Some assistance please? (Incremental PC Upgrade)

[neoprimal]

Hey all. I just need a little help and advice on my upgrade. I've been putting it off for years mostly because my current setup runs/ran perfectly. One of my parts is currently messing up and I figured I might as well go ahead and do the upgrade now, killing 2 birds since Windows 8 is coming and I'd like to have a nice fresh system running when it comes.

I'm not that hung up on top speeds or anything so I'm not interested in having super fast RAM and all that. I'm also not interested in OC. I just want a solid system that I can continue upgrading for the next few years if I want to.

Currently, here is my setup:

Antec P180/Ultra 600w
Abit IP35 Pro Mobo
Q6600 CPU
(4x2GB) 8GB DDR2 RAM (G.Skill) @ DDR1000
~10 TB Storage spread across 3 internal and 3 external incl/ 1 NAS attached drive.
XFX 8800GT Extreme 512MB (the culprit)

Other things are incidental so I won't bother with them.

I am replacing the mobo, graphics, cpu and ram. The video card is the issue. It's now overheating and dangerously so I suspect. XFX has given me an RMA to fix it but oy, how many weeks without my PC? I think not. So I ordered the GTX 560 and that's what got me interested in just doing the rest.

GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD3H Mobo
i5-3570K CPU
(2x8GB) 16GB DDR 3 (G.Skill) @ min 1333?
120GB OCZ Solid 3
PNY XLR8 560 GTX

Main Review on some of the boards I chose from

I chose the board mainly because it seemed to have a few extra features (wifi) and nicer connectors (lots of usb 3) than the Asrock Extreme4 and has better reviews than the MSI board at the same price. I read that the extra Asrock usb 3 connectors can be problematic and that it doesn't utilize turbo technology.
My first choice would have been Asus but that retails for almost $50 more. I don't need a higher end board obviously. Just want a mainstream/lower end enthusiast board that will upgrade well into the future. My Abit (I miss them!) survived surprisingly long considering the fact that I built my current rig in early 2007 and I'm looking for similar longevity.

GTX 560 vs. 8800GT, HD 6850 vs. 8800GT, GTX 550 TI vs. 8800GT, HD 6850 vs. GTX 560

I chose the graphics card because it was the only card that seemed to beat the 8800GT by a high margin (hwcompare.com, broad but does the job) in all aspects. Many of them beat it, of course, but by smaller margins or by large margins on some aspects and not at all in others and I got an amazing deal (I think?), brand new for $150. I wanted the purchase to feel like a real upgrade. I don't really like ATI, though I did consider the HD 6850. I've had nothing but terrible luck with them in the past. Once bitten (or in my case 3 or 4 times), twice shy.

I chose the i5-3570k because I prefer Intel and figured I don't quite need an i7 but would like something a bit more powerful than an i3. The 3570K is reasonable (same price as 2500K). The 2500K is better for OC, but I won't be OCing and prefer having DX11 capable graphics to fall back on should something happen to the discrete video (ahem!). The lower power consumption also means I don't have to replace my PSU in order to satisfy the higher requirement of the new video card.

I picked the RAM because it was the cheapest of the selection and I currently like and use G.Skill. For 5 years it's never died on me so I trust them. I would have also gone with OCZ but I don't think they do RAM anymore. I currently have OCZ in my HTPC. 1 stick went bad and they sent me another very quickly with minimal/no fuss to the RMA process. 2x8GB means I can drop in another 2x8GB at some point whenever I feel like it vs. running out of slots or replacing 4GB chips.

I picked the Solid 3 because it's affordable and had the best avg. ratings on Newegg. The sustainable rates are also better than the other drives using S6. The other drives seemed to have high return rates and were mostly hit or miss. I plan to use this as my boot drive and the drive will all my programs (not games) on it. Also because of the brand, as I mentioned I've had a good experience with their returns dept.

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Does this look like a good incremental upgrade?

Specifically, does anyone happen to have this board? I would like to understand more about how the msata port works.
I know it's a slot for internal SSD cards that should work to make mechanical hard drives quicker by using the SSD as cache, but I'd like to know how it is treated in terms of being a boot drive or what happens if another SSD is installed as the boot drive.
If a SSD is installed in it and one is installed otherwise, is the one in the msata port forced to be the boot drive or could I use it as just another drive?

