OK....have gotten upgrade-itis and have about $1k to play with....

[Meghan54]

Current system consists of:

i7 920 @ 4GHz on water cooling (dual DDC2 pumps w/XSPC top, HK 3.0 cpu block, EK Asus X58 NB block, TC 120.3 rad, TFC 240 rad)

ASUS RII Gene motherboard

1GB 4870 Toxic Sapphire video card

6GB Corsair Dominator (1600-CAS 8)

1TB WD Black, 1TB WB Green (storage)

Corsair 850HX ps



My question.....most cost effective upgrades for the above?

Currently looking at an Intel X25-M 160GB SSD ($400), either adding another 6GB of same RAM or swapping it out for RAM with lower latency, video card upgrade to maybe GTX460 in SLI or 5850's in Crossfire or a GTX480.

Suggestions? (Did toy with the idea of just a new cpu....i7 970, but the price is sooo steep....)

 

[anishannayya]

Everything on your computer looks solid. I would just get an SSD and a new GPU. You won't really notice much of a difference with the faster RAM. In regards to your CPU, it is still very relevant, especially with that nice OC, and the performance boost will also be very negligible.

I have two SSDs, and my favorite is a 128 GB C300. My other one is an Intel. While they are great drives, it is old tech (2 years). Either wait until their next product revision, or stick to OCZ if your worried about reliability. I think Crucial is okay now that they have worked out their C300 kinks. I managed to snag mine for less than $250, so it is a pretty good deal. If you don't have SATA 3, it will fully saturate SATA 2.

With the GPU, I would stick to one 1 GB GTX 460. It offers nearly the same performance as the 5850, but at a much lower cost. Messing with SLI/Crossfire is a PIA, and not necessary unless you are gaming at resolutions greater than 1,920x1,080/1,200. In two years, a single card solution will blow your SLI setup out of the water anyway for the same price. However, if you must, I would go SLI with two 758 MB GTX 460s in SLI.

 

[mfenn]

Yeah, lower-latency RAM would be a complete waste of money. Just get the SSD and a new GPU like a GTX 470 (they're only $270 right now).

 

[s44]

SSD and wait for the GTX475 (can SLI those too).