Your doing it wrong. Am I wasting money? Need help on new PC

First let me warn you, this might be long, but I think you'll find it worth it. I posted this in video cards because I care the most about video cards and games.

Let me start by saying I am a game addict. I play games non-stop and integrate into every facet of my life. Gaming is a passion and while some people sit on the couch on a rainy day and read a book, I am the guy who would rather sit down and play a great game for 8 hours. I was raised with the philosophy of "if you're going to do it, you do it right the first time". I apply this to my Tech purchases. I have amazing 7.1 setups in 3 rooms in my house and a killer 7.1 Reference system in my basement, so the best of the best is what I like. I'm by no means rich, but I spend months researching before I make my big purchase and than I go big or go home.

Here we are today and I am getting ready to upgrade my PC and I have picked out my components and I'm a casual reader of the site, but going into research mode I'm reading this site a lot now and I respect the members of this site immensely.

Here is what I game on currently:

i7-920 Stock with ThermalRight cooler (can't remember the name, but it was the best at the time)
P6T Deluxe V2 Deluxe Mobo
Corsair 6GB XMS3 Ram DDR3 1600 Stock
160GB XM-25 Intel SSD
Digital Caviar Black 3.0Mbps Sata
Corsair CMPSU-750W
XFX Radeon HD5970 Black Edition
Coolermaster HAF932

Now everything is stock. I have NO clues about overclocking and just recently I tried Oc'ing the HD5970 with XFX overvolt and bumping it up to 850 Core and 1350 Mem and it freaked out, artifacted and shut down.

I was thinking about upgrading to:
i7-2600k
MSI GD65
Corsair Vengeance DDR3 8GB 1600
2 XFX Radeon 6950CFX (plans on unlocking, even though I'm terrified of this)
Cooler Master HAF942

I game on Acer GD235HZ, simply for the 120Hz refresh rate for smoothness and my second monitor is the Samsung XL2370 LED monitor. I thought about adding another 2 Acer's for Eyefinity, but I dont know if I"m interested in Eyefinity. Right now I game at 1920x1080.

What would you guys recommend? Am I wasting money upgrading? Should I at least upgrade the video cards and sell my HD5970? Is eyefinity worth it?

Tell me your thoughts and thank you for taking time to read it.

(please dont post tl;dr

... errr... yes you are ... lol You won't see many benefits of spending that money! But your call!
If it's just to play ... you will be frustrated in no time ... when you realize that " meh ... it's almost the same " ...

You have an i7 already, so you shouldn't be considering Sandy Bridge -- read some reviews. It's painfully obvious. If it isn't OCed already (re-read, seems it's not) OC the 920 to around 4Ghz and call it a day. 3.5Ghz at least should be easy with your HSF and case airflow. You'll see almost zero improvement between an OCed 920 and a 2600K in games.

A single 5870 will do just about anything at 1920x1200 (and therefor do even better at 1920x1080). The video card upgrade is a pretty major waste too. If you go eyefinity the 6950s would make some sense, but barring that... you're burning money. Send it to me instead. Or donate to charity. Either way, more good will come out of it, and you'll benefit cause your electrical bill will be lower.

Also, 6GB to 8GB of RAM won't do shit for gaming. As in, absolutely nothing. So stop thinking about that. Anything above 4GB is gravy when it comes to games.

In short: your machine is still top of the heap. You have no real reason to upgrade. Don't.

He has a 5970

That rig will power everything you could want for quite some time. Save some money to "go big" when your rig actually starts showing some age, because at that point SB will start to as well. If anything, throw a 6970 in there if you absolutely have to upgrade something.

You must mean something vastly different from what I conjure when you say "I am by no means rich"

silent-circuit said:

So he does. Which makes this thread even more idiotic.

OP -- two things: 1. Are you serious? 2. Die in a fire. (Not really, but my god, I saw red for a second there...) Either you're trolling and I only just realized cause I misread your specs initially, or you need to do more research and stop throwing money at a problem that doesn't exist.

Or to put it in your own words: You're doin' it wrong.

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Wow hostile.
No I'm not "trolling you" (i'm not some 14 year old) and i'm serious. My reason for looking to upgrade is some games run slower, Metro 2033, Crysis 2, when they're cranked. Not sure why you would respond so hostile, I'm simply asking what I'm asking because i was wondering. I want to be able to run things on max at 1920x1080p.

