Some build advice needed

[Apsody243]

Hello I need some advice on what the best way to upgrade my PC would be.

 

A few days ago my Q9550 decided to kick the bucked and die, considering that its an old socket 775 I figured that the best solution is to just get a new CPU, MB, and RAM, rather than hunting for another 775 chip.

 

My budget is about $1000 - $1500. As far as CPU, MB, and RAM is concerned I've narrowed it down to Intel Core i7 2600K, Gigabyte - GA-Z68XP-UD4 and G.Skill - F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL respectively.

 

In addition to this I'm also thinking of getting a Noctua - NH-C14 for the CPU and a OCZ Technology - VTX3MI-25SAT3-120G for my primary Windows partition.

 

The case, PSU, Sound card and Video card are getting carried over from my current PC.

 

Now my question should I get 8GB of RAM or 16GB, Is the SSD worth it or should I invest In a better Video card instead ?

 

 

My current Video card is a HD 4870x2.

 

This PC will mostly be used for gaming and my UNI work I plan to OC it to some extent.

Edited December 22, 2011 by Apsody243

[d6bmg]

8GB RAM would be enough for you unless you are planning to do some serious multitasking.

SSDs are better option to invest on than Graphics cards, as your present cards I.e. 4870 could run present games in mild settings.

[Alexandre]

Stick with 8 gigs if you are not doing serious number crunching.

What PSU do you have?

[d6bmg]

^^ I have ignored the same question about his PSU as I thought that his PSU must be good enough to power up 2x 4870 easily, which are power hungry card. So, it won't cause any problem while adding one or two SSDs in it.

[Alexandre]

^^ I have ignored the same question about his PSU as I thought that his PSU must be good enough to power up 2x 4870 easily, which are power hungry card. So, it won't cause any problem while adding one or two SSDs in it.

The reason I ask is because the OP wants to know if its worth getting SSDs or a new graphics card - if it's a new graphics card then it's appropriate to ask for PSU info.

Edited December 24, 2011 by Alexandre

[Tjj226_Angel]

Actually, I would approach the situation entirely different.

 

Since Ivy bridge and Pci 3.0 are right around the corner, how about you shoot for a newer and faster rig altogether? Now I know this is off topic, but considering the people above have given you a pretty firm grasp of what you would need if you stick with your current plan, that I just want to add another perspective.

 

mobo

 

Now this motherboard is about the same price as the gigabyte UD4 but the key difference is the it has 2 PCI 3.0 slots on it. This means that not only will you get a small boost out of your current graphics cards in the slots, but if you decide to get an ivy bridge CPU and a PCI 3.0 video card, you can see a HUGE jump in GPU performance.

 

Ram

 

I would go with this ram instead of the Gskill. Mushkin is a much better ram company than G skill and the ram can usually get a higher overclock than most. Not a lot of people have heard of it because it is a very under the radar type of company, but after using their product myself, I wouldn't trust another company to make my ram.

 

Now here is where things start to get tricky so please try to follow along.

 

CPU

 

Now I know this is a little bit insane but here me out. Ivy Bridge is coming out in 2 months. It will support new tech such as PCI 3.0 and will run a lot cooler for a better overclock. The i3 processor WITH HYPERTHREADING will last you for 2 months. It is only meant as a temporary solution. Then when Ivy Bridge comes out, buy the i7 then (it will be the same price as it is now) and a AMD 7970 graphics card. You can sell off the i3 on ebay or something to recover your loss. However, if you have the patience, you will see a much better gaming experience out of that sort of a strategy to building your pc.

 

As for the SSD. Yes it is important, but you don't need the max IOPS. You won't see that big of a performance gap in real world performance to justify the cost.

 

Even with the video card and the CPU conundrum, you still should be under budget.

 

Like I said, this is a different way of doing things, it is up to you on how you want to handle the situation.

[IVIYTH0S]

Sounds like you have a solid good start on it, if you can wait ivy bridge it probably wouldn't be worth getting in itself but may knock down the pricing on the 2600K so that is a consideration to be had.

 

What resolution are you running now?? If it's 1920x1200 or lower, I'd just stick with the 4870x2 since I doubt it's having any problems with running anything.

 

I noticed you chose the C14, was it the style of the cooler that sold you?? (not that it's a bad choice) but you may be able to downsize a bit and still get plenty nice results with an alternative tower style cooler