Upgrading piece meal

wavemachine

wavemachine

wavemachine

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7 Jul 2008
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42
Hi,

I have a system consisting of a Gigabyte EX58-UDR3, 3 x 4GB Crucial Ballistix Sport 1333MHz CL9 DDR3 and an I7 920 CPU. I have a reasonable graphics card (GTX 760), a nice Antec case and a Samsung EVO SSD, 2 x1TB HD's as well as a good PSU.

I am looking to start upgrading my system and am looking at this bundle:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/show...ktdetailseite&emcs2=MB-504-GI&emcs3=BU-006-GI

Main use of the machine is photoshop and lightroom, I want to be able to put a 3TB hd (my current board is rev1.0 and has no bios update for above 2TB) at some point, want faster boot times (MB Faffs around a lot detecting AHCI etc) as well as support for USB3 and faster SATA.

Question is can I use my existing RAM, will it slow the system down that much?

I need stability so will be keeping everything at stock speeds, is this a good choice?

Thanks
 
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You should be able to use the current RAM no problem, it won't run in dual channel correctly as you'd ideally want 4x4GB or 2x4GB for that, however it shouldn't make a massive difference and for your uses amount > speed

You could look for another stick of your current RAM to get yourself to 4x4GB


Remember the cashback on the board + CPU bundle :) - https://toptechcashback.com/uk/en/p...il&utm_term=0_c199b69777-4c4a227cf4-212867289
 
Cheers for that and thanks for the cashback link, I just need to remember to do that as I have to wait 30 days after the purchase.

I will have a look for another stick of the crucial anyway but if not I will get some new RAM later.
 
I don't think it would slow the machine down that much. worth keeping an eye out on various websites for one more stick just so you can take full advantage of the dual channel.
 
From an i7, upgrading to an i5-4690k isn't too much of a worthwhile jump performance wise. I'd recommend an i7-4790k, costs roughly £100 more, but it's more worthwhile. The RAM should be okay, but 12GB? I've always felt its weird to have 3 RAM sticks, but then I did have 3GB back in the day on my Q6600. Find that last stick and you're gold.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 - Devils Canyon Core i7 4790K CPU & Motherboard Bundle **£25 Saving** £393.98

 
One thing to think about, is to have a loo at your currant usage and if you are using all or most of the 8 threads available to your i7 920, then a Xenon x5650/70 might be a better cheaper upgrade option for your usage.

Check out this thread http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18618052

The other question of course, are you overclocking your i7 920 ?

If not then, maybe think about it, as it can give a very decent boost to performance for free.

If you are, then all the more reason to look at the x5650/70 as then you can have 6core/12threads at a similar clock to what you have now for around £80.
 
TBH I am quite happy with the performance of my I7 which is at stock, I just want a more modern motherboard which supports greater than 2TB HD's has USB 3 and Sata 6GB/s ports. Unfortunately a new board means a new CPU as well, it seems the newer boards have a quick boot option where as my current board seems to FAF around detecting hardware each boot, this is a common complaint and there is nothing you can do about it.

My price limit on CPU is £200 and looking at reviews/benchmarks it will give a decent boost over my I7 but I agree not as much as an I7 4790 but that is over budget;)

Anyway it is all ordered now :)

I will run 8GB of RAM for now and I guess if I cant find another stick of RAM I could always get another pair of 4GB modules and pop those in as I understand it I will be clocked down to the slowest memory modules.

Thank you everyone for posting I really appreciate all your comments.
 
Wave, if your happy with the machines performance I would consider upgrading.

1) You could install a USB 3 card.

2) For boot times you could install the OS on a PCI-Express SSD card.

3) Re 3TB drives. Gigabyte have a utility that allows 3TB+ drives to be installed they have to be in 2TB partitions.

I would extend the glide on the existing technology by upgrading, then in a couple of years upgrade to latest DDR4 platform that will be main stream by then.

EDIT. Just read you ordered new platform, not to worry.
 
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Thanks JasonM the boot time of Windows is fast on the SSD it is the post time of the MOBO that is the issue so not sure if PCI Express would help with that?

I have used Sleep but it wakes up at random times (never found out why) and can be flakey sometimes.

I did consider a USB 3 card but had such a horrible experience when USB 2 came out with cards and drivers that kind of put me off;)

Besides after 6 years since my last build I guess it is due a bit of a refresh.
 
which bios are you on for your UDR3, as my ud3r revision 1 board on the F8a bios handles 3TB drives just fine. (not as boot drives though and yes it does take ages to boot every time.)
 
Wave,

These are the things that spring to mind.

1) If you fitted an SSD, the boot delay may become acceptable.

2) Your i7 920 was high end 6 years ago, it's the reason it's lasted so long. The i5 is not the same league as this, of course it's faster but it won't stay current as long.

I would have either upgraded your current hardware and added another 18-24 months, or I would have done an upgrade at least to another i7.
 
Just thought I would give an update:

The build went fine although I experienced some weird issues with shutdown and clicking hard drives, this turned out to be my PSU not being Haswell compatible and to do with the processor powering down, disabling C6 and C7 in the bios sorted that.

RAM worked fine, however I have now got 16GB 2400MHZ Corsair Vengance which is running with the XMP profile :)

Boot time from power on is now outrageously fast, there is no way I could have got that speed out of my old system.

As for the system it is much snappier than my old I7 which I did not have any major issues so in all I am really please.

Thanks everyone for your help and to Overclockers for processing my order so quickly.
 
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