Upgrade Advice (MB/CPU/RAM/GPU) - Phenom II or Core i7?

Good morning/afternoon/evening to all. I am trying to figure out the best bang for the buck for an upgrade. Here is my existing core setup:

Asus M2N-E AM2 Motherboard (BIOS ver 1013)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ (2.9GHz Dual Core) AM2 Processor (Stock Fan/Heatsink)
OCZ 4GB (1GB x 4) Platinum Rev 2 PC2-6400 (CL5; MB Limitation) Memory
Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB PCI-E Video Card

NOTE: I've never overclocked any components in my current system and I have no intention or need to do so in the future. I'm sure this will have some bearing on the upgrade path and hardware choices.

NEEDS:

General Use (ie; email, web, office suite, etc)
Gaming (the usual; crysis, far cry 2, fallout 3, gta iv, etc)
Ocassional A/V Transcoding
Watching DVD/BluRay Content

I'm unable to play GTA IV with anything above low settings due to the lack of a quad core processor primarily, so I don't play it, as that would ruin the experience. I would like to play it though.

I am a download demon and speed freak (internet connection wise) so I tend to fill up my system with tons of content all the time. Because of this, I'm constantly using apps related to downloads (ie; newsbin, quickpar, winrar, winzip, sfv checkers, etc).

Any suggestions? I don't have a pre-set cap on cost, but I want it to be reasonable. I'm in no urgent need to do an upgrade right now, but perhaps later this summer. I'm aware that a decent Phenom or Core i7 setup (MB/CPU/RAM) will cost around $515 and $615 respectively from the egg.

I've been monitoring all the chatter in the forums and articles over Phenom vs Core i7. At this point I'm up for either. What I don't want is a system that is going to cost me too much and one that is going to overheat and/or burn up either idle or during use in an office that averages an ambient room temperature range of 75F to 80F during the summer months. I have no desire for advanced cooling systems, so it has to run well and cool using conventional cooling methods (ie; fan/heatsink/arctic silver). Please begin the advisement... :-) Thanks!

-- MaSoP

i7 from the information you're giving us.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] k%20knight

An excellent and modest-priced air cooler that includes mounting hardware for LGA1366 (i7). I overlocked my i7 920 to 3.4 GHz and have not experienced more than high 70s running Prime95 in ambient temperatures similar to yours. At stock speeds I don't think you'd have anything to worry about there.

To answer what you asked for "bang for the buck", I'm actually surprised that the members are recommending i7 over Phenom II. I think it's more about bragging rights than anything. That and there seem to be some speculative questions about the shelf life of the LGA1366 slot since i5 is using something different (yes I know i5 isn't the successor to i7, just a different product family).

But the absolute largest gain from your current rig would be to upgrade your graphics card. A Radeon X1950 Pro just won't cut it anymore. Follow the June/July Tom's Video Card Purchasing article and go to your preferred pricing range; GTX 260s are getting really affordable these days.

Since you say that you don't need to upgrade ASAP I would recommend getting a high-end video card for now and see how it works with your current rig. If/when it feels inadequate then you can make the cpu/mobo jump and perhaps i5 will be released by then.

Here is a GTX 260 for $145 after MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] -_-Product

Yes, single-core/threaded apps would run slower on a quad at 2.5. Unless you're moving to Intel which seems to get better performance per clock out of its chips than AMD. (I may be corrected by someone with more knowledge on this).

But anyway you're on the right path wanting to upgrade to 4 cores. My experience of running a Q6600 at stock 2.4 with Vista 64-bit produces AMAZING desktop responsiveness compared to anything else I've touched. Quad core really frees up the system for heavy multi-tasking.

For your i7 CPU (if you go that way), I'd buy from MicroCenter.com since their price is $80 less than the old standard newegg.

I went with the EVGA x58 and I've had zero issues. I don't game and I don't overclock as a rule. I've played with overclocking using the eLeet software but that's all; just playing, always work with stock clock. I've gone up to 3.0 GHz with standard voltages. When I set the memory to 2:12 for 1600 (8-8-8-21), the board defaulted the DIMM voltage to 1.7 so I cut it back to 1.6 as recommended by memory manufacturer, GSkill. That's the only caveat that I've seen with the board. I bought all my parts back in January and built it on Super Bowl Sunday. No issues with any component yet; not even Vista 64-bit SP1.

I'll put that into consideration. Some of the things people complained about were board layout, etc. I was looking at the Asus P6T SE and it has 4 of the 6 SATA ports horizontal instead of vertical. I can see why they did that after seeing how close they are to the pci-e slot for the graphics card. I wouldn't complain just because of that, lol. Oh well. I'll figure something out. :-) Thanks for the reply.

-- MaSoP

Thanks for the reply. The ASRock board is sold out. The corsair memory sounds good, as does ocz. I'll probably never end up making up my mind, LOL!

As far as Windows 7 goes, I've got the RC on my box at home along with XP Pro in a dual setup with XP being the primary. I will go to 7 once it is available, but not likely 64-bit because most of my apps won't run on 64-bit. I'm aware of the VT capability of Windows 7 for XP apps, but I don't think that helps with the 32-bit vs 64-bit compatibility issue, just with the O/S difference.

-- MaSoP

I'd be interested to know what applications you have that don't work with 64-bit Windows. The only applications that plain won't work are VERY old 16-bit ones that should have been put out to pasture a long time ago. I've been running 64-bit Windows for quite a while and never had an application compatibility issue. I run a lot of 32-bit software. Have you tried all your applications on 64-bit Windows 7?

I think putting a 32-bit OS on a new i7 build is just silly. i7+6GB RAM+64-bit OS is where it's at.

Well, I built a system with windows xp 64-bit installed for my brother in-law. He was unable to get his dsl working because the verizon software rerquired in order to activate the service refused to install. We called verizon and they said it isn't compatible with x64 edition. This is probably a dead issue these days, as I have not tried any of my apps on windows 7 x64 yet. I've only tried a couple freeware apps on my test install, before I reverted back to x86 on my dual setup. What I am going to do once I get my hands on Windows 7 x64 is the following:

1) clone my existing boot drive to the 2nd pc
2) remove references to windows xp (ie; files, folders, etc)
3) install windows 7 x64 with all available updates and drivers
4) install all of the core apps I use (25-50 as a baseline)
5) test the system as-is and see if all the apps run well
6) if all goes well, I will run microsoft sysprep on the drive
7) clone existing xp boot drive
8) clone the windows 7 drive over to my existing xp boot drive
9) enjoy having a fresh, more capable o/s (vt, dx10, etc)

It will be an interesting experience seeing how everything goes. With my existing processor (Athlon X2 5600+ AM2) and mainboard supporting VT, I will be able to utilize the XP compatibility mode feature to help ensure most, if not all of my apps should run on 7. I'm hoping for the best.

The current estimated ETA for Windows 7 RTM (not retail or oem) is by the end of July, if not earlier. I can hardly wait, as I've been running XP 32-bit for the last 7 years. :-) I will have a complete clone backup of my entire system (all 4 drives) as I do monthly, before going to 7. That way I'll have a straight forward "plan b" incase things don't go as excpected.

-- MaSoP

Well, considering I've been using XP Pro, it would make most sense to go with 7 Pro if possible. The extras you get for ultimate (over pro) aren't worth the cost for me, as that is the edition everyone has been testing with the RC out. Pro it is. :-)

-- MaSoP