Carrying on from my old thread, here.
My current E8400 installed onto an Asus P5Q Pro motherboard with 4GB of ram is starting to what I feel hinder me, in terms of performance. Lack of SATA 3 for my SSD and lack of USB 3 are my biggest issues.
I do tinker with virtual machines and I feel I could benefit from more RAM. 8GB would be much better, in that it would allow me to allocate 2GB for a VM and a GB or two for cache to save hammering the SSD. 16GB would be very nice, but I think the extra 8GB would only end up being used as cache in all honesty. Speaking of memory, I'd like the memory to be nipping due to the use of caching for the SSD.
My GTX 660 is perfectly adequate for my current needs, therefore I'm not buying one for a long time.
My primary concern is over power consumption. My power meter says that my base unit is pulling around 70w at the plug. I fully expect this to fall with a new system - not by much, but I'm hoping to see about 60w at idle. Although a quad core CPU might be nice, I'm concerned about the impact it might have on power consumption.
I'd prefer the new motherboard to be an Asus brand, with USB 3 and onboard gigabit network - this will get rid of my PCIe cards. A single PCI slot is a must for my soundcard - I don't mind being more than one, but I doubt I'll use more than one.
I'd like the motherboard to provide me with the ability to undervolt (yes, UNDER) my CPU just as I have with my E8400. I'm not looking to overclock, just as my E8400 hasn't been overclocked, apart from once to see it's potential.
I'm going to say my budget is, at an absolute maximum, £350. From that budget, I'm looking for a motherboard, CPU, RAM and a cooler.
My current E8400 installed onto an Asus P5Q Pro motherboard with 4GB of ram is starting to what I feel hinder me, in terms of performance. Lack of SATA 3 for my SSD and lack of USB 3 are my biggest issues.
I do tinker with virtual machines and I feel I could benefit from more RAM. 8GB would be much better, in that it would allow me to allocate 2GB for a VM and a GB or two for cache to save hammering the SSD. 16GB would be very nice, but I think the extra 8GB would only end up being used as cache in all honesty. Speaking of memory, I'd like the memory to be nipping due to the use of caching for the SSD.
My GTX 660 is perfectly adequate for my current needs, therefore I'm not buying one for a long time.
My primary concern is over power consumption. My power meter says that my base unit is pulling around 70w at the plug. I fully expect this to fall with a new system - not by much, but I'm hoping to see about 60w at idle. Although a quad core CPU might be nice, I'm concerned about the impact it might have on power consumption.
I'd prefer the new motherboard to be an Asus brand, with USB 3 and onboard gigabit network - this will get rid of my PCIe cards. A single PCI slot is a must for my soundcard - I don't mind being more than one, but I doubt I'll use more than one.
I'd like the motherboard to provide me with the ability to undervolt (yes, UNDER) my CPU just as I have with my E8400. I'm not looking to overclock, just as my E8400 hasn't been overclocked, apart from once to see it's potential.
I'm going to say my budget is, at an absolute maximum, £350. From that budget, I'm looking for a motherboard, CPU, RAM and a cooler.