As for the "die in a fire" remark i'm going to assume your having a temper tantrum and ignore it.

lobski2 said:

You must mean something vastly different from what I conjure when you say "I am by no means rich"

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I'm not, I simply know how to save money for the things I would like to buy someday.

The games you say will not run much faster on a sandy ... Damn, even with 580 Sli the Metro doesn't perform well ... and as far as my opinion concerns, i think Metro is a useless game to measure performance.

Crysis 2 is full of bugs and SLi/CF get idiotic frame rates due to poor support for SLI and CF :x

Postmodum said:

The games you say will not run much faster on a sandy ... Damn, even with 580 Sli the Metro doesn't perform well ... and as far as my opinion concerns, i think Metro is a useless game to measure performance.

Crysis 2 is full of bugs and SLi/CF get idiotic frame rates due to poor support for SLI and CF :x

Click to expand...

Well general concensus is that I'm nuts and just keep what I have. Looks like I'll have to go google up some Ocing instructions and learn about Over Clocking. Thanks for not telling me to die in a fire Postmodum

LOOOOL ... common, i didn't want that you understood my posts like that

If you need help with your OC, just send me a pm

To the OP. What's the reference system that you have in your basement? Could you list the speakers you're using? Just curious because you seem to take so much pride in it.

SeegsElite said:

To the OP. What's the reference system that you have in your basement? Could you list the speakers you're using? Just curious because you seem to take so much pride in it.

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http://www.polkaudio.com/homeaudio/floorstanding.php#lsi http://www.polkaudio.com/homeaudio/lsi/index.php?s=lsi25#lsic http://www.polkaudio.com/homeaudio/lsi/index.php?s=lsi25#lsifx for the Sides and Rears

http://www.uhfmag.com/Issue60/Mirage.html My Beast of the woofer that shakes the home.

Pioneer Elite 60 Inch Kuro PRO 151FD

Receiver Pioneer Elite VSX-33

I can take some pics if you like I just gotta clean up, I got a little 5 month old right now and it's a little littered with infant stuff

MaynardLD50 said:

Well general concensus is that I'm nuts and just keep what I have. Looks like I'll have to go google up some Ocing instructions and learn about Over Clocking. Thanks for not telling me to die in a fire Postmodum

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this is the right decision. your current system is already fantastic, not a lot of incentive to upgrade. if you have money to burn you can spring for a gpu upgrade, but a 5970 is still very stout. going 6950 CF will give you a better playing experience in only a couple of games at the moment - Metro 2033 being one of them. also...your basement sounds terrifyingly awesome

MaynardLD50 said:

Well general concensus is that I'm nuts and just keep what I have. Looks like I'll have to go google up some Ocing instructions and learn about Over Clocking. Thanks for not telling me to die in a fire Postmodum

Click to expand...

Good decision. You might consider an upgrade again once Intel has released Ivy Bridge and Nvidia 600/AMD 7000 series video cards are out.

I would say 2 6970s for 1080p is a lot of additional horsepower you will not use, however if you like me then I feel like 250fps in games is smoother just as some tend to think vsync enabled with 60fps max is smooth.

On the processor front, at this point I would say get a Bulldozer (AMD is always cost effective with great performance) or get an IVY (Intel is always expensive with fantastic performance).

Your choice but new options are literally about to be released. I am not going to go IVY or Dozer right away as this 2600K is ridiculous as is.

Yeah pretty much, OC'ing the 920 is probably the first step since those things usually have a good bit of headroom. I for one have never been impressed much by the gains from OC'ing the video card. The increase in heat, power usage, and often unstable operation was never worth the tiny performance gains. I'm the same way about cpu's but they usually have a bit of "safe" headroom to work with and heat is easier to manage with aftermarket cooling. Otherwise I'd advise keeping your current setup until the 28nm video cards come out sometime late 2011- early 2012. The 6900 and GTX580 are either incremental at best upgrades or slight downgrades depending on what you're running. This is mostly due to the delay/cancelation of 32nm gpus, there wasn't much room for this generation to increase performance. The stuff on 28nm could potentially be like a 2 generation jump in performance since GPU's are skipping 32nm.

Regarding CPU upgrades, I wouldn't until something significantly faster than an OC'd 920 is available. I'm an AMD fanboy but I doubt bulldozer is going to be much faster if at all in games, and Ivybridge may be prohibitively expensive for a small gain in performance, as most games aren't held back much by your current CPU, keep an eye on benchmarks and upgrade when you think you'll see a difference in gameplay.