Time for an upgrade, advice needed please.

Mad Professor

Mad Professor

Mad Professor

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Location
Isle Of Wight, UK
My current system is now starting to get on abit, it still copes fine with day to day use, but I have now started working with full HD 1080 videos, doing cad work, and the system does now bog down, so I think it's about time for an upgrade.

I am looking to upgrade to the i7 Sandy Bridge, something like the 2600K.

I know that intel chipset motherboards for the sandy bridge have issues with the SATA-II controller but not the SATA-III, I am looking at only running two hard drives, plus blu-ray combo drive.

Here are my current system details.
XFX 850W PSU.
Intel Quad-Core Q6600 @ 2.4Ghz (Revision G0).
Akasa AK-CCX-4002HP Venom CPU Cooler.
XFX 680i SLI Motherboard, Revision A2, (Latest XFX Bios P33).
2x1GB Corsair CM2X1024-6400C4 DDR2 800Mhz Memory.
XFX nvidia GeForce 9600GSO 384MB.
Seagate ST3200827AS.
Seagate ST3500320AS.
WDC WD15EARS-00Z5B1.
Samsung SH-B083L.
Running Windows 7 Home 64-Bit.


My seagate drives are quite old and slow, so was thinking about replacing them with something like the WDC Black SATA-III Drives, and my current WDC green to be put into my NAS Unit.

Hard drive space it not a big issue as all my saved videos, cad work, ect are all saved to my NAS unit, so 1-2TB drive should be fine.

I am not looking a building or needing a raid array.

I don't need SLI or X-Fire.

So any advice you can give me would be grate.

Thanks for your time.

Best Regards.
 
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I don't really want to start wasting my time and money adding to my current system, I think it would be better spending the money upgrading.

I would like to spend as little cash as possible, I would say £500-600 max, before selling my current parts on.
 
Is this going to be just a gaming pc or will u be video editin?(if your just gaming then u dont need the 2600k the 2500k will do just a good a job) and how much do u have to spend?
 
The new computer will be mostly used for editing HD 1080 videos, 3D Cad work (SolidWorks), and yes some game playing.

I do want to build the new system around the 2600K processor.

Can you please recommend a good motherboard and memory suited for the 2600K processor, and my needs, that can also be easily overclocked if needed.

Thanks for your time.
 
Hmmm, Bit of a struggle to get that i7 processor on that budget.

You can certainly reuse some of your HDDs, case maybe and definitely PSU. This is what I got for you.... just the basics:


Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £230.39
(£191.99) £230.39
(£191.99)
Asus ATI Radeon HD 6850 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card Asus ATI Radeon HD 6850 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £137.99
(£114.99) £137.99
(£114.99)
Gigabyte P67A-UD3 Intel P67 Chipset (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) Gigabyte P67A-UD3 Intel P67 Chipset (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £104.98
(£87.48) £104.98
(£87.48)
G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL ) G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL ) £83.99
(£69.99) £167.98
(£139.98)
Sub Total : £534.44
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £108.79

Total : £652.73

:\ Bit high.
 
Annoyingly OCuk are currently lacking decent value 2x4GB kits, although 8GB might be enough for your needs, you could always try with 8GB and if it doesn't seem like enough, upgrade to 16GB later? That will bring the build suggested by krist to under £600. :)

edit: On the other hand buy 2 kits of this: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-222-OC&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517 and sell them when/if you need to get more than 8GB RAM. They're so cheap atm that when you sell them they'll *probably* still be worth more than £26... That should leave you with enough spare cash to add a hard drive to the build.
 
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Getting an ATi card for Solidworks isnt a great shout. Ive had no end of issues with them co-operating.
 
My computer knowhow is so outdated, eveything has moved on so quick since I built my Q6600, I can no longer tell a good egg from a bad egg.

Memory wise I think your right, best to start off at 8GB and go from there.

I am more an Nvidia guy my self, I am sure I also read somewhere that SolidWorks supports cuda cores.

I now just need to desided on motherboard and ram.

I have no idea if the motherboard and ram that "kristmace" said is good or bad.

I will keep my current video card, and upgrade that once I have upgraded my current system and sold the old parts.

I have only confirmed two parts on my list so far.

Processor - Intel Core i7 2600K.
Motherboard -
Memory -
Hard Drive - WD Caviar Black 1 TB WD1002FAEX.
 
With the saving you get on the OEM 2600K on this weeks deals it is worth going for that and getting a good after market cooler as it will still come out cheaper.

Motherboard wise they are much of a muchness. The 3 Asus, MSI, Gigabyte boards on the P67 chipset in the £105-110 bracket will serve you well. I personally avoid Gigabyte as I have had only bad experiences with all their boards (spanning several generations and chipsets).

Ram wise, just get something compatible with a decent capacity. I have used these DIMMs a few times:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-105-GL&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517
Speed will not affect you much if it all. No need spending much more on faster memory.
 
I was indeed looking at the 2600K OEM, as for cooler, I am hoping that my Akasa AK-CCX-4002HP Venom CPU Cooler will fit.

I have to had problems with Gigabyte in the past with badcaps, but that was a long time ago.

How does the Asus P8P67 Intel P67 sound?
 
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