New Rig Advice

[one swell foop]

Current system specs are:

Intel q9550
XIGMATEK Dark Knight SD1283 CPU Cooler.
2x2 Gigs G-Skill DDR 1000 @ 5-5-5-15
Galaxy GTX 560 ti
EVGA 750i SLi FTW
Seasonic X650
Silverstone FT-02
WD Raptor 150 gig
Seagate 1 tb
Samsung 2tb
Random crappy DVD Burner

I'm starting to plan this a ways out since it will take me some time to get the extra money to upgrade, 3-4 months at least.

I watch a lot of high def movies on my comp and play a bit of Arkham City, but mostly Skyrim. I'd like to be able to run Skyrim pretty balls out, an my next purchase is one of the Korean monitors displaying at 2560x1440. It doesn't have a scaler, so I'll need a system and video card(s) that can handle Syrim at least at medium settings, preferably higher, and that resolution. Because of space and money limitations, I am unlikely to go multi-monitor in the next 2 years or so (plus, I work two jobs so I can pay for law school, I don't have the time to spend playing games that would justify the expenditure of money I don't have on extra monitors.)

Looking at spending $200-$250 on the processor, $125-$200 on the Mobo, if possible, for a nicely feautured, overclocker friendly board, possibly SLi. Don't want to go more than $100 on DDR3, but I should be able to get 8-12 gigs for below that. I try to get free shipping whenever i can and this stuff doesn't weight too much. Will likely buy from newegg and/or amazon (I have prime so free 2 day shipping), so that is a non-issue.

-My first question is, with my current hardware, how much of a bottleneck is the processor and DDR2 that I have? I would love to put off upgrading a while longer and just get more DDR2, but at the stupid prices that are still being charged for it, it would be sort of stupid to do so. I know Skyrim is heavily CPU dependent, and I love my Q9550, but they are a pain to overclock. I was previously able to get a little more power out of this mobo and CPU, but it wasn't really ever stable. I have to provide a little more voltage to the CPU than stock settings give it at stock clocks in order for it to be stable anyway, and I don't have the time to mess around with a finicky component.

I know Ivybridge is on the horizon, and likely within the timeframe I'm looking to upgrade, so that might be an option. I'd want something that can overclock along the lines of what the 2500k can do now. Bang for the buck is important. I am unsure what chipsets are upcoming, and this might affect the decision to go with a multi GPU solution.

In the past, I've used going SLi to help reduce upgrade costs when my video card gets long in the tooth, just buy another used card and get another year or so of gaming out of it.

-Would two GTX560 ti's push 2560 x 1440 and give me acceptable performance at medium settings on something like skyrim?

-Will my Seasonic x650 power my Q9550, three hard drives, all the stock fans in my Silverstone FT-02, AND two GTX 560 ti's?

-Are the current SLi chipsets plagued with enough issues or so much more expensive than single GPU mobo's that it justifies selling what I have and upgrading to a more expensive card? If so, are there upcoming SLi chipsets that are likely to have less issues and/or be less expensive?(pretty sure I've read about issues with current chipsets and heard that new stuff is on the way to be introduced somewhat in line with Ivybridge)

If so, I would likely pick up a used 560 ti and run SLi now, then upgrade CPU, SLi Mobo (unless the current gen and/or upcoming SLi chipsets have serious issues or are so much more expensive than a single GPu mobo as to justify the purchase of a single, new, more powerful card.), and RAM when I got the money. I'm pretty partial to nvidia cards at this point, but if ati provides more bang for the buck at the price point I'm looking at, then I'll go with a single ati card.

There are a lot of considerations in this, and I've tried to outline my computer use and priorities. I know a lot of you have more time to spend going through the news, or are doing so for your own system builds, and I would appreciate any help or insight you could give.

 

[Dangman]

1) My educated guess is about 25% with CPU heavy games like Skyrim. I'd consider an upgrade to Ivy Bridge and the Z77 chipset if you can.

2) Yes as long as you're just looking for medium settings. Skyrim does use a lot of VRAM so the 1GB of VRAM on the GTX 560 TI will be a big limitation if you're planning on using 3rd party HD texture packs or high-settings. But medium settings should be ok.

3) Yes but it'll be a bit close.

4) No there are no major issues with SLI and current motherboards. Note that there are no SLI specific chipsets for current Intel platforms anymore. Intel changed that 4 years back and pretty much forced Nvidia to license SLI tech to motherboard manufacturers rather than use specific Nvidia chipsets. So now it's now more motherboard depdendent rather than chipset dependent. So you'll be fine with current chipsets as long as the motherboard itself supports SLI. Right now, there are plenty of stable SLI capable motherboards out there.

 

[one swell foop]

I'm not currently using any texture packs since I din't think that, with my current hardware, my system would be able to handle it. How much of an effect would throwing another 560ti in my system have? I'm currently drooling over a GTX 680, like many of the folks around here. An upgrade in the GPU department is going to happen sometime, definitely. Would I be better off doing the GPU upgrade first, once the dust settles from the GTX 680 launch, or going with the CPU, mobo, RAM upgrade first? Am I correct in my assumption that my shiny new X650 could power the GTX 680?

 

[Dangman]

How much of an effect would throwing another 560ti in my system have?

It'll increase performance by about 30% to 40%.

Would I be better off doing the GPU upgrade first, once the dust settles from the GTX 680 launch, or going with the CPU, mobo, RAM upgrade first?

GPU upgrade first. Then CPU, mobo, and RAM.

Am I correct in my assumption that my shiny new X650 could power the GTX 680?

Yes

 

[one swell foop]

Thanks!

 

[bigdogchris]

If money is an issue, don't overspend on RAM. You'll likely not even use 8GB let alone 12GB or more.

Also, games like Skyrim are heavily CPU dependent. A 560 ti is not a bad card at all. You could move to a quad core Ivy Bridge system and keep the same GPU and have a significant performance increase. Down the road in six months to a year when the price on the Nvidia 6 series / AMD 7000 series drops, you can upgrade then.

As for SLI chipsets; SLI is now native to motherboards. It's simply a licensing on/off type of deal.

A 1GB GPU is pushing the limits of 1440p IMO. My older card had 768MB and some games were completely using that up at 1080p. Some games would need more than 1GB. If you have the 2GB version of the 560 ti, I would absolutely say just buying another one is good.

 

[one swell foop]

Sadly, I only have the 1GB 560ti. Maybe my parents will win the lottery soon...