Thinking about upgrading

[Spikes]

Not now for sure, but with some money coming my way from birthday/graduation, I might put a little bit into my system. I've had it for about 3 years now and love it to death. It is kind of old. I built it at the tail end of DDR2 days:

Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P ATX
Core 2 Quad Q9550
4GB DDR2 Kingston HyperX
600w OCZ ModX PSU
2 ATI HD5770 vid cards
Couple older crappy HDDs (high on my list to get a bigger, faster, newer, better hdd)

Now where to begin? My first thought was to get a new motherboard and ram since I love the CPU however 775 is basically obsolete. How much could I get for the combo do you guys think? (CPU/Mobo/Ram).

Vid cards are a bit old but are still kickin'...PSU is a little small, just right for this setup but probably too small for a newer setup.

I was close to pulling the plug on a whole new system a few months ago, but I bought an ipad for college instead.  

I used to be up on the new stuff when I build my PC...but now there are so many new sockets and stuff, it even confuses me.

[The Fugitive]

I'm in the same boat. Three great things have aligned in the universe, Fathers day, my birthday, and the most important one, my wife is complaining her computer is too slow and I sold her on the idea that mine is fast enough for her and I can get the new one. 

So I have begun to study up on whats good and whats not. Will be watching this thread closely.

[guncrasher]

if you are willing to spend the time, upgrade the mobo, cpu and ram first.  that should be less than 500 bucks.  reuse the old parts.  as more money becomes availalble then upgrade the rest.  I bet someone will give you some money for that mobo/cpu/ram.  it will be an upgrade for them. and you can put that money towards another video card.


semp

[Spikes]

I'm in the same boat. Three great things have aligned in the universe, Fathers day, my birthday, and the most important one, my wife is complaining her computer is too slow and I sold her on the idea that mine is fast enough for her and I can get the new one. 

So I have begun to study up on whats good and whats not. Will be watching this thread closely.

Yeah...mine still runs everything great...I just think it's time to start thinking about something new.

if you are willing to spend the time, upgrade the mobo, cpu and ram first.  that should be less than 500 bucks.  reuse the old parts.  as more money becomes availalble then upgrade the rest.  I bet someone will give you some money for that mobo/cpu/ram.  it will be an upgrade for them. and you can put that money towards another video card.


semp

That is what I was hoping to do. At some point I'd like to get a new case as well, just for some new scenery but then I'd probably be better off just getting everything new at once, less hassle. Stuff is so different now that I don't even know what's good or not anymore.

[guncrasher]

spike you can buy everything at once.  but you may have a tendency to go with cheaper components once you see the price tag.  I have spent around 3k on my system.  based around a sandy bridge 2500k with 3 monitors and sli evga 465 cards.  it kicks azzz.  as i have pedals, joystick throttle, 3 monitors custom joystick box, trakir, 100 dollar mouse, really nice headset.... and lots of other crap. including fraps and sony vegas to edit film.

however i didnt spend all the money at once.  it took me about 2 years of buying a component here and another one there.  had I bought everything at once, i wouldda spend a bit more.  but patience is a virtue.  and I had more time than money.  some parts I havent changed as I dint have to and they are 3 years old.  I still use a hitachi deathstar that i bought on sale for my first built.  along with my cd player and my case.  I have the tempest case.  was thinking of buying a new one but I decided to just spend 15 bucks on paint and custom paint it myself.  it looks like a brand new case.

if you have patience and time.  you can have a system that will work for you for more than a couple of years, unless of course you get the itch to upgrade it like I have it right now.  either way.  lots of things like hard drives and dvd drives dont really change over time and you can save money on those.  and even better if you have a copy of windows as it can be moved to your new system.

anyway just giving you something to think about. the call is yours .


semp

[Easyscor]

Re: MB, something to think about

If your old drives, or your backup drives, are some flavor of ATA (ribbon cable), then you have two choices. Be sure to chose a MB with a (usually one) legacy ATA plug in addition to SATA, or if there's room on the new MB with your vid cards installed, purchase a PCIe to ATA card. Having that ATA plug meant that I could quickly transfer all my files (drag and drop), and it was worth it to me even though it's been vacant ever since.

