Upgrade help/advise please

[basktm]

hey guys,

its a long story but had a comp go down about a year ago, had all my files and pictures on from the last 4-5 years, raid 0 problem

Found a company to fix it, its all recovered now but it needs new hard drive/s

anyway this is what i have (its about 6 years old now)


Operating System: Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition UK with SP2 - English
AlienRespawn: Alienware® Respawn Recovery Kit
Chassis: Alienware® P2 Chassis - Saucer Silver
Chassis Upgrades: Alienware® AlienIce™ 3.0 Video Cooling + AlienFX™ System Lighting + Alienware® High-Performance Liquid Cooling
Power Supply: 700 Watt Alienware® Approved Multi-GPU Power Supply
Motherboard: Alienware® Intel® D975XBX Motherboard
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6600 2.40GHz 4MB Cache 1066MHz FSB (clocked to 3.2 i think)
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 4 x 512MB
Video Card: 256MB ATI RADEON™ X1650 XT
Video Optimiser: AlienAdrenaline: Video Performance
System Drive: Extreme Performance - RAID 0 - 1 TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7,200 rpm with 16MB Cache (4x250GB)
Optical Drive One: 18x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
Network Card: Integrated High Performance Intel Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (DSL-ready)
Removable Storage: Alienware® 28-in-1 Digital Media Reader / Writer
Floppy Drive: 1.44 MB Floppy Drive - Black
Speakers: Creative® 5.1 Inspire™ T6100 - UK Power Supply
Game Controllers: Belkin Nostromo™ SpeedPad n52 USB
Game Controllers: Logitech® Force™ 3D Pro
Alienware Extras: Exclusive AlienGUIse Theme Manager.

so they can fix this for £140 inc data recovery and a 500g hard drive or £190 to inc 1 tb drive but not sure if the speed is worth it ??

he has also suggested a rebuild, which is where i get lost , this would inc

Replacing the above with this

processor: i3 3.1 ghz
new motherboard (upgradable to i7), not sure which model, sorry, but its £95
16gb ddr3 (1052 mhz) ram
60gb solid state hard drive, something like vortex 3 ? i think ??
windows 7 64bit
2tb storage drive or 2x1000gb (1 for staorage, 1 as back up)

all in all this would cost £600 or £630 to upgrade to i5 2.8ghz processor this inc the £90 for file recovery, so £510 for parts and build.

any idea's what this would be like speed wise, never had anything to do with the new i range or solid state hard drives ????

is this worth the money ???

Sorry for the long post, cheers guys

 

[basktm]

thanks for quick reply guys

as for details of the parts, sorry thats all i have at the moment, as for the price on drives, just checked and sorry got my figures wrong, should be £140 for 500g or £170 for 1tb.

For usage wise, not a lot really, minor online gaming (minecraft server hosting ??, runescape for the kids) and all i really do is browsing and a bit of video editing and photo editing.

Been told the SSD is the way to go, but would also need to upgrade to win 7 for that, due to maintenance ??

hope this helps

 

[basktm]

thanks again mate, think the extra £30 to upgrade to an I5 is worth it as for the drives, the price they are giving me seems very high, their saying £50 for 500g and £80 for 1tb :O

Just to check the basic prices i'm getting from them is.

motherboard = £85 sorry dont know which one.
I3 3.1ghz = £100 or £130 for I5 2.8
16 g ddr3 Ram £55
1tb drive £80, or £100 for 2x 500g
60g SSD = £130
win 7 £90

are these prices way over ? i also understand they are in business to make money, so i expect to pay a little extra but i wanted to know if it was worth it and how much over the odds will i be paying.

 

[basktm]

thank you again, i will get this checked first thing tomorrow.

Just wondering why the older one seems to be dearer ??

 

[basktm]

16GB of DDR3 for £55 - daylight robbery.

You robbing them that is.

Are you sure about that?

yes mate, thats what the guy quoted me anyway

 

[basktm]

thanks again, will check that price, more than likely me getting it wrong :S

So taking the ram out of the equation, and assuming i cant build this myself, is it worth £540 to have this built ???

 

[basktm]

so what i'm getting from this is if it is the sandybridge I5 2300 then i will or should be getting 1333mhz is this correct.

or maybe should i just stick with my original alienware and get them to stick new drives in ??

