Phased upgrade...

[MacAttack]

Rig:
C2D E6300 (@ stock speeds with Tuniq Tower 120)
Asus P5W DH Deluxe
Corsair XMS DDR2 4GB (2x2GB)
Radeon HD4850
P160 Case
Seasonic 550W PSU
Various SATA HDDs

I am going to be doing a slow phased upgrade to a Core i7 build. I am looking to see what the best phased upgrade path will be to get the best performance. My current rig takes for ever (I can use a calendar to time it) to boot to Win XP. I will be moving to Win 7 Pro 64-bit and it will be a completely new install.

Here are the upgrade steps. Which order would you recommend to upgrade for best performance steps:

1. Core i7 860/920, P55/X58, DDR3 memory ($400-$500)
2. SSD drive ($250-$400)
3. Radeon HD5850 ($250 - $275)

 

[Firsttime]

If your sole issue is Windows boot times and overall system snappiness the go for the SSD first.
If your problems are anything else, gaming, photoshop stuff, encoding, whatever go i7 first.
If gaming is your #1 priority then get the 5850 before the SSD. Otherwise get the SSD before the 5850.

 

[MacAttack]

It is just an overall phased upgrade. Currently, boot times in XP take over 5 minutes. Too much uninstalling and regediting required to get it back to normal. I will be starting new with a clean Win 7 9nstall.

My thoughts:

SSD - since I am starting new and will go to SSD eventually, this may be the single best performance upgrade

i7 - This is an overall improvement to system performance. etailers are not at prices of Mirocenter for the i7 920, so that $80-$100 premium sucks. I can go i7 860, but etailers are in the same boat with a $60+ premium over Microcenter.

5850 - I am not a power gamer. I am a general home user. I started playing Fallout 3, but crashes kept me from continuing. Probably system issues. I will play Dragon Age Origins when it is out and probably some other games out there.

Here is the steps I can upgrade:

5850 or SSD today and the other in November; i7 upgrade in January

-OR-

i7 upgrade now; 5850 and SSD in March

 

[GLeeM]

Originally posted by: MacAttack
My current rig takes for ever (I can use a calendar to time it) to boot to Win XP.

Why don't you put Win7 on your current rig right now?

 

[MacAttack]

I have Win 7 on now. I installed it last night. It runs faster and I will be installing Vegas 8 Pro to see if video encoding is any faster. I will also be testing DVD backups. I want to get all my DVD collection backed up and it takes forever currently.