E6550 with Gigabyte P35-DS3R

[Packin]

Last time I upgraded was 5 years ago and well my system has become sluggish to say the least. I do a few things on my computer: light gaming (CS:S and Farcry are the most intensive it gets), listening to music, and watching movies. I recently graduated and got a job so now that I actually have money, I'm considering upgrading. I used to game a lot more before college, and there are some upcoming games/older games that I want a chance to play.

My current system:
P4 1.8
Gigabyte GA-8IRXP
TI4400
768MB RAM
80GB HDD (7200 RPM I think)
~400W Power Supply (I'll have to check on this when I get home)
Windows XP

My new system:
Seagate 320GB
EVGA 8800GTS
XCLIO Goodpower 500W
Crucial Ballistix 2GB 800

As my title says, is upgrading to a DS3R and downgrading the CPU the best route or the opposite? I don't really want to spend the extra 40 or 50 to upgrade both of them.

 

[MarcVenice]

Your power supply might be able to handle it, depending on the amps it can put out. It's 5 years old though, I wouldn't let it get anywhere close to new components. It has served you long enough and should be replaced ^^

You probably want to buy something like 2gb ddr 800, asus p5k or something similar. Pair that with a e6750, and perhaps a 8800gts 320mb, and a 80$ new PSU, corsair 450w or a enhance 400-500w, 320gb sata II HD and a 80$ oem version of Vista and you will be around 800$. There's no real need to upgrade from XP to Vista though, unless you want to, for some reason.

Not so good at picking mobo's with firewire. There's like NO way to do a search afaik, and I can't be bothered to look through 100 mobo's to see wether they have firewire or not

 

[Packin]

Edited my post with a new question and a preliminary system build.

 

[Packin]

Any help?

 

[drakore]

hmmm i would look into getting a corsair 520hx... if you live in the states you can pick one up at a very reasonably price. Just get a good heatsink and overclock the processor.

 

[MarcVenice]

Depends, going to overclock or not ? If not you're probably better of with the cheaper mobo and higher clocked cpu. If you are going to overclock, you could still get the cheaper mobo and OC a e6550 to 2.8ghz running it 1:1 with ddr 800. A higher overclock will require you to overclock to ram and/or to loosen timings and up the voltages on the ram, making things more complicated.

Both mobo's are good choices, the s3l only supports 4 sata drives though. Which is plenty for me, but might not be for you. The s3l also doesn't seem to have all solid caps, but some people seem to not be bothered with that at all. Afaik my mobo doesn't have all solid caps either, but has been working fine for quite some time now.

 

[MarcVenice]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817372001 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817139003

that's what I would buy, roughly. http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817371006 seems to be a decent PSU as well, and will probably power your system just fine. I would definately buy that one instead of the xclio if money is the problem. I've got a PSU with 30a on the 12v rail and it's powering a system similar to yours just fine. X2 3800+ @2.6ghz, 2gb ram, 1hd, 8800gts, 3 casefans.

 

[Packin]

I have no problem with OCing so I'll probably go that route. What's wrong with the xclio? It seems to be getting pretty good reviews.

 

[MarcVenice]

I dunno man, I haven't heard to much bad things about them, and I won't say they are rubbish, but I do know there is better, more reliable units out there.

 

[Yongsta]

I have the Xclio Goodpower and e4300 (3.6 ghz) / 8800GTS and it runs fine. So far, so good.