I'm so far out of my depth is not funny

 

[basktm]

cheers stulid, loads of help, i will check the details in the morning and get part names.

also another silly question, as you can see above the chassis has liquid cooling, the people also told me i would loose this as its processor compatible only, so would not work with the upgraded parts and their would be no point or need to have anything but air cooled with the new set-up, is this correct ??

its this

Chassis: Alienware® P2 Chassis - Saucer Silver
Chassis Upgrades: Alienware® AlienIce™ 3.0 Video Cooling + AlienFX™ System Lighting + Alienware® High-Performance Liquid Cooling

 

[basktm]

ok, i have some more info for you.

details are,

mobo: gigabyte hag5m (about the best i can afford, limits ram to 1333 but to upgrade would be another £50
ssd: vertex 3 60g
8gb of 1333 mhz Ram
I5 sandybridge
2x 500g drives raid 1

around £540 built and installed, up and running ????

 

[basktm]

yes mate i believe so, i did ask about the boards you mentioned h67/p67, but like i said would bump price up by about £50, but unless their is a massive gain, im not sure i would need to ???

 

[basktm]

No massive gain in performance.

You do get things such as SATA3.0 and USB3.0 with H67 and higher boards which would be useful as you are wanting a SSD.

he did say it had sata 3 and usb 3, i think 6gb/s rings a bell ??

 

[basktm]

Just like to say thanks for the help, ordered the build today, should be ready friday

and on an upside, the guy rang me back and hour or so after to tell me he had a delivery off 1600 DDR 3 and motherboards to suit, so he gave me a free upgrade as the other he was giving me was out of stock till next week.

Dont know how much difference it will make, but surely can only be good

A big thanks to all that helped, esp Stulid i was nervous of the build but now i'm looking forward to the weekend

 

[basktm]

yes mate indeed, any recommendations on card ??

Also took your advise and only got a 500g drive, i will order the rest from here.

want 2 x 1tb drives running raid 1, this will be the internal back-up.

 

[basktm]

cheers, was thinking of a £150 limit, as i put a lot into the rest seems a bit pointless to scrimp on the graphics.

on another note all done and collecting in the morning

 

[basktm]

so just thought i'd update you mate, finally got it home about 4pm last night, a few glitches which i wasnt happy about but getting them sorted slowly.

detailed list of what it has:
intel mobo- gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3-B3, 7.1 audio ATX
core i5 2300
Corsair 8GB (2x4gb) DDR3 1600mhz XMS3
OCZ Vertex 3 SSD 60g
500g western digital sataIII drive
win 7 64bit home premium

and still using the old ati x1650 graphics card (to be replaced)

First impression not that impressed but do still have a few things to do to get it how i want it.

Also only seem to be able to get 2 of the 5 creative t6100 speakers working, have changed to 5.1 and the test still only gives sound through back left and front right, any idea's ??

how does this all sound ??

 

[basktm]

yes mate their are all the selections, i have tried stereo, 5.1 and 7.1

Yes to speaker jack, tried all different, their colour coded, but i did try all and any configurations.

As for drivers not sure, was done by them ?? will i need the drivers for my speaker creative T6100 ??

as an update, i did think maybe the speakers were broke but playing music or games i get front left and rear right, when i run the audio sound test i get back left and front right, no centre or base/sub on anything ??

 

[basktm]

This could be the bargain your looking for - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-190-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1866

two free games too.

Its on a pre-order price, so when it comes into stock it goes up to £169 - http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18301805

Just going back to this, i have only just found the the base score, its saying 5.4

but on the subscore i have 7.5 on processor, 7.8 on ram, 7.9 on Hdrive but 5.6 and 5.4 on graphics.

so any idea's what score the card will give, might as well put something in that will kick it up to 7+

 

[basktm]

hey mate, had the system a few weeks or so now, well happy, got everything how i want it, addictive this stuff, still find myself moaning about the few seconds i have to wait

Anyway was going to upgrade the sound card and graphics, but have decided the sound card is good enough to get anything better i would need new speaker, which i'm not doing.

but on the upside give's me slightly more funds for a graphics card, so knowing what i have what do you guys recommend ??

budget wise £200 ish slightly less would be good, but if you think their is something that will really suit my system thats a little more then no probs.

 

[basktm]

thank you kind sir, funny i was looking at the 3rd one anyway.

just wondering, i have no clue about this stuff (as you know )

but what's the difference in basic terms ??

and is the extra worth while for me ??