what to upgrade next?

mythrandyr

mythrandyr

mythrandyr

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Joined
19 Sep 2008
Posts
344
hi guys,

so i've been upgrading lately and i will post some photo's soon, if i can find a site that will let me upload photo's to it, but this is basically my rigs specs:

Antec Skeleton Performance Chassis
1200W ThermalTake Tough Power Modular PSU
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500
Zalman CNPS9700-LED CPU Cooler
Asus P5Q3 Deluxe Wifi AP Board (not recommended)
3GB OCZ DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Gold
Asus ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 graphics card
Asus Xonar D2X 7.1 PCI-Express Sound Card
3 X 150gb Raptor X HDD's
2 Lite-on DVD drives
Saitek Cyborg Keyboard And Mouse
Creative GigaWorks 7.1 S750 THX Speakers

now their are things that i am either not interested in upgrading or don't want to upgrade, such as the case, the antec skeleton chassis is such a great case that i just can't see the point in upgrading to anything else. Watercooling is such a ball ache that it's not worth bothering with and as far as air cooling goes i have found water cooling to be too unreliable. I don't think that i will need a bigger PSU, and better ones are hard to find. The sound system is perfect and i don't think that their is much point at the minute in upgrading the hard disk drives to either velociraptor or solid state (which i could'nt use in this case anyway). Which only leaves the motherboard and processor, 3GB of memory is enough anyway i think for my purposes and is going to be a benefit anyway when i upgrade to the new chipset. The only two things that i think would be worth upgarding are the motherboard to the intel smackover 1366 board and the i7 920 which is the only new generation processor that i can afford and the only other upgrade i can make, but would be hard to justify, would be to upgrade the graphics card to an 4870 X2. I was just wondering what you guys think? if you would concur with that or if you would stay with the rig as it is currently?
 
Leave it as it is unless it is incapable of doing what you want. That's a high spec pc. maybe overclock the cpu to a easy 4Ghz? The psu is massively overkill as a 600w would have easily powered that with room to spare.

Regarding photo hosting try Photobucket or Imageshack.
 
im not into overclocking to be honest pastymuncher, in my opinion it limits the life span of you're computers components. I know the psu is overkill but, honestly, its better to have too much rather than too little when it comes to things like the psu, atleast in my opinion. There are things that i would like to upgrade on it for example i want to go quad core but i think i would be best going to the X58 chipset rather than to buy a new quad core for the board that i have for the time being, i am also considering buying 2 ocz 60gb solid state hdd's at the end of the month and taking out 2 of the raptors but i'm not sure that i can use the solid state disks with that skeleton case unless i leave the drives sitting bare on the desk rather than in the drive cage and i also want to upgrade to an X2 graphics card but at the minute it looks like the 4870 X2's are on their way out. the only thing that stops me from upgrading is that i am not sure about wether or not i will notice any drastic performance improvements.
 
What about replacing one of those DVDRW, with a Blueray Drive?

You aren't keen on Watercooling, but what about Phase cooling? It would proberbly mean a change of case for you as well?

What monitor do you have?
 
Your system looks fine to me - my own system is in some ways similar to the spec of yours (3GB, 4870, Asus Xonar etc) If your monitor is 22" (or less) consider upgrading to a 24" screen. Alternatively, what about gaming peripherals?
If you like racing sims consider a Logitech G25 and GTR Evo - an absolute blast. If you like flight sims get a Saitek X52 Pro and a copy of the newly released combat helicopter sim DCS Black Shark. Finally, TrackIR4 (head tracking) will complement most sims nicely.
 
to be honest i am not big on gaming when it comes to everything else other than rpg's, some driving games and 3rd person shooters like unreal tournament 3, for which i would'nt mind buying one of those ocz impulse controlers, and i have never heard of phase cooling, i'll check out google for that but i am not sure that i wish to change my case, it is a very nice case that i am keen on keeping hold of for a while to come. I'm more concearned with improving the performance level of the system rather than playing games, making it run like a finely tuned pegani zonda in comparison (if you can compare the two). The only peripherals that i have are the saitek cyborg keyboard and mouse which look fantastic next to the case, honestly i think that saitek produce some of the best peripherals on the market. I think that what i am going to do at the minute is replace the ram modules with faster ddr3 modules as i am aware that my board has some issues with the ram that i am currently using and i am going to replace my primary raptor hdd (As they are not currently in raid) with a solid state disk, eventually going completely solid state.
 
where would i buy a phase change cooler from? and why is it that when i type in phase cooler into the kelkoo search engine, a 3 bedroomed house in manchester pops up?
 
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cheers mystic. ok so i have had a look and to be honest, i don't think i will be bothering with phase cooling for quite a while, why? 1: its for overclockers, i don't overclock my systems 2: they cost around £500 quid and i'm not too sure from what i have read that they are compatible with the new sockets that are either out or are coming out, i.e. the 1366 and the am3 when it appears.
 
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mythrandyr said:
im not into overclocking to be honest pastymuncher
Click to expand...

No real need for the zalman hsf or the performance chassis really was there then, the stock cooler would have been fine. :confused: There's been quite a few issues with the ocz ssd's, So I'd stay clear of them if I were you, see this post here for more info

you really do have a good setup for overclocking what with the antec case and a reasonable hsf, it would be a shame not to try and eek at least a little bit more out of your cpu. :D
 
hi guys, sorry i've not been on for a while to read you're posts but i've had some real issues to deal with. First off the ocz memory that i was running went on me, for some reason this P5Q3 board hates memory that is'nt on the qualified vendors list, then the raptors went on me, then the 7.1 speaker set got butt ****** by the fuse blowing in the amp and to finish off the doctors at the local hospital decided that i needed surgery on my spine just to make sure that christmas was especially ****** and the new year just as bad.

Anyway, after some saving and boredom of not having a good rig to game on i bought some new parts for my rig. I got both a 320GB and 1TB samsung F1 drive, i did'nt wan't raid because i'm tired of raid screwing up on me so i'm gonna use the 320 as a boot/gaming drive and the 1tb as a partitioned storage drive. I also got 4GB corsair 1333mhz memory (CM3X2048-1333C9DHX) which, after several hours of testing seems to run fine but i am still a little dubious about it since my experience using OCZ memory. As far as the speakers go, i bought a set of Logitech Z Cinema 2.1 speakers and these are more than what i need and i don't miss my S750's one bit, these are just so cool, the only problem with them so far is that they don't seem to go high enough for me but i do like the fact that they emulate 5.1 and also that they connect via usb meaning that you don't require a standard sound card period or drivers for that matter although they are made for windows xp media centre.

Next on my list, if everything holds out, a quad core processor and a silent knight cooler (just cos they look cool), a Razer Lycosa keyboard and Roccat Kone Mouse. By the end of the year i'll either get crossfire graphics or an X2 graphics card. I was going to go for Solid State disks and an I7 processor and motherboard but considering the price/performance and the ammount of choice that their is at the minute i really don't think it's worth considering, besides, it gives me something to look forward to getting next year when their is more choice, the price comes down and the issues/bugs have been sorted, about the only other thing that i have seen that i would like is a hanns.G 28" monitor i think it is on overclockers in the sub £300 region that looks really nice. Back in the day a montor of that calibur would easily have gone for over £1K.
 
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