX atm. next month I'll be spunking £200 on dedicated gpu and probably ssd the month after
 
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rly? what so I could o/c more?
I thought my corsair h60 would allow for nearly max o/c?
i built this nearly a year ago and got the 800w for possible sli in future
i did have to buy 2 though cos i blew the first one up on boxing day :)
 
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what frequency is the 2500k running at?
It can be overclocked to 4.5Ghz - 5Ghz on air from what ive read.

I'm not sure tbh. It looks like 3.3 when I check in system settings but that might just be the factory setting showing up - I've run the asus automated o/c. In net stat live it reads 4650.65, but I'm not sure if thats the same thing.
 
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did a few of those tweeks.
win boot time to logon screen before:53 seconds
boot time to desktop:2:16

and after:
53 seconds (no change)
1:53 (23 seconds off)

I'll try some more of them later.

This morning my computer started switching itself off straight after switching on power, which was a problem it showed a while ago but seemed to go away on it's own (not before I'd applied changes).
I think this is something to do with an adjustment I made to the cpu speed in the biios a few days back (changed it from 44 to 45) which I think refers to the cpu frequency
 
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Hi Mate,

Yup, SSD is one of the best upgrades you can do, like chalk and cheese difference in general performance.

I've not really got much experience overclocking your CPU, but typically, spending some time reading so you understand the concepts, then doing manually and incrementally in the bios will typically give you better results. Check out the various guides on this forum, its one of the best places in the world for this sort of information.

E-I
 
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