What do you think of these proposed upgrades?

Matthew on 31/12/2010 at 19:52

Hello chaps and chapesses. As my base computer is now four and a half years old and beginning to bluescreen when I'm playing LotRO, I'm thinking of replacing various components with the following:
(http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-344-IN)
Intel Core i7 950 - £220
(http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-429-AS)
Asus X58 motherboard - £150
(http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-291-CS)
Corsair XMS3 4Gb DDR3 RAM (1x4Gb - not sure if 2x2Gb would be better but it's got very low latency) - £65
(http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-022-NX)
NZXT Phantom Case - £110
(http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-001-SY)
Synology Diskstation DS211J - £160
(http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-097-SA)
2No. Samsung Spinpoint F4 Ecogreen 2TB drives for the Diskstation - £128
(http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-009-SH)
Sharkoon Silent Eagle 800 140mm Fan - £13

Total - £846

The idea is to transfer my iTunes library to the Diskstation and use it as a remote location for my desktop and laptop. It would also be used as a backup location for the desktop's documents and save files / LOLcat pics etc, if that can be done. The two 2TB drives would be RAIDed for redundancy.

I'm not concerned about waiting for Sandy Bridge as I understand that the first wave of those CPUs will sit below the i7s in the i5-ish space. I was thinking of going for the i5 760 and overclocking it but my computer room gets like a sauna at the moment when the machine is on so I wasn't keen on building up any more heat!

The sound card (X-Fi Fatal1ty), graphics card (ATi HD4870), huge CPU heatsink and internal optical and hard drives (2 CDRWs, 1 Blu-Ray and 2 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blacks) would be donated by the current machine.

Does that sound feasible?

Renzatic on 31/12/2010 at 20:06

If you really want to eek the most out of that Core i7, you'll want to go with 3 sticks of RAM to take advantage of the triple channel memory. Up it to 6 Gb in a 2x2x2 configuration. I don't think it makes a huge amount of difference, but if you're already spending that much on an i7, you might as well go for broke.

And this is more a taste thing, but damn...get a nicer case. That thing's goofy looking. Go with something like a (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119138) Coolermaster Cosmos, for instance.

Beyond that, everything looks great. But I think this thread is more about you bragging than anything. :P

Matthew on 31/12/2010 at 20:58

Well, to be fair it will be expected to serve for another 4 and a half years or so :p I'm just very behind on what is what in the processor world, so I wanted to see if I'd chosen wisely or would be investing in a dead end. In fact, looking back I see I spent as much on my Athlon 4200 in 2006 as I would spend on this i7 today.

Thanks for the info on the memory, I will see about reworking that part. As for the case, I just wanted something that wasn't silver :D That nice black one you mentioned sounds good too, though.

Edit: I suppose that gives me either (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-270-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1389) this or (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-271-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1392) this for RAM.

Brian The Dog on 1/1/2011 at 02:22

Just make sure you get a decent power supply to power all that lot (it does look a great PC, by the way), something like (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-032-OC) this or (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-202-CM) this.

The second of those RAM links looks the best, it's faster and also cheaper.

Renzatic on 1/1/2011 at 02:59

Alternately, you can go with Gskill. They offer up ram of the same quality as Corsair, but aren't quite as expensive.

But then again, money doesn't seem to be a problem for you at the moment (bastard :mad:), so I'd also suggest the second choice up above.

Matthew on 1/1/2011 at 12:13

Thanks Brian; I have (http://www.pcpower.com/power-supply/silencer-750-quad-crossfire.html) this PC Power and Cooling 750W PSU at the moment, it's a couple of years old but I don't plan on changing it.

Renz, thanks for the RAM advice too - be assured that I'll be paying this off in instalments. :p

Brian The Dog on 1/1/2011 at 13:08

That is a pretty neat power supply!

Matthew on 7/1/2011 at 10:56

Thanks Brian! I got it in a moment of madness when my then-new graphics card wasn't working and I wanted to be sure that my old PSU wasn't the culprit (it wasn't; I ended up RMAing the card). It supposedly has a 5 year warranty so it should do me for another 3-4 years, hopefully.

Renz: GSkill was a brand I'd never heard of, but I will look into it as the store appears to be temporarily out of Corsair stock. I decided against getting the Phantom case and went for the shiny black and red (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-203-CM) HAF X instead (it was on special offer last week, which didn't hurt).

One thing that I did forget however was that I can't use my current heatsink after all, it doesn't have any mountings for the LGA1366 socket! I have a hankering to use either this (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/corsair-hydro-series-h70-high-performance-cpu-cooler-lga1156-1366-775-am2-am3) Corsair H70 or the (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/thermalright-silver-arrow-120-140mm-heat-sink-for-intel-775-1156-1366-amd-includes-two-ty-140-fan) Thermalright Silver Arrow as my cooling solution instead. :P

Sulphur on 7/1/2011 at 22:52

Are you really sure you don't want to go for Sandy Bridge, though? The benchmarks and reviews (http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested) are in, and the core i5 2500K/i7 2600K seem to be the things to shoot for right now. If anything, the LGA 1155 chipset opens up an upgrade path (however short it might last!) while the LGA 1366 path is already closed off right now.

Edit: And the prices for the i7 2600K and i7 950 seem to be about the same, or will be once prices for the new processors normalise. If you're going to spend ~$300 on a processor, why not wait a couple weeks and invest in something newer and faster?

Matthew on 8/1/2011 at 11:49

Dang, I didn't realise that Sulphur! I had been under the impression that the i7-beating Sandy Bridge models would be coming no earlier than late 2011. I'm not worried about upgrade path as I have no intention, barring disaster, of upgrading again until at least one or two architectures further on. Getting the best performance for my money now is a greater concern of course - I'll have to look at those figures and see if I can convince Overclockers to alter my order over the weekend. As it's being financed they may not be willing to but I can try.