Advice needed on new parts

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Little_4nic8er

Gawd
Joined
Oct 24, 2009
Messages
603
Hello all.

I am looking to upgrade my system, but am limited by funds. By this I mean I can only buy 1-2 parts per month, (Cost depending.) not that I want lower-mid end/priced parts.

My current system is in my sig.

I was going to move to an I7 build, but decided it can wait for a bit seeing I can manage a 3.65Ghz OC on my Q9550. (Whatever parts I add to this rig will migrate over to the I7 build later, like the 5870 I currently have.)

So now I am considered getting the Gigabyte EP45-UD3P, and a single 300GB WD Velociraptor. (With a second VR next month for RAID.) I would like to do a CF system, at some point, and I'm hoping for better BIOS settings with the new board. This would free up this board so I can put my E6850 and 8800GTX back into play. (I'll be lending it to my roommate, who I have now gotten addicted to Fallout 3. He was never even a gamer to begin with. It was on my other old computer I loaned his kids for gaming and he just tried it out and got hooked....but aaaanyway....moving on.)

Now I am wondering if I should put off the motherboard and just get the 2 VR drives now. I am trying to minimize what I am translating into HDD bottle-necking in some games. It's a slight hitch while something fetches data, I'm just not 100% sure it was the HDD. I thought it was my GPU before, but I still get the exact same issue now, yet I am getting huge FPS in games compared to before and my GPU is not even being fully used let alone heating up when it happens. (Monitoring with MSI After burn through my G15s LCD)

I hate shopping, because I can never make up my mind on what is the best option to smooth out issues. I'll pick one thing, then swap it out for another, wash rinse repeat for days on end. So I am here hoping you folks can help me make the best choice to get the improvement I am looking for.

I am assuming the HDDs are probably the way to go, over the newer chipset on the board. I am also assuming the RAID setup will be better than a single card and the new chipset.

Or am I wrong?

Any help would be appreciated.
 
Well, you already got some of the higher end parts. Are you having problem playing games on your current Q9550 clock? I know you said the games arent really stressing out your CPU, but that is the question you have to answer. If your CPU runs games fine, there is no reason to further push the CPU, hence there is no reason to replace the P35 board with a P45. If your friend wants to game and is missing a motherboard, get him a cheapo $50 board used on the FS forum.

As for hard drive, and as a Velociraptor owner, I recommend anyone to stay away from this drive. It's not worth 4X the cash over the current Seagate 7200.12 and Samsung F3. For twice as less money as one 300GB Veloci, you can already get two Seagate 500GB 7200.12 and raid them now. Veloci is a great drive no doubt, but if you step back and look, is it really worth 400% the price for 10% (or less now) performance increase?

I'm gonna say you are thinking a bit too much on your PC. It's not worth the money now to get a P45 board since 775 is yesteryear's technology. You might as well put your extra cash in a piggy bank and fully upgrade to i7 a few months down the road. For now you should just get the 7200.12 or F3 drives if you really want to do raid.
 
Uhhh your system is pretty high end already, not much you can do to upgrade that's cost effective...

Care to be more specific? What game(s)?

Most modern games only use the harddrive when loading. After that it nearly plays entirely from RAM. Maybe a large open game like Fallout3 uses harddrive more, but it's setup to pre-cache stuff way in advance. You've got at least 4GB of RAM and 64bit OS?

I suspect you've broken your OS somehow. Installed some background tasks or something. You've either got faulty hardware that needs RMA or you need to fix your software.

Go run a malware/adware sweeper.
Go through ARP and clean your system out.
Then go through msconfig, services tab, check mark hide microsoft tabs, clean out suspicous things.
Then startup tab, clean out suspicious things.
Maybe the AV your running? Symantec products historically cause all kinds of sluggishness and hitching.
 
I concur with SOSTrooper 100%. Buying a socket 775 motherboard nowadays is pretty much a waste of money unless you can get it for like $45.

As Menel noted, there's really not that many cost-effective upgrades for your system. Just get a cheap Intel mobo for your E6600 and 8800GTX, give that to your friend and you'll be set.
 
Alrighty then, thanks for the replies folks. Sounds like you all just saved me some money, well, redirected to something new down the road.

