Upgrade itch

[Pollock]

My current rig: E8400 @ 3.6+ GHz - ASUS P5K Deluxe - HD4870 - 4x2GB OCZ DDR2-800 - OCZ 600W - WD6400AAKS - X-Fi Gamer - Vista x64

The reason I want to upgrade is because I have a copy of Win 7 RTM (suitable for becoming my main OS, I assume) that I'd like to install and get all set up before school starts up next week and gets seriously involved. I don't particularly need to upgrade, but with a combination of slickdeals and selling old hardware, the net cost wouldn't be too much.

An SSD would be cool, but I frankly don't want to drop that much money on one yet (no old hardware to sell) and I'd like to wait for them to mature a bit more. Or should I just go for it?

Otherwise I'd like to upgrade to quad core, and i5/i7 makes more sense than a Q6600 or some such. I have a Microcenter nearby, so I can get a 750 for $160, a 920 for $200, and an 860 for $230 (plus tax). I was honestly thinking of going with the 750 because aside from video encoding (I don't do much of this), they perform very similarly when overclocked (something I would do, at least moderately).

How does the X-Fi compare to onboard audio on P55/X58? Still vastly superior? Other requirements: need at least two 16x PCIe slots, as I have an HD4350 for additional monitors.

Should I wait for prices to subside a little? DDR3 prices are really killing me, since I'm still used to 4GB of DDR2 for $15 AR. I'd be willing to bite the bullet if they aren't going to change anytime soon and it lets me get this set up soon.

 

[Griswold]

An SSD will give you more "WOW!!" for the buck than upgrading the rest of your system if you dont intend to do alot of things that love two extra cores.

 

[Pollock]

So what then - 30GB OCZ Vertex or Agility? An 80GB X25-M would be nice for the TRIM support, but that's a lot of dough.

 

[Krynj]

Have you read this article yet?

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631

Take a look through that and then you can decide which SSD you want to go with.

 

[alyarb]

30 gigs would be a tight fit. what kind of programs would you want to put on it? games can be kind of large. you'll want your OS + large pagefile+ games. hard to fit within 30 gigs.
the 60 gig vertex is an option but once you are in the ~$220 range, the vertex becomes a poor value.

http://www.provantage.com/king...5-s2-80gb~7KIN90X4.htm

the intel drive is 80 gigs for only $235, and a faster overall drive. your computer is fast enough right now that once your program is loaded into memory, there won't be much of a noticeable difference, even migrating to a higher-frequency i5, especially since you have a 4870. the only upgrade that will really "wow" you would be an SSD.

 

[imported_Scoop]

An at least 60GB SSD now, wait for Sandy Bridge.

 

[FreedomGUNDAM]

I just got a OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD drive to install Win7. Going to hold off upgrading my processer/mobo/memory until 1H10 (waiting for Sandy Bridge)

 

[Pollock]

I feel like if I don't get a 30GB Vertex/Agility, I may as well get an 80GB X25-M, yeah? Better price/capacity ratio and a better drive. Still, I'm having trouble stomaching that $220+ price tag.

Either way, what about potentially doing both upgrades? Not worth it to upgrade from my E8400 just yet?

 

[alyarb]

you'd have to do more than 12 hours of encoding per week for the i5 or i7 to be worth your while, otherwise there is no need to get a wider CPU. What kind of heatsink are you using? That E8400 could stand to be overclocked more, and if you are looking for more power, you've left a bit untapped. you appear to be primarily a gamer, and the occasional encode job isn't enough for you to spend $200+ on a sub-3GHz quad. if i were you i would pursue the highest possible frequencies you can without modifying the platform you've got. I would probably sell the E8400 for $100 and get an E8600 and go for 4.6-4.8 GHz + the SSD upgrade.

 

[Pollock]

I have a Scythe Mine , which is a bit dated, but still gets the job done. I realize I could probably push it a bit further, but mine isn't an E0, and it seemed to require a little more voltage to stay stable at 4.0GHz than I was comfortable with. Maybe it has to do the with the fact that I'm driving this with 4 DIMMs (2 different pairs), I'm not sure exactly, but I will probably try to push it further when I install Win 7.

I do game, but I'm not having trouble with that at the moment, even at 1920x1200, and even then, a video card upgrade would be the first move there. I'm mostly trying to make my every-day use more fluid because I have a lot of less-demanding programs open at any given moment. I do use a TON of tabs though (120+ tabs). So I guess maybe an SSD would be the more appropriate thing here then?

Thanks for the help, by the way.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

SSD vote - 80G Intel G2

 

[alyarb]

the SSD is the only cure for what you describe as "everyday use" not being "fluid" enough. you have plenty of RAM and CPU, and what you are looking for is disk access time and read throughput. but yeah that scythe is still fine for dual-core overclocking.

what voltage were you using at 4 ghz?

 

[Pollock]

I don't remember, to be honest. It's currently 1.304v according to CPU-Z. I'm probably more limited by my DDR2-800 at this point anyway, unless running it asynchronously is no big deal.

 

[alyarb]

your board likely has enough FSB straps that you'd be able to clock your RAM out of the equation. No need for better than 800MHz at 4-4-4-12 anyway. memory is fickle though and for a given FSB it may prefer to run at 1050-1066 5-5-5-15. i've had very moody DDR2 in my experience, but moody memory modules need not sabotage your OC if you can effectively strap them to a lower ratio. I doubt the P35 board or the RAM are your problem, it's just that most e8400's weren't as great as they were let on to be, while most E0s are. I recall a number of E8600's doing better than 4.6 GHz with 1.35, 1.336 or thereabouts vcore. Just something to consider if you really do want more single-threaded performance. but this isn't to downplay that a 3.6 GHz wolfdale is still considered a quick CPU even today and that SSD is what you really want.