System Upgrade

[slugguls]

I am looking to upgrade and I would like some advise and opinions. I am looking to overhaul a six year old system so it will be pretty extensive. I am only bringing a few things forward from the old rig. This is my second build so any help would be greatly appreciated. I have done allot of research but still have a few questions. What I am looking to build is a good to very good gaming rig that will last me a few years and play the newest games at 1900x1080. I play mostly MMORPGs and FPS games and I like everything to be just about maxed out. I do have a budget though and it is at $800 - $1000. I am a little over that right now but I am hoping Black Friday/Cyber Monday will help me out some. If you have alternative parts you would suggest let me know or if you would do some thing different I am all ears.

First what I have:

■Case: Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum

■PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower W0128RU 650W

■Storage Drives: 2x Western Digital Caviar RE WD3200YS 320GB

■DVD: SAMSUNG 18X DVD±R DVD Burner

■GPU: ASUS EAH6850

Thats everything that is coming forward.

This is what I am getting (I think):

CPU: Intel
■Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost)

Mother Board:
■GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68

Boot Drive:
■ Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2CCA 2.5" 128GB

Memory:
■G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866
Or
■CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

CPU Cooler:
■ XIGMATEK Intel Core i7 compatible Dark Knight-S1283V
Or
■ Noctua NH-D14 (incompatible with any Vengaence series memory)

New GPU:
■ 2x ASUS EAH6850 Crossfire

One of my biggest questions has to do with the power supply. I have read a lot of stuff but it is still Greek to me. I even went through the Toms Hard Wear page and this is what I came up with. My system runs around 148 at idle and 627 at load. Will my old PSU be able to handle running this new system and will be OK to run the new I5 core on a old PSU. I have done a good amount of research and I cant find a single post newer then 2009 that even mentions my PSU My question is in my old Thermaltake 650 going to cut it or should I go with something like these:

■ CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W
Or
■ CORSAIR Professional Series HX750

Please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.

Thanks for your time,

 

[Cinci555]

Buy a new power supply. They are out of warranty and while it might last you another 4 years, it might not, and it might take your entire system with it.

Corsair or Seasonic. At least 750W probably 850 if you are CFing the HX are better than the TX.

The Noctua D14 is an incredible cooler, but it's freaking huge. Make sure you have the room and your RAM won't be blocked on your motherboard, they have a compatibility list on their website(Noctua).

Speaking of RAM, 8GB is more than enough these days. Look for something at 1600 Mhz and 1.5v as that is the most stable RAM. You do not need a cooler on the top of your RAM anymore, and you can't have it if you are going with a large CPU cooler.

Great SSD, bad mother board.

Get the z68 chipset but at this point you probably want a Gen 3 board like a MSI D65 (G3) or a AsRock Extreme 4 Gen 3.

Keep your HDDs and your drive.

 

[slugguls]

Buy a new power supply. They are out of warranty and while it might last you another 4 years, it might not, and it might take your entire system with it.

Corsair or Seasonic. At least 750W probably 850 if you are CFing the HX are better than the TX.

The Noctua D14 is an incredible cooler, but it's freaking huge. Make sure you have the room and your RAM won't be blocked on your motherboard, they have a compatibility list on their website(Noctua).

Speaking of RAM, 8GB is more than enough these days. Look for something at 1600 Mhz and 1.5v as that is the most stable RAM. You do not need a cooler on the top of your RAM anymore, and you can't have it if you are going with a large CPU cooler.

Great SSD, bad mother board.

Get the z68 chipset but at this point you probably want a Gen 3 board like a MSI D65 (G3) or a AsRock Extreme 4 Gen 3.

Keep your HDDs and your drive.

Thanks for the help. I took a look at some other stuff and this is what I was thinking of changing:

■Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB - Still thinking of maybe if it si a good sale picking up 16GB total.

■Mother Board: ASRock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 This is alot more then I was originaly thinking I was going to have to pay. I want a really good board but are there any other options?

■PSU: CORSAIR Professional Series HX850 The 850 was just a few more then the 750 so I went for it.

I looked up the Noctua D14 and it will work with tthe board and momory. I will probably get this as long as I can get a good deal, if not then I will go with the other.

I am looking to OC my CPU and GPU but nothing crazy. Anyother good solid options out there taht I am missing?

 

[zooted]

A quality 650w is plenty for cf 6850's they don't draw much load at all. It wouldn't hurt to go 700w but 850w is just way too overkill.

 

[slugguls]

A quality 650w is plenty for cf 6850's they don't draw much load at all. It wouldn't hurt to go 700w but 850w is just way too overkill.

I will be running two 6850 at least. With the mothr board I am looking at I may run three of them or I may upgrade to two 6870 in the near future. I want to make sure I have expanshion head room.

 

[zooted]

What do you mean two 6870's? Like upgrade the existing 6850's to 6870's? that would not be a worthwhile upgrade. However 3 might be considering it should alleviate microstuttering. If you are unsure of what this is, I would read this article to get a better understanding.

I just realized that 6850's only come with one crossfire connector so you are limited to 2 way crossfire.

 

[slugguls]

What do you mean two 6870's? Like upgrade the existing 6850's to 6870's? that would not be a worthwhile upgrade. However 3 might be considering it should alleviate microstuttering. If you are unsure of what this is, I would read this article to get a better understanding.

I just realized that 6850's only come with one crossfire connector so you are limited to 2 way crossfire.

I see what you mean about not upgrading from 6850 - 6870s. I also it saddens me that the 6850 only has one crossfire slot but oh well I was not really thinking hard about trying a 3 way. I did do some research on the micro-shutting you mentioned and as far as I can tell most people are not having a major problem with it. Thank you for letting me know about these issue though. I looked into a few blogs by ppl who are using 2 6850s in the new BF3 and I find more no micro-shuttering then micro-shuttering. Have you personally had experience with this or is it just from your reading? I can find a good amount of stuff talking about it back in early to mid 2010 but not much in 2011. I did read a few things on Toms though and they broke down the reason for it and what is was. it looks like the two cars have problems keeping a steady flow of frame rates. This is something that should be fixable with software.