Computer upgrade choices.

[sparky1_2007]

Hey guys, ive come into a bit of money and i have been having an itch to upgrade my system a bit.

so, here's my 3 choices.

A) Get a new mobo, processor & memory and move up to an I7 setup.
probably gonna be:
I7 930/950
Asus Sabertooth x58
and 6x2gb of ddr3 for 12gb of ram.

Gonna run me close to $700 for the upgrade

B) Upgrade my HDD's to something that didnt exist in the stone age.
Intel X25-M 80gb SSD x2 in raid 0
and
WD 1tb Caviar Black
~$550 for this upgrade

or

C) Upgrade my graphics card setup to a new next-gen card

aka 6870/6970 or w/e the new flagship is going to be.

probably gonna run me like $400/500 for this.

so what do you guys think would be the best performance increase for the money for me?

my current specs are in my sig.

 

[Dangman]

1) What exactly will you be doing with this PC?
2) Where do you want to see a performance increase? I.e Gaming? Photoshop? OS responsiveness? etc.

With that said, Options A, B and C look like really bad ideas right now.

Option C because your 3Ghz Q6600 is already limiting current HD 58xx series video cards let alone the faster HD 6xxx series cards.

Option B because Intel is releasing newer, faster, and cheaper SSDs later this year.

Option A because for a gaming PC, that upgrade will not provide that much of a performance increase to justify the $700.

 

[sparky1_2007]

1) What exactly will you be doing with this PC?
2) Where do you want to see a performance increase? I.e Gaming? Photoshop? OS responsiveness? etc.

With that said, Options A, B and C look like really bad ideas right now.

Option C because your 3Ghz Q6600 is already limiting current HD 58xx series video cards let alone the faster HD 6xxx series cards.

Option B because Intel is releasing newer, faster, and cheaper SSDs later this year.

Option A because for a gaming PC, that upgrade will not provide that much of a performance increase to justify the $700.

the computer is used primarily for gaming.

and there's ALWAYS going to be better things right around the corner.

the only thing that would make me not want to buy something is if something that does something better for half/less the price of what i would pay for it now.

but the next gen stuff is always going to cost more than previous gen stuff.

that's why i bought my current system used.

atleast the CPU, mobo and ram.

 

[Dangman]

the computer is used primarily for gaming.

Then Options A, B, and C are all out IMO. You're better off spending that $700 towards an entirely new CPU + Mobo + RAM + GPU setup. More likely a Core i5 750 CPU + P55 mobo + 4GB DDR3 1600 RAM and one of the newer HD 6xxx series cards.

And yes I do know something new will always be around the corner, But all of the new hardware I mentioned are due out in a month or month and a half. In addition, your comments really only apply to Option B. Option A and C are still bad regardless of newer hardware releases.

 

[sparky1_2007]

Then Options A, B, and C are all out IMO. You're better off spending that $700 towards an entirely new CPU + Mobo + RAM + GPU setup. More likely a Core i5 750 CPU + P55 mobo + 4GB DDR3 1600 RAM and one of the newer HD 6xxx series cards.

And yes I do know something new will always be around the corner, But all of the new hardware I mentioned are due out in a month or month and a half. In addition, your comments really only apply to Option B. Option A and C are still bad regardless of newer hardware releases.

hmm, i see, i dont see how upgrading to an i7 is a bad idea though unless they're coming out with a new series or w/e within a month or two which is around when i'll have the money to buy it.

though out of all of the upgrades to me the SSD's and the new storage drive does sound more appealing to me because of my aging raptor and old maxtor drive.

 

[Dangman]

hmm, i see, i dont see how upgrading to an i7 is a bad idea though unless they're coming out with a new series or w/e within a month or two which is around when i'll have the money to buy it.

Well Intel is actually supposedly releasing their new Sandy Bridge CPUs some time in December, which is around the time frame you just mentioned.