[Chalenge]

Spikes I have basically the same system as you in one case except mine has the Q9650 more ram and hard drive space (plus geforce). I also have the newer Sandy Bridge E systems to compare with. Depending on what you intend for the system you might be better off just replacing the PSU (they get old) and maybe the ram. I would certainly replace the HDs (they get old too). Im not familiar with the ATIs. For AH you wont see a lot of difference I dont think but if you are doing more mabe so. I needed the power for video editing but really the difference isnt that much.

[BaldEagl]

IIRC you built about the same time I did.  Right now if I were doing it again I'd build a 2500K Sandy Bridge.  Seems to be the best value ATM.

That said I've thought about upgrading my old stuff.  If I did that then maybe a 560Ti or greater with Win7 and an SSD might be the way I'd go.

Most likely best to start with the new platform though so I'd say CPU, Mobo and RAM first then the rest later.

[Spikes]

I'm still not a believer in SSDs...seems like too much money for too little space. Plus I'm not really a nut for being able to turn my PC on in 4 seconds or anything. I do know I need another HDD though.

I was going to go AMD because they are cheaper unless I can find a deal on the Intels. Are i5s better than i7s now?

[gyrene81]

I'm still not a believer in SSDs...seems like too much money for too little space. Plus I'm not really a nut for being able to turn my PC on in 4 seconds or anything. I do know I need another HDD though.

I was going to go AMD because they are cheaper unless I can find a deal on the Intels. Are i5s better than i7s now?

you may not want to go amd right now if you expect to keep the system for more than a couple of years. i'm running a phenom2 965 black edition 3.4ghz on an asus 890fx chipset mobo, and it's about equal to an intel i5-661 3.33ghz and the amd fx6100 3.3ghz. the sandy bridge and ivy bridge cpus smoke the amd cpus.

if all you're replacing is the mobo, cpu, ram and hdd what's your budget?

intel build

cpu = $220
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072

mobo = $135
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293

amd build

cpu = $160
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819106010

mobo = $127.55
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157281

ram = $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148485

hdd choices
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136929

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136795

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167121 (highly reliable, not as fast)

with what you already have, you won't have to spend $1000 for a new system.

[Easyscor]

This Seagate Barracuda 1TB, $99.99, has been working for me the last 7 months or so. Two of them actually, counting the backup drive. Just don't expect any mechanical device to keep up with an SATA 6.0Gb/s connection (plug). The SATA 6.0Gb/s in the writeup is hype.

[guncrasher]

there was a big argument last year about the 3.0 v 6.0.  I believe the consensus was that system dont even saturate the 3.0 bandwidth yet.  but I would buy the 6.0 just in case, you never know somebody may come up with a program that does the day after you buy the 3.0.


semp

[Chalenge]

I have 3.0 and 6.0 on the same system and for casual use it doesnt seem to be much different. When I start moving around large data chunks like videos it seems to make a bigger difference. Right now I am using the 6.0s as OS drives and PVR storage on our media system and it does offer smoother video playback. As far as games go I dont think it makes much difference. It seems to make a bigger difference if you have an independant controller over one mounted on the MB. The biggest difference still comes from the higher rpm drives (10k) in my opinion. But then I think SSD are not worth the money so make up your own mind on that one.

[Debrody]

Spikes,
dont build an amd-based system plz. The bulldozer isnt much faster than the older PhenomII, yet the faster models have a 140W TDP (just to compare, the fastest i7s consumpt a maximum of 95W).
A Sandy/Ivy based i5 is clearly superior to any bulldozer, especially since they cost almost the same (here).
What i did last year: bought a phenomIIx2 565BE for 60 bux, unlocked to be quad core, its running at 3.2 GHz now but can reach a steady 3.9 at the stock voltage if needed, almost as fast as the 220bux FX-8150...
Its pretty risky tho and basically a bad choice. i5 is wgat i would do now.

[guncrasher]

one thing i am confused about is:  did amd pull out of the pc market?  if so then why buy a dead end line of cpus?


semp