It's probably better to check out what you plan on buying, e.g. If it can overclock or not, etc, BEFORE you buy.
The 3770 does let you overclock it a bit (but I'm not sure if you can do that with YOUR motherboard, it may need a better chipset, Z77?).
Your non-over-clocked 3770 is probably going to be just fine with the graphics card you have in your signature.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/275748-29-overclocking-3770
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1633705/overclock-intel-core-3770.html
Perhaps keeping the 3770, after all, will save me more money, because I won't need to buy a new mobo and cooler, if you think the chip is good as it is (at stock speed).DigDog said:tbh you are not doing that bad anyway, and restock fee + new mobo might not be worth it. 3770 is still a very reasonable chip.
Didn't even occur to me that I couldn't OC the 3770. It didn't say anything on Intel's web. The only difference I saw when comparing the 3770 and 3770K was 100 MHz difference in speed.
Perhaps keeping the 3770, after all, will save me more money, because I won't need to buy a new mobo and cooler, if you think the chip is good as it is (at stock speed).
Should I always keep HyperThreading enabled in BIOS?
Don't worry, I'm sure lots of people make the same mistake. Intel have succeeded in creating a highly confusing naming scheme, and the fact that even if you had got the 3770K, you would still have NOT been able to overclock it properly, because it was NOT a Z77 motherboard, makes it a real technical mine field.
Even if you had got the 3770K AND a Z77 motherboard, Intel stopped using soldered thermal interface material in the cpus construction (to save money, or something), which potentially limits the overclockability (as it limits the amount of potential cooling, available) of the chip, unless you delid the chip (NOT easy, or for the NON-brave), which many people are reluctant to do.
Usually it is best to leave hyperthreading on, which may give you speed boosts, as later games are published, which may use it more frequently.
Booting off a mech drive on a home PC at this point is like going to an adult store to rent movies.
Booting off a mech drive on a home PC at this point is like going to an adult store to rent movies.
Hmmm, I'll keep my eye on SSD. Although, I was thinking of getting WD Velociraptor, because of the limited number of read-writes of SSDs.
A couple of terabytes implies 2tb. I can write that on an ssd in a few months...I constantly uninstall and reinstall and write new stuff the the HDD on a daily basis.I would not worry about SSD endurance. Most SSDs will last a couple of terabytes. You will upgrade your CPU and GPU long before the SSD will die from write cycles.
Most SSD's last far longer than that. Eg, a 256GB SSD with 1,000-3,000 PE cycles = 256-768TB's. And that's theoretical - in practise, search for "SSD torture test" and you'll see some measured in the petabytes.A couple of terabytes implies 2tb. I can write that on an ssd in a few months...I constantly uninstall and reinstall and write new stuff the the HDD on a daily basis.
PS: To OP, if you swap your motherboard out for a Z77 board, you can actually OC your i7-3770 to 4.1-4.3GHz. It "Turbo's up to 3.7GHz (4T load) / 3.8GHz (3T load) / 3.9GHz (1-2T load) plus Sandy & Ivy Bridge's have +400MHz "limited OC" feature on Z77 boards which take it to 4.1GHz (4T load) / 4.2GHz (3T load) / 4.3GHz (1-2T load). With MCE (Multi-Core Enhancement) it could potentially run at 4.3GHz under all loads.
I have a "locked" i5-3570 (non-K) which quite comfortably flies along at 4.2GHz under all loads on a Z77 board. It's only the newest Haswell's that have been nerfed and lost this "free" 400Mhz OC for non-K chips.