Upgrading gaming PC - from E7500 to i5 2500k?

[kobus999]

After some soul searching, and a lot of reading in these forums to find sound advice, I have decided not to wait any longer and get an upgrade for my PC.

At present I have an E7500 socket 775. My thoughts are towards getting an ATX socket 1155 motherboard because I believe it will give me more space to later on add another 6950 GPU.

In Australia we pay a bit more for PC stuff - and my budget is not fixed, but $500-600 sounded like a reasonable amount.

I have the following listed (I keep the current case, 23" monitor, hdd's etc):


motherboard - ASUS P8Z77-V LK Motherboard (socket 1155) $169

RAM - Corsair Vengeance CML8GX3M2A1600C9 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 $69

CPU - Intel Core i5 2500K $225

OS - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit with SP1 OEM $99


I have XP 32 bit and thought it might be time to upgrade the OS to get access to things like DX11, 64 bit etc.

Worries I have with the above are that for $100 extra I could get an i7 2700k. The new generation CPU's and motherboards are very expensive and of unknown value for money properties...

Also should I wait for Windows 8 or does Windows 7 over XP make more sense?

(My Gaming is mostly racing games such as Shift, pCARS etc. I have a G27 wheel.)


Any thoughts on these components and the reasoning for getting them would be appreciated.

(also posted in pCARS forum)

 

[thedeathclox]

Sounds pretty good, though I strongly suggest getting yourself Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit edition. Significantly better than both XP and Vista and natively supports DX11 whereas Vista natively supported DX10.

 

[thedeathclox]

Also, good choice of processors. I commend you for not trying to reach for an i7 on that budget; an i5 should do you just fine.

 

[diellur]

For gaming, you don't need an i7...stick with the i5. I'd also suggest considering a Z68 motherboard, if you're using 6950s. Might save you some cash.

 

[kobus999]

For gaming, you don't need an i7...stick with the i5. I'd also suggest considering a Z68 motherboard, if you're using 6950s. Might save you some cash.

Reasons for the mboard recommendation? (I liked the overclocking and other features of the ASUS P8Z77-V LK - in a review - which is why I selected it...not being familiar with socket 1155 at all.)


thnx for all advice so far - its appreciated

 

[kobus999]

Best answer selected by kobus999.