However, even now the Core i7 is not a good buy for a gaming PC regardless of the new Sandy Bridge CPUs:
The 2.8Ghz Core i7 930 only provides about a 2 to 5FPS difference over the Core i5 750 as shown in this review:
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/gaming_the_core_debate,1.html

Additional proof: The $1040 3.3Ghz Core i7 975 Extreme Edition CPU is only 15% to 30% faster than the Core i5 750 with only a specific set of games and video cards:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/cpus-and-games-2010.html

So considering the the i7 975 is faster than the i7 930 and i7 950 and yet only provides 15% to 30% under the most ideal conditions, the Core i7 930/950 is definitely not gonna be that much faster than the i5 750 or i5 760. At least fast enough to justify the higher costs anyway. In addition, there's very little real world difference between triple channel and dual channel RAM in real world apps and games.

So platform wise, you can save around $150 to $200 if you switch to the Core i7 760 route and still get very similar performance in games. Dunno about you but $150 to $200 is too high for minimal gains in gaming.

Thus, from a price to performance perspective for gaming only, the Core i7 route is simply a bad buy for the money unless you got the parts for equal the same price as the Core i5 750/760 platform.

I would modify Option B a little bit: Stick to a single Intel SSD so that you'll still have TRIM. As for the hard drive, I would drop that Black since this Samsung will outperform that RE3 drive while being significantly cheaper:
$75 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

 

[sparky1_2007]

Well Intel is actually supposedly releasing their new Sandy Bridge CPUs some time in December, which is around the time frame you just mentioned.

However, even now the Core i7 is not a good buy for a gaming PC regardless of the new Sandy Bridge CPUs:
The 2.8Ghz Core i7 930 only provides about a 2 to 5FPS difference over the Core i5 750 as shown in this review:
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/gaming_the_core_debate,1.html

Additional proof: The $1040 3.3Ghz Core i7 975 Extreme Edition CPU is only 15% to 30% faster than the Core i5 750 with only a specific set of games and video cards:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/cpus-and-games-2010.html

So considering the the i7 975 is faster than the i7 930 and i7 950 and yet only provides 15% to 30% under the most ideal conditions, the Core i7 930/950 is definitely not gonna be that much faster than the i5 750 or i5 760. At least fast enough to justify the higher costs anyway. In addition, there's very little real world difference between triple channel and dual channel RAM in real world apps and games.

So platform wise, you can save around $150 to $200 if you switch to the Core i7 760 route and still get very similar performance in games. Dunno about you but $150 to $200 is too high for minimal gains in gaming.

Thus, from a price to performance perspective for gaming only, the Core i7 route is simply a bad buy for the money unless you got the parts for equal the same price as the Core i5 750/760 platform.

I would modify Option B a little bit: Stick to a single Intel SSD so that you'll still have TRIM. As for the hard drive, I would drop that Black since this Samsung will outperform that RE3 drive while being significantly cheaper:
$75 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

hmm, well, lets say that i go to a socket 1156 platform, what motherboard would you recommend to go along with this combo?

also, why only one SSD? im looking to keep about the same ammount of storage space as i have now with my 2x 74gb raptors.

and also i heard that there's issues with those samsung F3's, not entirely specific on what kinds of issues they were having, ill go look them up, but i prefer to stick to brands that i trust

edit: nvm, guess there werent any issues, i could've sword that i saw something on the hot deals thread.

 

[Dangman]

hmm, well, lets say that i go to a socket 1156 platform, what motherboard would you recommend to go along with this combo?

Well depends on what exact features you're looking for in a mobo. But if I was getting a 1156 mobo, I would get this:
$140 - Asus P7P55D Pro Intel P55 ATX Motherboard

also, why only one SSD? im looking to keep about the same ammount of storage space as i have now with my 2x 74gb raptors.

Because you don't get TRIM with a SSD RAID setup. Without TRIM, the SSD will degrade in performance as well as longevity over time. So in other words, that SSD RAID 0 setup will end being the same performance of a single SSD or even a single HDD. And then after awhile, that SSD will end up just being unusable.

and also i heard that there's issues with those samsung F3's, not entirely specific on what kinds of issues they were having, ill go look them up, but i prefer to stick to brands that i trust

edit: nvm, guess there werent any issues, i could've sword that i saw something on the hot deals thread.

Yeah I've never head of any issues with the Samsung F3 drives. The older F1 drives yes but not the F3 series.

 

[sparky1_2007]

ah, so maybe i would be better off getting a single 160gb intel SSD or something like that then?

 

[Dangman]

ah, so maybe i would be better off getting a single 160gb intel SSD or something like that then?

Pretty much.