Trying to decide what to do with my rig.

[Joni Nitro]

So, I have a fairly nice rig. Yeah, its a couple years old and there is better stuff, but this thing is still got some life in it. My problem is, I just moved so I had to tear down the rig some what. Now, i am trying to decide if I should part it out and upgrade, just upgrade a couple of things, or leave it alone for a couple more years.

System specs:
Tagan Black Pearl
700w Seasonic PSU
Asus Rampage Formula
Q9550@4ghz
8gb Patriot 1600 ram
2 4870's 1gb crossfire

This system is fully watercooled and looks like this:

The thing is, I dont really game anymore. I like having the option to have a few games on the pc, but I mostly use it to rip and encode my Bluray library. I could always upgrade a gfx card, but what would be an upgrade that runs cooler and uses less power?

My thought have been to upgrade my PSU to something closer to 1kw. The current one is awesome but a tad under powered. 120gb ish SSD, I put a 64gb Samsung in m laptop and its amazing. Finally, update the water cooling a bit as the configuration in the photos isnt the most effiecient.

What do you guys think?

 

[Dangman]

Unless your PC has been shutting down randomly and/or you smell smoke, your current PSU will be fine. As for the the system itself, unless you really need better encode times for the blu-ray library, your system is fine as is.

With that said, I understand the need/want to reduce the GPU down. However due to the relatively high performance still offered by your current cards, a GPU upgrade is gonna cost ya. AFAIK, the $280 HD 6950 2GB should be roughly equal to HD 4870 Crossfire in performance but uses almost half the power of the CF setup. So the $350 HD 6970 2GB should be faster than the CF setup. The $330 GTX 570 is also a choice as well.

Though if the power and heat output don't bother you that much, I'd hold off on the GPU upgrade and wait for AMD's new GPUs that are supposedly being released in December or January.