Debating on upgrade

[Menelmarar]

System in sig, gain general system speed and responsiveness. I also hate the loud noise from my raptor. It's also picking up some decent deals on components that might be going EoL soon.

Current computer plays all games I play, which aren't many, just fine. The only game that I haven't been able to run at native res has been Crysis. I'm not afraid of running med level graphics, no AA. Crysis didn't bother me running 1680 res on my 24". And I don't even play many games these days. I mostly maybe log 4-8hours/wk in WOW, these days. I'd like to play SC2 when it comes out, Diablo2. Rage may push my system, but not too concerned. So I think I got some gaming life out of it still to go. Just gets bogged down in general if I'm say in WOW, running batch encodes in the background, programs starting up, etc.

MicroCenter literally 2 miles from my office.

• $180 Q9550, drop into current motherboard.
• $75 WD10EADS, on sale, proven drive, already have a couple, doesn't have the new funky partition table formatting requirements.

• $220 80GB Intel G2 SSD. Use as system drive. Keep OS and Core apps and maybe 1or 2 games here. Move everything else, other games and rarely used apps to Raptor.

The thing that keeps killing me is coming back to the realization that those few items total upto, $500... just for upgrade components. Could buy an entire system for that much these days =( $500 would also damn near buy a new laptop... grr

 

[Actuary]

I would, personally, forget about the CPU upgrade, which seems marginal, at best. I've got an e6400 myself (and have had it for about 3.5 years now), and while moving to a new i7 would be fantastic, I don't think it's worth it in terms of price vs. real-world noticeable differences in computer speed. I'm waiting for prices to drop a bit further and to get to the point where I "need" the upgrade more than just "wanting" an upgrade.

I'm in the same boat with SC2 and Diablo 3. I'll be waiting at least until I get my hands on SC2, to see how my system handles it, before deciding on an upgrade. Odds are, I'll wait til Diablo 3 (or early 2011, whichever comes first, who knows knowing Blizzard) and do a fairly comprehensive upgrade (CPU, Mobo, RAM). I've been toying around with grabbing a SSD myself, I'd say go for that, it will be more noticeable than the potential CPU upgrade.

 

[tempuraki]

It's the SSD, I doubt you can find a new system with a 80GB SSD for $500, so your upgrade is still cheaper.

 

[Menelmarar]

I would, personally, forget about the CPU upgrade, which seems marginal, at best. I've got an e6400 myself (and have had it for about 3.5 years now), and while moving to a new i7 would be fantastic, I don't think it's worth it in terms of price vs. real-world noticeable differences in computer speed. I'm waiting for prices to drop a bit further and to get to the point where I "need" the upgrade more than just "wanting" an upgrade.

I'm in the same boat with SC2 and Diablo 3. I'll be waiting at least until I get my hands on SC2, to see how my system handles it, before deciding on an upgrade. Odds are, I'll wait til Diablo 3 (or early 2011, whichever comes first, who knows knowing Blizzard) and do a fairly comprehensive upgrade (CPU, Mobo, RAM). I've been toying around with grabbing a SSD myself, I'd say go for that, it will be more noticeable than the potential CPU upgrade.

You have a point, I'm not convinced my E6600 is a bottleneck either. My big fear is that the Q9550 series will run out of stock, it's already considered EoL and be harder and harder to find. It's basically the best CPU of the Core2 line on my current platform without replacing mobo/ram.