Upgrade advice

[lh221]

I'm looking to upgrade from the following spec:

CPU - Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400
MB - Asus P5Q PRO
RAM - OCZ 4gb DD2 1066mhz
GPU - EVGA 9800GTX+
PSU - Coolermaster 620W

to

CPU - Intel i5 2500K
MB - Asus P8P68 PRO
RAM - Corsair Vengeance 8GB PC3-12800C9 1600MHz
GPU - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 1280MB


I have a few decisions that some more opinions might help me on:

1. Do I need to upgrade the PSU from 620W? (system also has 2 WD Caviar Black HDD's and a DVD R/W).

2. Not sure I need the P8P68 PRO as at this point I don't intend to use sli, but the PRO would give the option to in future, for say around £20 difference should I stick with the PRO?

3. Should I consider looking at one of the new Z68 boards? Although I can't see many advantages for the extra cost since I don't have an SSD (and won't until the price comes down on the larger drives).

4. Current CPU cooler is a Sunbeam Core Contact with 120mm fan. There is an adapter available to use this with LGA1156, so this should work with LGA1155 I understand.

Thanks in advance.

 

[KiiYzOo]

if your just gaming I'd go for something like this assuming your budget is £600

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 570 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £259.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £155.99
1 x MSI P67A-GD53 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £109.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £35.99
1 x Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £27.98
Total : £601.94 (includes shipping : £10.00).

 

[lh221]

Thanks for the reply.

Haven't used MSI before but been looking through some reviews and the MSI P67A-GD65 seems to be highly regarded. I've been put off the Asus P8P67 boards after seeing loads of reports of issues with them. There is also the Gigabyte P67A-UD4 I've been considering, but it costs more than the MSI and reviews suggest the MSI is very easy to overclock.

Build isn't gaming specific, will also be running VM's for web/database development when needed (hence the 8gb of RAM), web surfing and working from home via Remote Desktop. So I'm also looking at the power saving features this time, do people use the software from the manufacturer, Asus EPU, Gigabytes DES or MSI DrMOS, and how well do they work in practice?

Also, trying to make a decision between the MSI GeForce GTX 570 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition you suggested and the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 Windforce I'd listed above. Is there any performance gain or advantages from the motherboard and GPU being the same manufacturer?