Upgrading Rig - Screw AMD

It seems fine to me, but if you've already got the 5850, I'd get another one. Upgrading from a 5850 to a 560 ti isn't huge.

I'd buy a better video card for my system and sit back and wait a year or so and see what comes along. I have a 5850. It held back my old system. Don't use it any more. Have a 6950 2gig card now. I wouldn't waste my time on a 560. had one of those too. Go for a 6950 2gig or 570 minimum.

I don't have any experience with upgrading to the 2500K. if you are mainly gaming I would just upgrade your graphics card as that would be a better bang for the buck at this point.

you will need a new copy of Win 7 since you are changing MBs.

As for the HD upgrade that is only worth it if you need the space. Sata# vs Sata2 does not make a difference unless you are using SSDs.

As far as the oem version of windows go, technically you are tied to that motherboard.
But I have hear people contacting ms and telling them that they just upgraded the motherboard and they will give you a new serial number.

I can't find it anywhere, newegg, ncix, amazon seems like its been discontinued

1. the build itself looks quite good.
2. the new build looks more like a sidegrade gamingwise. next year intel's ivy bridge, amd's trinity, vishera(piledriver) will come out. both intel and amd primise noticeable improvements with their respective new products.
5. right now hdd prices are really higher than a few days before because of the thailand situation. may be wait for a while, see if the prices come down after thailand recovers. or may be get an ssd for faster booting performance etc.

the phii x4 and radeon hd 5850 are quite capable for today's standards, only drawback(s) of your current build should be power consumption(this related to total system power consumption) and sandy bridge 2500k's quick sync. moving to fx(bulldozer) or 2500k will require you to get a new cpu and a new mobo anyway so why not wait for the new platforms till next year?
go to anandtech's bench and see how phii vs 2500k and 5850 vs 560ti turn out. imo you should hold out a little longer and get ivb/trinity/piledriver + the new radeon hd 7xxx or gtx 6xx pcie 3.0 cards.

Oh and there is no question that the 2500k is a far superior cpu that the 955be, however I don't know if it would offer the justifiable upgrade for a new platform and cpu. You could try to overclock it for now as it is still a very viable processor. Then when ivy bridge comes out in a few months, then maybe upgrade.

^ beat me by a few seconds.

1) It would make more sense to add another 5850 to run in CF, but of course it's harder to find one at a reasonable price now. A 560TI is only a modest upgrade from your current 5850

2) The CPU and RAM will make a difference, but considering a 560TI isn't too big of an upgrade I'd suggest waiting till next year for the new cards. You could upgrade the rest of your system and wait a few months for the new batch of GPUs. While they will be announced in January there probably won't be any kind of real availability till late February.

3) Yes you will need a new copy. You could just use Windows Build 8 for now though. Of course, at your own risk  .

4) That PSU is ok for a single 560TI but you should replace it if you want a multi-GPU configuration latter.

5) Meh, not really, unless your 500GB drive is pretty full.

I did the upgrade in my signature from a Gigabyte board/AM3 965/560ti build so I can relate to you a few things that I think are pretty accurate. My 2cents anyhow is........

1 - How is this build looking? Anything that could be changed?
I would get DDR3 1600 for overclocking room.

2 - Will the upgrade be noticeable and is worth it or should I wait?
Yes, it will be a very noticeable upgrade, a nice fast build that will last you quite some time. The new CPUS are expensive, and have no advantage over the 2500K for gaming.

3 - I'm using an OEM copy of Windows 7 64bit atm, do I have to buy another copy or not since I'm changing the mobo?
Yes, you will have to buy another copy of Windows. You might try calling Microsoft and see if they will give you a new activation code, if you can convince them you are parting out or not using the old machine. But don't hold your breath.

4 - I'm using a 600W OCZ StealthXStream PSU atm, do I have to change it or will it be enough?
It will be plenty good enough for a single video card, I would upgrade to run crossfire or SLI

5 - And finally I have a SATA2 500gb HD, is worth upgrading to a SATA3 1TB HD?
I would highly suggest a new SSD for your OS. Use the money you were going to spend on the 560ti. Keep the 500gig as a secondary drives for your programs, games and data.

I also agree that just going to a 560ti is a costly upgrade for the gain you will get.
Run the 5850 for a while till you can budget a bigger upgrade in the video card area. That Sandy Bridge is going to bring some life outta that 5850, you may want to crossfire it, or just run it for a while and decide later on a GPU upgrade path.

As previously suggested you could also just wait a bit longer for ivy bridge ^_^

Thanks a bunch guys, I'll just wait then. Will probably get another 4gb of memory and try to push my 955be a little more. I'll try to see if I can find another 5850 for CX

2) on the Gaming side most likely not unless you are playing games that are heavily reliant on CPU speed. Which is not very many.
3) Legally Yes you would because the OEM copy belongs to the ASUS M4A79XTD EVO now.
5) Depends on how old the drive you are using is but right now probably not considering the prices of current drives if the prices were still where they were a month ago then probably yes, but not because of it being SATA 3. I would say to wait a few months if you can.

With the monitor you have you could just upgrade the graphics card and have a very similar gaming experience ,
Or add a better cooler , and TWO graphics cards

Yes the intel is a more powerful cpu , but 2011 graphically intense games are more GPU dependent than CPU dependent