Should I Upgrade?

R

Rurki

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 18, 2006
Messages
150
Time for the age old question, should I Upgrade?

As a HardOCPer I have the itch for the faster newer technology, but is now a good time.

After lengthy discussions in the Storage forums I am still up in the are on SSD vs SAS.
So lets concentrate on another area.

I mainly play games and encode movies to MKV

My current set is

Q6600 @ 3.2Ghz w. Tuniq Tower
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 v3.3
2 x 80GB Raptor / Raid 0 (Slowest parts of my rig)
1 x 1TB WD (Storage Drive)
4GB DDR2 800 G.Skill Memory
BFG Geforce 260 216 OC2
Thermaltake ToughPower 700W

The 80 GB Raptors are from a Dell machine, so they are not the 74GB raptors of yesteryear.

I have $500-$600 to spend this year on parts. After that the wife has but a budget lockdown until tax returns in 2011. So what I do now will have to suffice for the next year and a half.

Should I wait till summer to see if the OCZ Vertex 120s come down to my price range?
Should I use my existing 4 x 10K SAS drives I have laying around and add a controller?
Should I upgrade the motherboard, processor and memory to an i7 setup?
Should I replace the 260 with a 295?

Or am I OK with what I have and am just a technology junkie?

Lets get to healing my troubled mind.

Thanks.

Image of my Rig, Parts have changed inside a bit since the photo.

1000884lo3.jpg
 
What size of monitor do you use and I would agree. Pair of WD 640 GB Black in Raid 0 would be great upgrade for you.
 
I use a Hanns.G 28 inch at 1900x1200.

I heard of the 640 Black, but doesn't two 120 or 60 OCZ Vertex blow em away for access time and w/r?
 
What performance aspect of your system is the slowest for you?
What are you trying to get out of this upgrade? better gaming performance? faster transcode times?

2x 30GB Vertex SSDs blow 2x WD6400AALS drives. :p So if the 30GB does it, so do the bigger bros.
 
I'm fine with leaving MeGUI to encode overnight.

However, with gaming and in general I do not want to suffer for the next year and a half.

On another note, my system is silent except for the raptor rattles. Bugs the hell out of me.

Does the i7 assist current games in FPS?
 
Rurki said:
Does the i7 assist current games in FPS?
Click to expand...

Odd way to phrase the question but I get what you're saying:

Core i7 CPUs do not provide that much of an increase in FPS with games unless it's a multi-GPU system. In those cases, it seems that Core i7 provides around 30% more FPS IIRC with multi-GPU setups. However a multi-GPU setup with a Core i7 setup is more suited/cost effective to those who game at 2560x1900.
 
Tough call. Your system will play anything out there acceptably (except crysis of course :rolleyes: ) but in the future... two years is a long time. The thing is, never upgrade for future apps/games. Prices ALWAYS come down and IMO your good for now. Holding onto that 500-600 bucks is going to be tough (at least it would be for me) but if you can, just hold off and use it later.
 
Set the money aside and upgrade when you start hurting. It doesn't sound like you are right now... so leave well enough alone for the time being.
 
put it into a 6 month gic or bond and see whats happening then. I think we all know what and how you are feeling.;)
 
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