I plan to use the OCZ for booting and programs but would love to use the msata later on for cheap storage of my games. Right now the msata is more expensive than the 2.5 variant so it isn't cost effective.

Thanks.

 

[tiraides]

You should have come to us before you bought the GTX 560. There are a few better cards that are available for around the same price.

Before we can help you any further, however, we need to know the following:

- How much money do you have right now? How much at most are you willing to spend on these upgrades?

- What monitor/resolution are you using? (This is actually very important, as this information, along with the games you wish to play, influences our recommendation for video cards.)

Looking at the parts you're considering right now, I only feel comfortable with the motherboard due to its features. If you're not overclocking, simply put, you don't need a K processor (which comes with an unlocked CPU multiplier that allows you to overclock the processor). You could stick with either the Sandy Bridge-based i5-2400 or the Ivy Bridge-based i5-3450.

Do you really see yourself using 16GB of RAM? I ask because even 8GB is overkill for most games; we're only recommending that amount due to the fact that it's rather cheap. I recommend going with a 2x4GB DDR3 1333 dual-channel kit instead; you can find several models for under $50 a set. The key thing you have to look for is that the RAM runs at 1.5V. You run the risk of damaging your processor if you buy RAM that runs higher than that.

I'm not a fan of the SSD you chose. We normally avoid recommending OCZ in general due to the company's history of quality and customer service issues. Additionally, SSDs based on the second-generation SandForce (22xx) controller can cause random BSODs. Those problems haven't been fully resolved, so you may end up with a crapshoot. I would recommend the Crucial M4 or the Samsung 830 series SSDs but they're considerably more expensive (for the 128GB model) than the OCZ Solid 3. If you could afford to, however, I recommend going with one of those instead.

I also recommend buying a new power supply now. Simply put, the Ultra 600W power supply wasn't the best choice available when you originally bought it, and (assuming I've done the correct research) it draws 35A from its 12V rail -- that is very low for a PSU of that power range. If you want a good, inexpensive PSU, go for the Antec NEO ECO series (either the 520C or 620C is enough for most single-GPU video cards), and the second-generation Corsair TX-series PSU are even better (but they're a bit more expensive).

 

[Dangman]

In addition to what Tiraides said and asked, do note that you will need Windows 7 Pro or above in order to use more than 16GB of RAM as Windows 7 Home Premium is artificially limited to 16GB of RAM max. So what OS do you have now and are you planning on getting the Pro verion of Windows 8 if it comes out?

 

[neoprimal]

I have roughly 800 to spend. I won't do $1 more.

I wasn't aware there was anything better than the GTX 560 for $150. I looked up and down and found nothing.

I'm on a 24" @ 1920x1080. Secondary is 20" @ 1366x768.

The 3570K was just my hope at getting a flexible cpu that I could play with. I thought $215 is a deal since the 2500K is going for $219. It also has better graphics (DX11 vs. DX10) than the others in terms of a fallback in case anything at all should happen to my discrete card.

I don't want to go with lower memory modules because that doesn't allow me to expand later on. I don't want it so that the next time I decide to buy RAM I have to replace the 4GB chips. The board only has 4 slots. I won't be maxing 16GB out (I don't think, anyway) but I'm sure I'll use a good chunk since I will be disabling the page file. Later on, if I want to, I can go to 32GB. Also, it's only $20 more so worth it.

As I mentioned, the OCZ I chose because I've had a good experience with them and the ratings were really good across the board. I wouldn't spend any more on a 120GB SSD as beyond $100 I just don't think it's worth it. If it is messed up within the return period I will return it for a refund and wait until another time to get SSD.

Since the Ultra has never given me problems I figure I'll keep it and if it does I'll buy something else then asap. I don't have luck with Antec. Every Antec PSU I've gotten has crapped out on me so I won't be buying that brand. Initially I was going to buy the Corsair, so if I must I'll go with that.

Thanks for the input Tiraides.

Please leave me suggestions on the graphics. I can always return/exchange it. As I mentioned, I prefer Nvidia and it has to be on par or better than the GTX560 for $150. I also won't do more for video as it's not worth it for me. With like, 3 games under my belt - all played at max settings on this card, I think it is the baseline for what I require.

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I'm planning to get Windows 8 Pro. I'm currently running the Release Preview as my daily driver and will be getting Windows 8 Pro as soon as it's released.

Thanks for your input Danny.

 

[tiraides]

Which three games do you play now? Would you consider playing any newer games in the future?

