Upgrade Advice!

Dynix

Dynix

Dynix

Hitman
Soldato
Joined
25 Feb 2004
Posts
2,837
Hi there,

Currently wanting to upgrade to make things run a bit smoother / snappier. Current specs are as follows:

CPU: E6600
Motherboard: Gigabyte P35C-DS3R
RAM: 4GB (2*2GB) Corsair PC2-6400
Main HDD: Western Digital 320GB 7.2k RPM
Graphics: 8800GTX
Monitor: 22" Samsung

I was considering just upgrading the CPU (to a Q550) and my main/boot HDD (to a VelociRaptor). I believe doing this would mean I wouldn't have to upgrade the motherboard as I'm sure this one supports Core2Quad (I'll get checking that momentarily).

However, the new i7 CPUs are looking nice and the 920 is infact cheaper than the Q9550 - but would require a new motherboard and RAM.

What would be the ideal route to take? Would the Q9550/VelociRaptor give me the extra 'boost' I'm looking for (as said, just wanting things a bit more smoother/snappier), or would it be worth upgrading to i7 for future proofing and give me the extra 'boost' also?

Cheers
 
Just get the CPU, dont think the HDD will make that much difference
If you went i7 it would cost you a fortune, DDR3 RAM is expensive at moment, as are the MB's, It'd prob cost you at least 4x as much to upgrade to an i7 system rather than just upgrading your CPU, and you would prob be lucky to get more than 20% performance increase
 
Cheers for the input guys.

I did consider OC'ing the E6600, but ideally I just want to jump to a Quad Core then consider OC'ing that.

Also, the i7 prices when including motherboard/RAM/etc did make me think twice. I think it'd end up costing me around £600+ just for those three components so I'll no doubt wait for i7 to drop for now.

I did consider SSD, but I was holding off until the new 250mb read/write ones come out (which I believe is shortly after the new year). Until then, I want a quicker HDD and the VelociRaptor seems to be one of the fastest at the moment.

Say I go for the Q9550. Which cooler should I combine it with? I'm not too keen on stock coolers.

Cheers!
 
I compared the i7 with a q9550 setup and went for the later, much more bang for the buck at the moment and I am delighted with the performance, imo i7 rigs are way too expencive for what you get right now especially when you have to upgrade ram, mobo and cpu,
 
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