Upgrade or new system?

Hello,

My current rig stands at:

Motherboard: Intel something....

CPU: intel core 2 quad q6600 @ 2.4ghz

GPU: ati radeon HD 5770

PSU: 500w

RAM: 4gb DDR2

I'm considering getting an asus P45 chipset motherboard so that I can overclock the q6600 to 3.0ghz or higher and then get a 2nd HD5770 and run crossfire but this will set me back around £200 (I live in the UK) I think.

Should I go with this upgrade path or just save money for a new system?

If you have the money to go for something like a P955/965 BE, go for it. If not: make ur upgrade.

If I was to go with a p45 motherboard, which one should i get? I want to be able to run crossfire with 2 HD5770. I hear that the asus P5Q PRO is good, is this alright? Or should I spend more money for the P5Q deluxe? Also just wondering what is the difference between the 2?

I believe P45 is more than enough for 2 x 5770s, a single 5770 will not saturate the bandwidth of 8x PCI-E 2, and the P45 is more power efficient (45nm vs 65 nm for the x38/x48) if you care about such things. And I believe the ASUS P5Q Pro is a good and reputable board, never tried it myself though!
One more thing: Specify the model of your PSU so we can advice you if it's enough for your new upgradw or not.

Thanks for the reply,
Is this memory saturation that you are talking about?
I am not too familiar with this topic could you elaborate or link me to somewhere that will give me further information on this.
Erm its a cheap no brand power supply shame on me but i'm going to buy a new one soon.
If it is memory bandwidth that you are talking about, the HD5770 has bandwidth of 76.8GB/s and PCI-express x8 has bandwidth of 8*16 = 128GB/s?
Thanks for this information as it is new to me and very helpful

From my experience, taken from the fact that I have both a computer with a 955 BE and one with a QX9650, the 955 BE is a little better than the QX9650. Not much better, but a little better. I intend to upgrade the 955 BE to a 6 core 1090T in a couple months. Take a look at this list from Toms:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts [...] ,1407.html

This supports that the 955 BE scoring at 1046 is marginally better than a QX9650 at 1034, while being substantially better than a Q6600 at 831. A 1090T scores 1091. OK, these are performance charts and not gaming ones, and I use my mainly use my computers for things other than gaming. For a gaming perspective, using 3Dmark 1.0.2 CPU score, look at this chart:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts [...] ,1398.html

Here a 955 BE scores 36382, a QX9650 scores 37323, while a Q6600 scores 32363. A 1090T would boost the score to 41025. So a QX9650 does do a little bit better than a 955 BE, but is nearly 2,000 points behind a 1090T.

My point is that the 955 BE would be more than "only marginally better" than a Q6600. Then again, a 1090T is better yet. To go to a yet higher level, you have to go to the i7 series chips and then they cost quite a bit more money. But as I said before, I think building a computer with a 1090T is worthwhile and it doesn't cost as much money as going all the way to an i7 one. As to the memory/ram question, yes, DDR3 will provide more bandwidth and thus better performance. In the end, its a bit of the old dilemma, "How fast can you afford to go".

I don't know exactly what's available where you live, so I'll name a few PSU companies that I have found good. They include Antec, Corsair, PC P&C, and the Thermaltake Toughpower series. No doubt there are others, but these are ones that I've had good experience with. Here is a review guide to power supplies, both good ones and ones to avoid.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.p [...] ecatnum=13

As for ram specs, I use PC 1600 ram with my 955 BE. It would be good for a X6 1055T as well, and for the 1090T that I'm planning on buying, for that matter. The higher spec ram is mainly lower clocked ram that has been factory overclocked with more voltage required to support it, so don't worry about 2000mhz ram. The 1066mhz ram you mention probably can be overclocked to 1600mhz with a bit more voltage than standard.

As to a motherboard, my favorite company has been ASUS, with Gigabyte after that and then MSI. I don't know what's available where you are or what the prices are. Since you are planning to run two cards, make sure the lanes are balanced, not having one lane PCIe at 8 and one at 4, for instance. Look for a board that is running two PCIe 16 lanes. I'd recommend either a 790FX or 890FX board for best performance with a X6 chip.

Just some more thoughts.