Upgrades!

[chatman2222]

Hi all,

I am looking to upgrade my current system:

Mobo: Asus p5q Deluxe
CPU: q6600 @3ghz
CPU Cooler: Tuniq Tower 120
RAM: 4gb ddr2 @ 1066
GPU: 1GB GTX 460
HDD: 1TB
Sound Card: Asus Xonar d2x
PSU: Antec 650w
Case: Antec P182
Monitor: 24" 1920x1200

Budget is £250-£300. I looked at getting and SSD but I don't have any PCI-E slots left for a highpoint rocket so I gave up on that.

My thinking is either a new gpu or new mobo, ram and cpu. I welcome any suggestions!

Thanks!

 

[sapreaper]

personally i would just get:
Q9650 cpu
another 4GB ram,
and RAID 0 your hard drive setup
..as from what you said you don't have your second PCIe-x16 free? otherwise you could sli 2 cards if you wanted

But another question would be, What do you want to achieve with your system?

 

[WR2]

I looked at getting and SSD but I don't have any PCI-E slots left for a highpoint rocket so I gave up on that.

Hello chatman2222;

Your 3Ghz Q6600 / GTX 460 combo is still quite strong. You could probably hold off on upgrading the core stuff for a while.

Any upgrade you get now you'd want to move them along into your next build of course.
i5-2500K £164 / P-67 MB that does SLI £162 / DDR3 RAM £39


What makes you think you need a SATA III 6GB/s port on your Asus P5Q Deluxe for a SSD to be effective?
Your SATA II 3GB/s ports would be fine, even with a SATA III 6GB/s SSD like the Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB £85. It's true the READ performance wouldn't operate at it's peak 355MB/sec but it still would reach ~265MB/sec, same as one of the excellent Sand Force 1200 SATA II SSDs. And of course when you do move forward into your next build that would 'fix' itself.
It's still a 'freakin' fast' SSD even running on SATA II.

With the £265 left at the top end of your budget you can't quite squeeze into a GTX 570 upgrade (£285 or so) which would be the only Nvidia upgrade to make sense. Unless of course, you can sell your GTX 460?

 

[chatman2222]

@sapreaper

Correct I do not have another PCI-E free for another GPU. Although (call me old fashioned) I don't really want two GPU's as I don't trust the drivers etc. Also i'm not sure about the power requirements.

Regarding what it's used for.. gaming basically.

@WR2

I did consider just chucking an SSD onto my SATA-2 ports, but I couldn't really find anywhere showing the difference between using something like a C300 on SATA-2 vs SATA-3.

Your maths is a little out top end of budget is £300.. minus £85 for the SSD gives £215. Although I see no reason why I can't throw my gtx460 on ebay, i had a look and i reckon I could get about £100 for it. I haven't read much about the GTX570, obviously my system is pretty much fine with games out at the moment, but I'm looking ahead a bit to Crysis 2 and perhaps BF3. How does it perform?

Thanks for your input so far!

 

[WR2]

Hey! it's your job to keep an eye on the budget.

Your ASUS P5Q Deluxe is a CrossFireX only board. You could not SLI your GTX 460 with another in that MB.
Moving into a Q9650 CPU is a sideways move IMO - not recommeded.

 

[WR2]

Here is a side-by-side comparison of a Corsair Force Sand Force 1200 based SSD with a Crucial RealSSD C300 Marvell Controller based SSD
It mentions the SATA III / SATA II performance difference of the Crucial RealSSD C300

 

[chatman2222]

Alright, so now I'm back on the SSD route. Now I can't decide how big an SSD I need/want. Obviously I'd have the OS on there, maybe a couple of programs, but also games. I just checked and my windows folder is ~15gb and my combined program files folders are ~95GB. In theory Program Files currently holds more than it would do if I had the SSD.

Also if I get the 64GB then I could potentially get the GTX570 as well. Decisions decisions!

 

[chatman2222]

Alright, I went for a Corsair F240 SSD as I found one on ebay for £240. Should arrive in a couple of days and I'll be happy with my upgrades for a while. Thanks for your help guys.