What do you do right now that uses up RAM?

Do you ever see yourself overclocking the processor?

 

[Dangman]

I wasn't aware there was anything better than the GTX 560 for $150. I looked up and down and found nothing.

$150? Was that a used price or AR price?

The 3570K was just my hope at getting a flexible cpu that I could play with. I thought $215 is a deal since the 2500K is going for $219. It also has better graphics (DX11 vs. DX10) than the others in terms of a fallback in case anything at all should happen to my discrete card.

Fair enough.

As I mentioned, the OCZ I chose because I've had a good experience with them and the ratings were really good across the board. I wouldn't spend any more on a 120GB SSD as beyond $100 I just don't think it's worth it. If it is messed up within the return period I will return it for a refund and wait until another time to get SSD.

Yeah as Tiraides noted, we try to avoid recommending OCZ if possible around here. Honestly, the extra $20 for the Crucial M4 128GB is well worth it over that OCZ due to the higher real world performance, 8GB of extra storage, not having to deal with OCZ's customer support, and generally better reliability record. Since OCZ has a 7% return rate for its SSDs VS the .82% and 1.73% return rate for Crucial and Intel SSDs respectively, you can see where how we're can't trust or recommend OCZ SSDs to people.

Since the Ultra has never given me problems I figure I'll keep it and if it does I'll buy something else then asap. I don't have luck with Antec. Every Antec PSU I've gotten has crapped out on me so I won't be buying that brand. Initially I was going to buy the Corsair, so if I must I'll go with that.

Considering that if a PSU craps out on you, it can kill the PC, I wouldn't continue to keep risking your hardware with that crappy PSUs. Since Antec is out, I recommend getting the Corsair TX650 V2 as a replacement. Again, we highly recommend that you replace that PSU.

 

[neoprimal]

Which three games do you play now? Would you consider playing any newer games in the future?

WoW, Diablo 3 and Guild Wars (off and on). I can't say that I have any direct plans to buy games other than Expansions or part 2s of the ones listed. I'll also more than likely buy any new Blizzard game.

What do you do right now that uses up RAM?

Currently I don't max out my 8GB but I do come close sometimes. I leave my PC up for weeks at a time (often, only Windows Updates restart it) and run lots of tabs in my browsers. I'm bound to hit the limit soon enough. As I said, the RAM isn't a huge deal because for $20 less I don't want to limit future upgradeability so you can remove this from the equation. I definitely will be keeping the 16GB on 2 sticks. You can never have too much RAM

Do you ever see yourself overclocking the processor?

I don't rule it out absolutely and completely. I just don't plan to do it. Whenever I mention OCing people sort of go nuts on all the details so I rather just say I won't be doing it. I'm so very happy with the Q6600, I can't imagine being so greedy as to need to OC the 3570K but we'll see. If I can squeeze another .2ghz or get it to 4.x easily without bumping up the vcore and such or ocing the RAM then why not? It's not a priority at all and I'd rather absolute stability vs. a very minor speed increase for bragging rights.

Danny, I came to the same conclusion. Thank you both for this one, big time. After what you both recommended I did some more reading last night and for just $14 more I think I'll invest in the M4 instead.

 

[neoprimal]

Well, upgrade done.
After all this time, today is the first time I got my system 100% stable.

The UD3H is a veritable NIGHTMARE. It is the most finicky, picky, temperamental, bitch of a board I have used, ever.

Most if not all my issues were caused because the VIA USB3 ports are unstable, which I did not know.

At first I thought the board was just defective but then I read about lots of folks having issues with the VIA USB3. I thought initially too that maybe people just weren't setting it up right (for example, the book says to make sure you use the Intel ports first)...no no, this isn't about that. 1/10th of the time the VIA ports just don't work in Windows, not as if they don't have drivers, as if there are no ports at all active. Reboot and they work perfectly...nothing done as a fix, but to reboot that is.

Earlier today I noticed my secondary hard drive had disappeared as well. It's on one of the SATA 2 ports - again, a simple reboot fixed it.

The Intel ports work in general, but more times than not they are dead pre-boot so it's very difficult to get into the BIOS if you depend on the Intel ports solely. This may just be due to my keyboard? I don't know - I have a G19, which is pretty demanding power wise since it has a built in hub. The PS2 hybrid port depends on drivers so it doesn't work pre-boot either.

