One Year old Custom Gaming Rig, Need Upgrade Advice

[xenofei]

Hi all, first posting here!

I built a pretty good system about a year ago, and would like some advice on making some upgrades. I am looking to play SWTOR when it comes out in a month at max settings. Here is my current build below. Note: I have not overclocked anything nor attempted to, kind of a noob.

CPU: Intel Core i7 930 @ 2.8GHz (Bloomfield)

Ram: G.SKILL PI Series 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7T-6GBPI

Mobo: ASUS P6X58D-E LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Hard Drive: Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC064MAG-1G1 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

GPU: SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100282VXSR Radeon HD 5850 (Cypress Pro) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card /ATI Eyefinity

PSU: XFX XXX Edition P1-650X-CAG9 650W ATX12V 2.2 / ESP12V 2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Other vitals:
Core Temp @ idle: 39C
GPU @ idle: 45C

My CPU fan is stock. So I would be open to buying an aftermarket one to lower temps. My case has the big fan on top, 2 in the front, one on the side panel, and one in the back so I think the airflow is good.

Price wise I am willing to throw $300-$400 in for some upgrades.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, appreciate it!
~C

 

[chitzkoy]

Get the corsair h100 for an aftermarket cooler just make sure it will fit in you case. Your rig will still do a great job in current games(assuming this is a gaming rig). You could probably add more ram and upgrade you graphics card if you want. Also overclock you CPU!!!. My i7-930 runs stable at 4.0 on 1.26 vcore.

 

[chitzkoy]

Another option is crossfire you graphics card for better performance. For overclocking there are a lot guides and videos on youtube.

 

[xenofei]

Okay, let me ask a few things:

1) My ram is currently in a tri-channel set up. I can just put another 3 sticks of 2gb in there no problem?

2) I want to upgrade the graphics card but you cant get the 5850s new anymore, and I don't know how confident I am to buy one off of ebay, you never know.

3) Ive checked out a few overclocking guides, is it really that easy?

 

[intel4eva]

To me, your upgrade path is a no brainer. For 300-400 buy yourself a used 580 or 2 used HD6950s. If you want to buy new get a GTX 570 or a single 6970 and call it a day. Everything in your pc is balanced, except your graphics card. And everything except your graphics card will do very well on new games still.