Thinking of an upgrade

smohieddin · 28 Jul 2010 at 18:49

Simple and straight forward: I want to upgrade my computer but not sure what to spend the money on. I've been thinking it over for a few days now and gotten nowhere.

My current specs are:
Intel Core2Quad Q9450
XFX 780i SLI
Geforce GTX 470 (I bought this about a month ago, so won't be upgrading it)
4x 2GB PC6400 OCZ Reaper HPC
Gigabyte ODIN Pro 800W
Thermaltake Armour VA800 case
Basically, I have a maximum budget of £300-400 (although would like to limit my spending as much as possible). I've mulled over a complete overhaul and going to Intel i5/i7 (or AMD Phenom) but just can't decide.

Everything is almost 2 years old except the graphics card (above) and the powersupply which I bought about a year ago.

I've thought about sticking with my socket 775 and maybe upgrading the RAM to DDR3 (I have an ASUS Striker Extreme II in another machine) and getting an Intel Extreme, but everytime I go to pay for these, I think to myself that I'm paying for older hardware and stop.

So what do you guys think?

pastymuncher · 28 Jul 2010 at 18:55

Hi and welcome to the forums.

Is your quad overclocked at all? If not get a decent cooler (if you don't already have one) and overclocking it will get you a nice boost. Apart from that you have a very good rig. I really would'nt go with either of Intels current sockets as 1156 (i3/i5) will be dead later in the year when Sandybridge comes out, followed by 1366 (i7) next year. A move to AMD would be no more than a sidestep.

stulid · 28 Jul 2010 at 18:57

its still very good that system, changing to DDR3 wont get you much performance increase, but on the other hand will mean you got some sticks of DDR3 for a future cpu/motherboard upgrade.

how about getting a 64gb SSD, and waiting till your pc actually gets rubbish, which will be a long time away.

welshdragon · 28 Jul 2010 at 19:00

Current system looks very good. Why the urge to upgrade? Just because or is your pc not doing somethign as well as you'd like it to?

smohieddin · 28 Jul 2010 at 19:26

Thanks for the replies guys.

My processor was overclocked to around 3.3GHz on a Thermaltake Big Water 760i. I've since removed this (it wasn't as quiet as I would have liked, I think the fan was starting to go) and the overclock and am running off Intel's stock cooler.

The reason I want an upgrade is down to a few little things:
*I've run out of SATA ports,
*One of my USB ports has died,
*I noticed some slow down when I was installing my Steam backups a few weeks ago
*I was getting some random BSODs, although they seem to have stopped now that I removed the overclock. Even the slightest OC seems to cause a BSOD :/

But mostly I've been running off the same machine for a while, and fancied a bit of a change.

@stulid: I didn't think of upgrading to SSD... I might look into that or maybe get a couple of the new Raptors.

[WU-TANG]GZA · 28 Jul 2010 at 19:36

Intel 80GB x25m SSD - get it mate - you will LOVE IT. I think it's on offer atm with OcUK as well around £150-160?? I paid like around £190 for mine a while back but easily the best upgrade to ANY system. Get one now - you won't regret it.

Cycrow · 28 Jul 2010 at 20:38

tbh, if you wanted an improvement, then mostl ikly u'll need to go for something like an i7 and i dont think ur budget would cover that, as it would mean new mobo, cpu and ddr3.

one thing u might want to consider, is to reinstall the OS, might see some improvements and some more stability.

for SATA ports, if you need more, there are af ew options, reduce the amount of drives you have by getting bigger drives, ie a 2gb instead of 2x1gb. althou u've not mentioned what drives u have.

u could also get a seperate sata controller to add additional ports.

i think the best upgrade would be an SSD, save the rest of the money, and when u have abit more, upgrade to sandybridge when its out

smohieddin · 28 Jul 2010 at 22:57

I have 2x 1.5TB and a 2TB Western Digital Drive and 2x 320GB Samsung drives. I did think of buying a SATA controller, but can't find one with enough ports. I've got loads of spare drives in USB enclosures, but it's a massive pain having to plug them in/out etc. Especially with only 7 working USB ports.

I think SSD and a SATA controller will be the way to go for now and I'll save the rest of the money and look to go Sandybridge when it's out.

Thanks guys :]