Hello all. I have plans to upgrade my old build to something current generation since my system is about 4 years old.
Here's the specs for my old build:
Antec 1200V1 case
Zalman 9900CNPSLED
i7 965 Processor (LGA 1366)
Corsair DDR3-1600 2 x 3 GB Dominator RAM
Corsair AX750 PSU
EVGA GTX 460 1 GB EE
EVGA X58 SLI
OCZ Vertex 1 60 GB SSD
Various mechanical HDDs (mostly 1 TB WD Caviar Blacks)
HT Striker Omega 7.1
Pioneer BD-R Burner drive
Samsung 22" T220 LCD Monitor
Approximate Purchase Date: Around the time Haswell comes (June - July)
Budget Range: (e.g.: 300-400) $1000-$1200 before shipping
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, streaming, video rendering for upload/Let's Plays
Are you buying a monitor: No, but that will be my next purchase.
Parts to Upgrade: CPU, Motherboard, RAM (if necessary), SSD, Graphics Card
Do you need to buy OS: No - I have a copy of Windows 8 I may upgrade to, else I will reuse my old Win7 license.
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Amazon.com, because Newegg.com's shipping prices is murder for people like me who live in Hawaii. I'll resort to Newegg if it's absolutely necessary.
Location: City, State/Region, Country - Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
Parts Preferences: CPU - Intel i7 (this is a requirement), Motherboard - EVGA (but I'm willing to exploreother options), GPU - EVGA NVIDIA (however I am more than open to AMD if their single GPU cards are better bang for buck)
Overclocking: Maybe
SLI or Crossfire: No
Your Monitor Resolution: Current is 1680 x 1050, planned is 1920 x 1080, but I normally play games in 1280 x 720 windowed - in fact I use windowed mode often. This may change once I upgrade to a 1080p monitor - I might want to play games in 1600 x 900 windowed if that's the case.
Additional Comments: I actually dislike LEDs and bling. I like practical and minimalist builds (requires the least amount of effort).
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: My old build was mostly composed of parts made during the "bleeding edge" start of the Core i7 CPUs and infancy of SSDs. My system feels somewhat long in the tooth so I kind of want to do a system refresh.
Parts I am reusing:
Antec 1200 V1 case
All my mechanical HDDs
Corsair AX750
RAM (but I can be persuaded to upgrade it if it'll provide me a noticeable performance increase)
Pioneer BD-R Burner drive
HT Omega Striker 7.1
Samsung T220 monitor
My main goal is to upgrade my system to a build that will give me the most amount of performance without breaking the bank and will give me a perceivable enough performance boost in my gaming.
Since I'm keeping a lot of my old parts, I guess I just need advice on the five above mentioned components.
The only two parts I think I want to get for my build are the following:
CORSAIR Hydro Series H100i Water Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181032
SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD512BW 2.5" 512GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147194
Would the cooler be overkill for my intentions? Is there another SSD out there that provides the same performance and capacity for a better price?
Otherwise, I'm sort of at a loss on what to get for the CPU, GPU, and Mobo. I know I'll want SATA6.0Gbps and USB3.0, and I do want a single GPU setup. I also want to leave the potential for overclocking in the future. I'm not going to go for top clocks, but I do want to get enough of an overclock for a perceivable performance boost.
I've seen posts saying that Haswell may not be as fast as the higher end Sandy and Ivy Bridge CPUs, so I don't know if waiting for Haswell to get a reasonably priced high end CPU that can surpass my i7 965 would be worth it. I've seen posts saying that the i7 965 is already on the top of the pile, but after spending the $1k to buy this, I kind of don't want to have to go for another Extreme Edition $1k processor to get something that can beat it.
Thanks in advance! Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Here's the specs for my old build:
Antec 1200V1 case
Zalman 9900CNPSLED
i7 965 Processor (LGA 1366)
Corsair DDR3-1600 2 x 3 GB Dominator RAM
Corsair AX750 PSU
EVGA GTX 460 1 GB EE
EVGA X58 SLI
OCZ Vertex 1 60 GB SSD
Various mechanical HDDs (mostly 1 TB WD Caviar Blacks)
HT Striker Omega 7.1
Pioneer BD-R Burner drive
Samsung 22" T220 LCD Monitor
Approximate Purchase Date: Around the time Haswell comes (June - July)
Budget Range: (e.g.: 300-400) $1000-$1200 before shipping
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, streaming, video rendering for upload/Let's Plays
Are you buying a monitor: No, but that will be my next purchase.
Parts to Upgrade: CPU, Motherboard, RAM (if necessary), SSD, Graphics Card
Do you need to buy OS: No - I have a copy of Windows 8 I may upgrade to, else I will reuse my old Win7 license.
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Amazon.com, because Newegg.com's shipping prices is murder for people like me who live in Hawaii. I'll resort to Newegg if it's absolutely necessary.
Location: City, State/Region, Country - Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
Parts Preferences: CPU - Intel i7 (this is a requirement), Motherboard - EVGA (but I'm willing to exploreother options), GPU - EVGA NVIDIA (however I am more than open to AMD if their single GPU cards are better bang for buck)
Overclocking: Maybe
SLI or Crossfire: No
Your Monitor Resolution: Current is 1680 x 1050, planned is 1920 x 1080, but I normally play games in 1280 x 720 windowed - in fact I use windowed mode often. This may change once I upgrade to a 1080p monitor - I might want to play games in 1600 x 900 windowed if that's the case.
Additional Comments: I actually dislike LEDs and bling. I like practical and minimalist builds (requires the least amount of effort).
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: My old build was mostly composed of parts made during the "bleeding edge" start of the Core i7 CPUs and infancy of SSDs. My system feels somewhat long in the tooth so I kind of want to do a system refresh.
Parts I am reusing:
Antec 1200 V1 case
All my mechanical HDDs
Corsair AX750
RAM (but I can be persuaded to upgrade it if it'll provide me a noticeable performance increase)
Pioneer BD-R Burner drive
HT Omega Striker 7.1
Samsung T220 monitor
My main goal is to upgrade my system to a build that will give me the most amount of performance without breaking the bank and will give me a perceivable enough performance boost in my gaming.
Since I'm keeping a lot of my old parts, I guess I just need advice on the five above mentioned components.
The only two parts I think I want to get for my build are the following:
CORSAIR Hydro Series H100i Water Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181032
SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD512BW 2.5" 512GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147194
Would the cooler be overkill for my intentions? Is there another SSD out there that provides the same performance and capacity for a better price?
Otherwise, I'm sort of at a loss on what to get for the CPU, GPU, and Mobo. I know I'll want SATA6.0Gbps and USB3.0, and I do want a single GPU setup. I also want to leave the potential for overclocking in the future. I'm not going to go for top clocks, but I do want to get enough of an overclock for a perceivable performance boost.
I've seen posts saying that Haswell may not be as fast as the higher end Sandy and Ivy Bridge CPUs, so I don't know if waiting for Haswell to get a reasonably priced high end CPU that can surpass my i7 965 would be worth it. I've seen posts saying that the i7 965 is already on the top of the pile, but after spending the $1k to buy this, I kind of don't want to have to go for another Extreme Edition $1k processor to get something that can beat it.
Thanks in advance! Your help would be greatly appreciated.