Want to upgrade but keep a couple of existing components..

[PAz]

Hi

I'm looking to upgrade over the next few weeks...

Currently running

Intel Core2Duo 6300
ASUS A8V Mobo
4gb RAM
SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON HD 4850 VAPOUR-X
520W Corsair HX V2 Series Modular PSU
Samsung 1tb SATA Primary HDD

I want to keep the

SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON HD 4850 VAPOUR-X
520W Corsair HX V2 Series Modular PSU

Gaming isn't my number 1 priority, more important is juice for VMWare as I like to run a lot of labs at home. So, keeping budget to strictly under £400, whats best to get?

i5 2500k CPU? I read its better value than an i7 chip.
8gb memory will probably be enough for now.
SSD for windows drive?

Any recommendations
Thanks

 

[silworth]

Keeping to strictly under £400, and mainly for running VMs, I'd be tempted to go for the older x58 platform i7.

You'll get 8 threads (4 cores + HT), and the scope for far more RAM (and as you'll know, RAM is the most important commodity for running multiple VMs!).

The i7 950 is on offer this week too.

I wouldn't bother with an SSD either, spend it on more RAM instead, you won't fit your VMs on the SSD, so the storage will rarely be used, and you won't benefit from the speed increase, just go for lots of disks in RAID5 and get the read/write performance anyway (sacrificing the access times of SSD obviously).

 

[Subliminal Aura]

I too run VMs ... I went from a spec like yours to a q9550 + bump the RAM + a couple of SSDs for splitting VMs which runs great even for today

The SSDs in my opinion do help especially with the random access to image files.

It was a good cheap upgrade a couple of years back but if I were doing it today I would probably opt for a second hand x58 plus an SSD for programs/VMs only

 

[PAz]

Thanks very much!

I did think about possibly running 2 SSDs, one for boot and one strictly for virtual machines.

So the current PSU should be fine then, that was my biggest concern.

 

[stulid]

So the current PSU should be fine then, that was my biggest concern.

Absolutely.

Get the 2600K which has hyperthreading.


Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £254.99
(£212.49) £254.99
(£212.49)
Asrock Z68 PRO3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £105.98
(£88.32) £105.98
(£88.32)
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £50.39
(£41.99) £50.39
(£41.99)
Sub Total : £342.80
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.00
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £70.16
Total : £420.96

The RAM is on special offer today only.

The Z68 motherboard has SSD caching and Lucid Virtu technology.

Then all thats left is which SSD.

 

[PAz]

Wow, nice spec!

Thanks mate