What would you change first?

Vidar

Vidar

Vidar

Soldato
Joined
18 Dec 2008
Posts
6,703
Location
Liverpool
My specs are as follows;

Intel Core i7 920 D0 @ 2.66Ghz, Noctua NH-U12P, Foxconn Renaissance Mobo, Radeon HD 4870 1024MB, OCZ Gold 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 Low-Voltage Triple Channel, Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA-II 32MB Cache, LG GH22NS40 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black), Coolermaster Real Power 620w, Antec 900-2

Basically ive had the above machine for just over six months and like a lot of you ive got that upgrade bug again, now im planning on doing upgrades continuously but im not sure which to do first I have a budget of about £300 - £400 available in January, im not looking into peripherals or monitors just yet....

Basically the things I have considered upgrading are my case, either to the Corsair 800D Obsidian (I plan to water cool at some point in the future) or to the Antec 1200. Are there any cases out there with the space and hot swappable drives of the 800D with the air cooling of the 1200?

Ive wondered if it is worth upgrading my motherboard to the Asus Rampage 2 Extreme, firstly I love the look and features of this board but im not sure if I will see any performance gains while at stock and have only really considered this from reading about its ease concerning overclocking.

Ofcourse ive also considered changing my RAM to the Corsair Dominator 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-14400C9 (1866MHz) Tri-Channel

Am going to wait to add SSD's until the Capacity/Price ratio drops considerably...

Okay guys so which would you get first if any? All parts I do replace will end up on the members market or the bay to offset the costs.... Im also open to any suggestions you all might want to make!
 
By that time you could get an HD5870 and still have some cash to spare.The GPU would be the best change imo.The Antec 902 is a very good case...good airflow,perfect for watercooling and lots of space.....I'd say stick to it.BTW I like you're signature:p
 
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Ast3r said:
By that time you could get an HD5870 and still have some cash to spare.The GPU would be the best change imo.The Antec 902 is a very good case...good airflow,perfect for watercooling and lots of space.....I'd say stick to it.BTW I like you're signature:p
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Thanks it made me chuckle aswell, I love the 902 aswell but the size is an issue so have to disagree with you there, firstly without taking a dremmel to one of the corners of a fan there is no way I could mount a side pannel fan, Secondly my board supports upto 4 GPU's however in the 902 I doubt I could maybe just fit a second by the skin of its teeth but one of the sockets it so close to the PSU and the other is painfully close to the Sound card..... My other beef with the fans also includes the heat sink, Again with it being so close to the top of the case I can not mount the other fan which comes with the cooler for a push/ pull configuration!
 
First thing to do is overclock that 920 D0, By Jan you should get a 5870 for £300 then spend the other £100 on case and cooling of your choice. If you can get a decent O/C on your current motherboard there's really no point in replacing it. You could also look at getting a Samsung 1TB F3 with the sale of you old parts.
 
pumaz said:
First thing to do is overclock that 920 D0, By Jan you should get a 5870 for £300 then spend the other £100 on case and cooling of your choice. If you can get a decent O/C on your current motherboard there's really no point in replacing it. You could also look at getting a Samsung 1TB F3 with the sale of you old parts.
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One problem ive noticed with my current board is it seemingly refuses to take a bios flash, have had to clear my cmos on both occasions and can not seem to access to appropriate settings in the bios, as such I feel im stuck to attempting to use Foxconns desktop OC'ing tool "Fox One" which I dont trust after reading reviews...
 
NW_SKINHEAD said:
One problem ive noticed with my current board is it seemingly refuses to take a bios flash, have had to clear my cmos on both occasions and can not seem to access to appropriate settings in the bios, as such I feel im stuck to attempting to use Foxconns desktop OC'ing tool "Fox One" which I dont trust after reading reviews...
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like i have said before about mobos...either asus,gigabyte or evga forget the rest as they are inferior one way or another as you can see here from the point that you made...if i was you i would not buy anything except for maybe a new gpu but thats it....can you play all your games at the detail that you are happy with?if so why change?
 
Well I had no idea that you have 4xPCI-E on your mobo.In that case I'd say to get an HD5870 and maybe by that time the Corsair Obsidian 800D will drop in price as well and be somewhere between 100-150.Also I'd say that the Obsidian has good airflow as it has a capability of installing 7 fans on it.
 
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thevet said:
like i have said before about mobos...either asus,gigabyte or evga forget the rest as they are inferior one way or another as you can see here from the point that you made...if i was you i would not buy anything except for maybe a new gpu but thats it....can you play all your games at the detail that you are happy with?if so why change?
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Mainly because im wanting to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can, hence wanting the Obsidian and to set up a Watercooling loop etc
 
Yeah thats true but its different sometimes quality wise.I for one noticed a quality improvement over DVI.And all HD5870 have HDMI.
 
Ast3r said:
Yeah HDMI is very nice great image quality improvement over DVI.
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There is zero difference in image quality between HDMI and DVI...

DVI and HDMI are exactly the same as one another, image-quality-wise. The principal differences are that HDMI carries audio as well as video, and uses a different type of connector, but both use the same encoding scheme, and that's why a DVI source can be connected to an HDMI monitor, or vice versa, with a DVI/HDMI cable, with no intervening converter box.
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DavyBoy said:
There is zero difference in image quality between HDMI and DVI...
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Exactly, no difference whatsoever, apart from hdmi can carry a sound signal. This is why a lot of video cards come with dvi to hdmi adaptors, which are good for connecting your hd telly ;)
 
Well thats me told.... Ive decided to avoid the Corsair 800D after watching extensive video reviews etc on you tube. Though it did say investing in much better fans would dramatically improve the cases ability to shift air I still wouldnt like to run prime95 stress test etc!
 
thevet said:
like i have said before about mobos...either asus,gigabyte or evga forget the rest as they are inferior one way or another as you can see here from the point that you made...if i was you i would not buy anything except for maybe a new gpu but thats it....can you play all your games at the detail that you are happy with?if so why change?
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Disagree here

I have had Asus and Gigabyte boards....and now I have the Foxconn Bloodrage....there is no way it is inferior! and I would reccomend it to anyone....in fact I usually upgrade my stuff every few months but I cant get my self to get rid if it....I love it!!!!

just my opinion
 
pumaz said:
First thing to do is overclock that 920 D0
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This. Overclocking is quite time consuming. Setting up water cooling then overclocking is very backwards, by far the normal approach is air then overclock then water.

The board not accepting a flash sounds very odd, but why do you want to flash it? The bios motherboards come with tends to be sufficiently stable, definitely good enough to get well over 2.66ghz. Incidentally a bad flash tends to write off the motherboard, resetting the cmos would do nothing to recover it. I wouldn't flash from windows either.
 
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