On setup things looked great but slowly just started to degrade over time. I first noticed the disappearing VIA ports, then I noticed the Intel ports not powering up pre-boot 100% of the time (ironically, the VIA ones DO power up early), then I noticed the VIA audio dropping out occasionally which caused my G930 to become default audio, forcing me to either remove the usb stick or switch it back manually on every, single boot. Then of course there's the SSD - which would BSOD 0xF4 every time I added or removed something from the VIA USB 3 ports, never the Intel ones. Was REALLY odd.

So how did I fix the issues and get a stable system? Technically I don't know if they're all fixed - I purchased a 4 port USB 2 bracket for the PC and I have put 2 of my hubs on the bracket. I have put the G19 with wireless trackball installed in it's hub into a VIA USB 3 port (so I can always go into the BIOS or manipulate boot) and I have put both external USB 3 hard drives on the Intel ports.

So far, so good. I've been stable, BSODless for the last day or so.

I am still deliberating RMAing the board either for an exchange (maybe there is some sort of fault with it) or an exchange, but really I can't find any board that presents itself as the powerhouse that this is. I plan to use msata and that alone is only found in $175+ boards, then there's the dual bios which is only found in GB boards (I think) and the onboard power switch/led which I find useful.

Luckily I am for the most part a patient person.

 

[silent-circuit]

Don't imagine you can return it? Try Biostar. They can't be touched for the money.

My USB 3.0 ports still don't work on my Gigabyte board...

 

[steve3]

Save your money, go with 8GB of ram. I doubt gaming will eat up 16GB of ram.
My i7 build uses up max 3gbish watching 1080p movies and running games like Spec Ops / Fear and it has 8GB of ram in it

The video card, like said, isn't that great. Even the GTX 460 comes pretty close to its performance... Any chance you can return it?

To save the life span of your SSD, you might want to hook up a small hard drive that can do paging, save indexing etc for Windows 7.

 

[neoprimal]

If it were a case where the 460 was that much cheaper then I'd have gotten it. The GTX 560 is more than marginally better than the 460 and is slightly less power hungry. I got it at $150 so I don't regret the purchase at all.

My previous system was 8GB so I know I could more than run with it but I didn't want to make the mistake of buying 4GB chips when 8GB chips would allow me to upgrade, should I want to in the future. It's a case of buying a 300mph capable car knowing I will be going at 100mph max, but the value presented itself. In the future I won't have to replace the chips should I want to upgrade, just buy 16GB more.

The reason I'm fighting to keep the board is the incredible value. I could exchange it for another if I wanted to but no other boards currently present the value that this one does. msata and dual bios alone make it outstanding. With how new Z77 is, I believe most people will need to do bios updates so it helps to have a backup chip. Biostar isn't bad and if I do RMA this one then it's probably on to one of those.

I will be getting a msata card and using it for cache. Generally though I just turn off caching and indexing on the SSD.

 

[silent-circuit]

Dual Bios is a non-feature. I can't remember the last time I bricked a board due to a bad flash; oh that's right, I never have. If you're using a UPS (which you should be, partly for the power filtering component) dual bios simply doesn't matter.

MSATA, if all you're using it for is effectively SSD space... stand alone SSDs are near as cheap and much faster. I'd get rid of that board, it sounds like a disaster.

 

[neoprimal]

Dual Bios is a non-feature. I can't remember the last time I bricked a board due to a bad flash; oh that's right, I never have. If you're using a UPS (which you should be, partly for the power filtering component) dual bios simply doesn't matter.

MSATA, if all you're using it for is effectively SSD space... stand alone SSDs are near as cheap and much faster. I'd get rid of that board, it sounds like a disaster.

You might be right. I have never ruined a bios either but nothing beats being prepared. All it ever takes is one stupid little freak accident and that's it. Having a backup is pretty mind settling. So far I have flashed the bios on this board 4 times. That's how many have come since I got the board.

The msata isn't about the space at all. The chips themselves are dirt cheap on ebay so I figured I'd buy a 32GB ($30) at some point and throw it in for cache or as a drive for games. I do have several UPSs.

I think the real issue is that if you review any of the z77 boards you see a ton of crap happening with all of them. For me to give up this board and get another that is less capable + have it give problems would be a big slap in the face. So I am holding on to it until it upsets me so much that I am able to take it out, pack it up and ship it. I said I would at least give it this week to see so that's what I'm about to do. It has been quite the rocky road to 'perfection' though.