I do wish I could figure a way to minimize the hitching in Fallout 3. TF2 does it to, but Fallout 3 is worse and more frequent. I know what it's doing in the background, I just want to minimize the effect as much as possible while it's doing it. It's obvious when you reach the uGridsToLoad=5 limit, it's loading the new ones and that is the pause/FPS drop spot I want to smooth out a bit. I figured it was HDD issue at this point and a faster drive was about all that was left.

But if an owner of a VR says stay away, I'll listen. I do not have money to burn so I'll take your word for it that it's not a worthwhile upgrade. (I actually bought a 1.5TB Seagate based on an article claiming if you use SeaTools to make it a 300GB drive, it was really close to a VR for much less, but ST failed to change it when I tried with some error. *shrug*)

Thanks again folks, it's much appreciated. :)

P.S.

Oh, and this happens on new (Many) installs of XP and W7. I've ruled all but hardware, or the software itself out.
 
I have to ask, even if the questions might sound silly... You have 4GB of RAM? Running dual channel? Updated all motherboard chipset drivers?
 
Danny Bui said:
Buying a socket 775 motherboard nowadays is pretty much a waste of money unless you can get it for like $45.
Click to expand...
Could someone explain this statement? What is it about the 775 boards that make it less desirable? Performance? Stability? Will this board *not* handle some upcoming tech challenge that i5/i7 can handle?

Also, from what I can see out there, non micro ATX skt 1366's are going for twice the price of many 775's. Skt 1156's are a bit less than the 1366's but still pricier generally.
 
The Socket 775 mobos will not support Intel Core i5/i7cpus. You're basically stuck with the Core 2 duo cpus or the Core 2 quad line of cpus.
 
SOSTrooper said:
I have to ask, even if the questions might sound silly... You have 4GB of RAM? Running dual channel? Updated all motherboard chipset drivers?
Click to expand...


6Gb in dual channel. I do have the latest chipset drivers as well.

As to the 775 board, it is not really an issue. I need one for my e6850/8800GTX anyway, so I want to buy a better board for this rig, and use this board for the e6850/8800GTX.

I want to try and squeeze as much out of this q9550 as possible. And yes, the I7 built I put together was >$1200 for the board, RAM, and CPU. Rather pricey for me at the moment. I think buying a 775 socket for $150 is a much better way to go at the moment. I'll save for the I7 build and get it next summer. (When I'll have to stop my current OC as I live in an attic and it gets way to hot up here to OC.)
 
arcturus said:
Could someone explain this statement? What is it about the 775 boards that make it less desirable? Performance? Stability? Will this board *not* handle some upcoming tech challenge that i5/i7 can handle?
Click to expand...

Well as HardwareGuru said, socket 775 is pretty much a dead-end in terms of CPU upgrade. In addition, many AMD CPUs perform just as well if not better than many Intel C2D/C2Q CPUs for significantly less. Even the AMD mobos are generally cheaper as well. Also, AMD socket AM3 does have a greater potential in terms of a CPU upgrade path. As such, there's very little reason to buy a brand new socket 775 setup considering that there are better alternatives for the money.
 
I agree, if I was buying a whole new system I'd go I7 right now. I'm simply trying to put these old parts I have back into play for friend. (And remove the current occasion hitching in games.) I'll have to steal 2GB from this system but there really is no noticeable difference from 4-6, though you can't say the same from 2-4. (Gaming wise, I know some things you would.)

Thanks again.
 
The Socket 775 mobos will not support Intel Core i5/i7cpus.
Click to expand...

Understood, my point was wondering what kind of performance boost would there be going from q9550 to i7.

Good discussions pro & con about 775's and the newer i5's and 7's. Many suggest sticking with Q9550 and waiting til i9 ...

http://www.overclock.net/intel-cpus/583992-775-vs-1156-vs-1366-socket.html

Like many, I'm not seeing significant differences to justify the upgrade expense.
 
arcturus said:
Understood, my point was wondering what kind of performance boost would there be going from q9550 to i7.
.....
Like many, I'm not seeing significant differences to justify the upgrade expense.
Click to expand...
OK, good for you. If gaming is your primary goal, no reason to upgrade from the Q9550 to the i7.

But for those aren't gaming but are doing a ton of virtualization or heavy media encoding, i7 does provide a noticeable performance increase over the Q9550. For some, the upgrade is worth it, especially for access to 12GB of RAM.

However, if one were to build a new system today, a LGA 1156, Socket AM3, or LGA 1366 motherboard would be far far greater use of your money than an old socket 775 setup.
 
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