Upgrading my current design machine

Hi everyone,

I am a graphic designer who is wanting better performance out of their current system. With the inclusion of multiple art boards in adobe illustrator my files sizes have greatly increased, which is putting a strain on my rig.

Current specs are...

os = vista 64

cpu = e2160 over clocked to 3.0ghz

cpu cooler = thermaltake bigtyp 120 vx
-> http://www.nzoczone.com/product_in [...] s_id=21985

ram = 4gigs ddr2
-> http://www.nzoczone.com/product_in [...] s_id=25929

mobo -> http://reviews.cnet.com/motherboar [...] mncol;psum

gfx = 9800gx2

psu = 1000watt silverstone

hdd = seagate barracuda x2 500gb 32mb 7200rpm

I was thinking of getting another 4 gigs of ram and a q9550 and over clock it. This way I can keep my current cooler, mobo and ram.

I read that illustrator however does not benefit very much from quad core architecture. Instead higher clock speed is preferred. This got me thinking about getting an i7 rig and if it would be worth it in real world environments?

The last option I can see is to get some solid state drives -> http://www.nzoczone.com/product_in [...] s_id=34638
say 1 for the os, 1 for software and the other for my files being run by the software. This will most likely give me a boost when using the large design files that bring my computer to a crawl. I hear that they are still very much in their infancy and would out date very quickly with newer revisions down the line?

Any insight you could give me would be a huge help. I would love the best price/performance or something that would be relatively future proof for maybe 2 years.

Thank you for taking the time to read,

Best regards.

Hey thank you for the reply! Sorry that I did not state my os. I am indeed using vista 64. yes it is very ram hungry. Also since illustrator uses vector mechanics being able to calculate this requires a fast cpu, where as photoshop is more ram intensive (so I have been told anyway).

Regards.

You are in between a rock and a hard place. That mobo will only support 4gigs of ram. See specs here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131288

So already you're already looking at a mobo/cpu/ram purchase. You're GPU, PSU, OS, and HDD are all able to be carried over. Case size?

For what you do, I'd jump to the i7 920 with 12 gigs of ram. Looks like your kiwi? (that's not offensive is it?) Don't think your HSF will work though. If you're really attatched, an AMD 955 system will work better than what you have now.

Double the performance, NO. Very little in computers ever scales that well. Since your board maxes at 8 gigs, I'd opt for the Q9550 and ram. Would you have to replace all of your ram, or can you add and fill open slots? Get another kit of the stuff you have already if you can.

I have no idea if a 6 monitor setup is possible or the software needed to run it. That sounds more like something a workstation card would be geared for and have drivers to support it. Gaming cards are getting out of their design purpose past 2 per GPU.

As for your situation and SLI, you can't with that mobo. Now if you talk about getting a new mobo, the socket 775 line is done so it might not make sense to get the q9550 then. If sli is something you want the option of, then I'd pony up for the i7, or wait till q4 of this year and look at the i5 line. They will do either SLI or crossfire. AMD AM3 boards only do crossfire and don't have a SLI solution and I wouldn't go to an AM2+ for the same reasons to avoid a full socket 775 platform upgrade.