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Advice on CPU and motherboard upgrade

J

JimBowen

Junior Member
Hi guys, I'm looking for a bit of advice regarding a system refresh. I'm currently running an Intel Q6600 on P35 chipset which has now come up to 6 years old, and nearly 2 years ago I replaced the GPU for an AMD R6850 (factory OC) and replaced the PSU to an OCZ ModXStream 700w. This year I have changed my OS disk to an OCZ SSD.
The computer has a wide range of use; photo and video editing, virtual machine environments and gaming at 1080p.

My intentions are to keep the case, PSU and and buy a second hand 6850/6870 to run in CrossFire mode on the new motherboard until the next lot of AMD cards come out near the end of the year, when I plan to upgrade to a single GPU. As an afterthought I might be tempted to buy another SSD and run my OS in RAID-0 (and image backup to my NAS).

The Core i5 4570 seems good value at £165, however the 4670k is only an extra £20. Whilst overclocking is only a minor concern I guess it will help the longevity of the system so I guess it should be a requirement. Can anyone comment on the overclocking capabilities of the 4670k with air cooling? Or should I keep the budget low and stick with the 4570?

Regarding a motherboard, on the face of it the H87 chipset seems to provide more USB3 ports and is capable of sufficient CrossFire support for two 6850 GPUs - is this assumption correct? If I did choose the 4670k processor would the H87 chipset hinder my range of overclocking ability?

Finally, I have my current system hooked into my home cinema system via Toslink, I notice most boards have phased this type of connection out, would I get away with a 3.5mm to Toslink adapter on the green audio out socket? I've read that some boards have an S/PDIF header, but unfortunately I can't find anyone in the UK that supplies something that will utilise this connection.

Thanks for reading, I didn't intend for the post to be so long! I really appreciate any help.
 
I don't think I would bother with trying to do 6850 Crossfire. The problem is that while the H87 can technically do Crossfire, it is limited to a x16/x4 which gives pretty horrible performance. You could spend more on a x8/x8 capable Z87 board, but by that point you're looking at 7870 money. The 7870 is already about twice as fast as a 6850, making the whole Crossfire argument moot.

As for audio, there are tons of H87 boards with optical S/PDIF out (TOSLINK is a Toshiba trademark), so you can easily use your existing setup.

From Overclockers:
i5 4570 £162
ASRock H87M Pro4 £77

PS. Don't RAID0 an SSD, just don't. There's no perceptible speed increase.
 
mfenn said:
PS. Don't RAID0 an SSD, just don't. There's no perceptible speed increase.
Click to expand...

Well, unless you game. The only thing RAID-0 of SSDs helps with is sequential I/O, and about the only time you encounter that is with asset loading from games.
 
Hi guys, appreciate the input. In the end I convinced myself to spend a bit more money so I've just ordered an Intel 4670k and an ASRock Z87 Extreme4 motherboard as the overclocking capabilities should last me a little while longer.
 
VirtualLarry said:
Well, unless you game. The only thing RAID-0 of SSDs helps with is sequential I/O, and about the only time you encounter that is with asset loading from games.
Click to expand...

Do you have any links that show an actual performance boost? I haven't seen any, but admittedly I haven't gone looking for them.
 
DSF said:
Do you have any links that show an actual performance boost? I haven't seen any, but admittedly I haven't gone looking for them.
Click to expand...

Just anecdotal stuff from here, like "I used to load into new levels dead last, but after I upgraded to RAID-0 SSDs, I load first or nearly first. Whoohoo!".
 
VirtualLarry said:
Well, unless you game. The only thing RAID-0 of SSDs helps with is sequential I/O, and about the only time you encounter that is with asset loading from games.
Click to expand...

Key word being perceptible. There's a lot more to loading than just reading from disk. A single SSD is a great way to turn I/O bound problems into CPU bound problems. Two SSDs is just overkill for a desktop.
 
mfenn said:
Upgraded from what, a 5400rpm HDD?
Click to expand...
Wouldn't even need that. 500GB/platter 7200 RPM HDDs are about even with current WD Reds (more IOPS, lower bandwidth), and often worse when queued performance matters (mostly firmware, but it's quite perceptible, as well as easily measurable), so any older 7200 RPM would work, too.
 
Yeah I think the key is the SSD, not the RAID. I saw a huge jump from a 7200 RPM drive with a single SSD.
 
Got the new parts up and running last night, also took the time to clean my case. Everything works great, previously the SSD was bottlenecked with SATA2 ports so the PC now boots faster which is a nice plus.

I didn't have much time to put it through its paces but I did quickly fire up Counter-Strike:GO and noticed my FPS went from 120 to 260 so it appears the old Q6600 was a bottleneck for the GPU.
 
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