Thoughts on my potential upgrade?

[kcornia]

Right now I have the following:

nForce 680i mb
E6600 CPU
4gb Corsair PC2-6400
1 evga 8800GTX
CM Stacker 830 Evo (3 added fans on the side panel)
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W Power
Asus Silent Square CPU Cooler Copper/Aluminum
EDIT: TWO 24" Monitors, one Dell 2407 and one Mac (with DV-I)
I'm giving serious thought, as was my plan when I bought this, to upgrading the CPU, RAM and graphics. Here's what I'm contemplating buying:

QX6800 (400ish on Ebay)
2nd eVGA 8800gtx (350ish on Ebay or from someone here maybe)
2gb Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC8500 (100ish on Ebay)

My questions are as follows:

1. Will the power supply be enough for the upgraded components and additional GTX? I'm wondering if I should have ponied up for the 1k power supply
2. Will there be enough cooling with the added components?
3. Will the additional roughly $1k be worthwhile in both added gaming goodness and extending my time before needing a serious upgrade?
4. With those components/cooling, will I be able to overclock the CPU a bit without too much risk? Would it be a noticeable benefit?
5. Am I missing something like an incompatibility or anything?
EDIT: 6. Given my desire to run games at 1920x1200, does the 2x8800GT still make sense over the 2x8800GTX?

90% of what I do on this machine is gaming. Sitting on it right now are World in Conflict, Crysis, Hellgate, NWN2+expansion, Orange Box...

Thanks in advance for any and all help/insight/advice, etc.

 

[RoBo]

Sell your GTX and buy 2 GT's.

 

[Dangman]

1) Should be enough
2) Not really
3) Not really. The second GTX will help but not the QX6800 or 2GB DDR2 8500 RAM. Have you tried OCing' the E6600 and see if you can get performance boost that way? IBut if you think you do need a CPU upgrade, get a Q6600 instead. It's cheaper and can OC to QX6800 speeds,
4) No. I recommend getting a better cooler like the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme to OC a quad-core CPU:
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme HSF - $57 & Scythe S-Flex SFF21E 120MM Case Fan - $14
5) No
6) No. Since the GTX is actually a little bit faster than the GT and you already have a GTX, it makes more sense just to buy a GTX a

 

[kcornia]

Thanks for the information Danny.

Does anyone know where I can find benchmarks that show what kind of improvement comes from upgrading to 1066MHz memory from 800, and/or from an E6600 (stock) to a QX6800 (stock)? I was planning to get everything up to 1066MHz and then try my hand at overclocking the CPU. Maybe not realistic if the cooling will be an issue. Can't believe 6 fans won't be enough to keep the damn thing cooled down (3 side fans, PSU fan, GTX fan, CPU fan).

Also, while I may be able to come close to the QX6800 with the E6600 now, I was thinking with the future in mind when both games and other apps start coding to utilize multiple cores. Is that not something I should have in mind? I'd like to be able to keep this thing for 3 years or so before upgrading significantly again (except for video cards, probably an upgrade in between there).

 

[Markyip1]

Danny, as usual, is spot on.

Even at $400, a QX6800 isn't worth it since you can get a Q6600 for $200 less. Assuming you OC your processors, you'll likely find that the Q6600 (assuming it's a G0 stepping) and the QX6800 have the same OC headroom, meaning you can OC them to the same speed. In fact, a new Q6600 G0 might have a higher OC headroom than an early QX6800. For a G0 Q6600, a good OC goal is 3.6ghz.

You absolutely do not need 1066mhz RAM for your E6600 now or for any quad. It's a waste of money. In fact, you'll likely have a very hard time running 1066mhz RAM at stock, as 1066mhz requires a 533mhz FSB, and I know of no 680i which can operate at 500mhz or above in any stable manner (especially with a quad core) w/o hardware modifications to the motherboard.

As for whether or not it's all worth it--probably not. But you can shave $200 by getting a Q6600 instead of the used Extreme chip. If you were to drop one side of the equation completely, drop the processor and RAM upgrade. For a 1920x1200 resolution, that second GTX will provide a decent performance improvement, certainly more than the Quad and an extra two gigs of RAM (this, of course, assumes that gaming performance is a priority.)

Mark.

 

[engiNURD]

I agree with Danny and Mark.

/*------------- <cut n paste> -------------*/
Formulas for Intel platform @ 1:1 settings: (base FSB speed is SDR, or single data rate)
c × [Base FSB speed] = CPU Clock speed (c = CPU Multiplier)
2 × [Base FSB speed] = RAM speed (DDR: double data rate)
4 × [Base FSB speed] = Effective FSB speed (QDR: quad data rate)

On Intel platforms, running the RAM higher than a 1:1 ratio with the CPU is, for the most part, useless, so don't bother trying to do so. If the BIOS does it for you, just let it. All you need is a 1:1 config, though. Here's some possible clock speeds (as always with OC'ing, your results will vary):

Q6600: 9 × 266 = 2.4Ghz, DDR2-533 << STOCK speeds
Q6600: 9 × 333 = 3.0Ghz, DDR2-667 << Nice OC
Q6600: 9 × 378 = 3.4Ghz, DDR2-756 << Good OC, near max for B3 stepping
Q6600: 9 × 400 = 3.6Ghz, DDR2-800 << Great OC, near max for G0 stepping
/*------------- </cut n paste> -------------*/

No point in buying DDR2-1066 Ballistix since the DDR2-800 Ballistix use the same exact model ICs. The DDR2-800 sticks can easily reach DDR2-1066 speeds, but you don't even need such high speed RAM, as pointed out above.

This will help you determine whether or not the quadcore is for you...
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=872&model2=871&chart=418

I think all you need is a nice OC on the E6600 and another GTX.

 

[kcornia]

I think I'll take your advice and just upgrade to a second 8800GTX and maybe tinker with overclocking the CPU a little bit.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[Dangman]

Thanks for the information Danny.

Does anyone know where I can find benchmarks that show what kind of improvement comes from upgrading to 1066MHz memory from 800, and/or from an E6600 (stock) to a QX6800 (stock)?

Comparison between DDR2 800 and DDR2 1066:
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=628&p=2

If you check out all the charts, you can see that the performance increase from 800 to 1066 is miniscule, if any, at best.