System Upgrades

[Kiro-San]

I was planning on building a new system when Intel released its 6 core CPUs but have decided that I can probably get a fair bit more life out of current system for the moment with a couple of upgrades and a bit of overclocking. I was thinking about upgrading to 4gb of RAM (2x2gb sticks, I have another system the 2x1gb sticks I currently use can go in), installing Windows 7 Pro (so I can actually use the RAM fully) and swapping my SLI 8800GTX's for a single Radeon 5870. My budget is around £550 all told. So I'm looking for opinions on my choices or alternative buys. Cheers all.

[Domestic_Ginger]

An SSD perhaps if you wanted to buy now?

Otherwise I would sit on the cash as you pointed out there is life in your rig still and well worth waiting for bulldozer/sandy bridge! Fermi next month too; may be worth seeing how it effects the market. A cheap deal on DDR2 and W7 may be worthwhile.

[jim]

I would do the same as you to be honest, looks a good idea. £80 for the RAM, £120~ for the OS, £300 for the card, should fit your budget nicely.

The QX6700 is still an excellent processor - what software did you want the additional 2 cores for?

[scaryjim]

*definitely* another 2GB of RAM at least. You can pick up an OEM copy of 7 Home Premium for ~ £75. I'd give careful consideration to buying a 5850 instead of a 5870: it's not that much slower but it *is* that much cheaper! That'd all come to about £400, giving you enough left over for a 40GB Intel or 60/64GB Corsair / OCZ SSD. If you could stretch the budget up to nearer £600 you could even pick up an 80GB Intel... (have a look at Scan's SSD listing to see what's in your price range)

[Kiro-San]

I would do the same as you to be honest, looks a good idea. £80 for the RAM, £120~ for the OS, £300 for the card, should fit your budget nicely.

The QX6700 is still an excellent processor - what software did you want the additional 2 cores for?

That was pretty much my exact thought to be honest. I got the QX6700 when it came out more or less as when I built this PC I had an unexpected windfall (as you may guess from the spec). So I just went a head and got the QX6700. The CPU has lasted a good while and I'm going to overclock it now to extend that life. I've got a Thermalright XP-120e on it so I should be able to push it pretty far.

*definitely* another 2GB of RAM at least. You can pick up an OEM copy of 7 Home Premium for ~ £75. I'd give careful consideration to buying a 5850 instead of a 5870: it's not that much slower but it *is* that much cheaper! That'd all come to about £400, giving you enough left over for a 40GB Intel or 60/64GB Corsair / OCZ SSD. If you could stretch the budget up to nearer £600 you could even pick up an 80GB Intel... (have a look at Scan's SSD listing to see what's in your price range)

I've considered a SSD and I'll probably include one in my next new build (sometime next year) as I'd like to wait for the next gen Intel (or Micron) SSD's that are coming out in the near future. My only concern with buying an OEM version of Windows 7 is the fact that it seems to be locked to the motherboard you install it on. I've seen suggestions that you can just contact MS and say "my PC died, got a new mobo" and they'll "unlock" it but can anyone confirm/deny this?

Cheers for your help guys.

[Hicks12]

Id say get W7 and upgrade to 4gb ram, that will be the best value performance you will get!. Dont ditch your 8800GTX's yet because fermi is just around the corner(it is this time?!) and pricing will change dramatically, your gpu's should be running everything on max still so i dont see your reason/need to upgrade to something so expensive.

If you have so much cash to burn you can chuck some my way .

[jim]

I've considered a SSD and I'll probably include one in my next new build (sometime next year) as I'd like to wait for the next gen Intel (or Micron) SSD's that are coming out in the near future. My only concern with buying an OEM version of Windows 7 is the fact that it seems to be locked to the motherboard you install it on. I've seen suggestions that you can just contact MS and say "my PC died, got a new mobo" and they'll "unlock" it but can anyone confirm/deny this?

Cheers for your help guys.

I've done that a few times, although never actually spoken to anyone. It just gave me a recorded message and said "How many computers is this operating system installed on". Then I pressed the 1 button and job done.

[scaryjim]

I've done that a few times, although never actually spoken to anyone. It just gave me a recorded message and said "How many computers is this operating system installed on". Then I pressed the 1 button and job done.

It's probably worth pointing out that this is fine as long as you only install the software on one computer. Installing a single Windows license on multiple PCs is, of course, illegal...

But yeah, there shouldn't be an issue with reinstalling an OEM during an upgrade. If there is ring Microsoft and tell them you've had to change your motherboard: I understand they're generally pretty understanding about it (presumably they work on the basis that someone who's trying to pirate their copy of Windows wouldn't bother ringing up about it...)

[Kiro-San]

Id say get W7 and upgrade to 4gb ram, that will be the best value performance you will get!. Dont ditch your 8800GTX's yet because fermi is just around the corner(it is this time?!) and pricing will change dramatically, your gpu's should be running everything on max still so i dont see your reason/need to upgrade to something so expensive.

If you have so much cash to burn you can chuck some my way .

Heh sorry, don't have that much money to burn at the mo, hence the small upgrade. I get your point though, going from my SLI 8800's to a single 5870 was my biggest concern. At the moment though they aren't really struggling with much. A CPU overclock coupled with W7 and a chunk more RAM should do me for a while. Fermi has been in the back of my head and I guess AMD will try and paper launch (if not hard launch) something to compete with Fermi at the same time. The lack of actual performance numbers (even rough ones) has troubled me but the 5870 isn't going anywhere. This PC is almost 3 years old now, and apart from adding a 300GB Raptor and a 1TB WD drive (to replace my ageing Hitachi 7K250's that were on their way out) it's not seen any upgrades. Hell, it's still the original Windows install God I've gotten lazy in my old age... Well I guess that settles it. So I need some 4GB RAM kit suggestions please guys. Looking at prices it seems the most I can expect to pay is £130 anyway so go crazy!

Edit: Blu-Ray RW, yay or nay?

[Hicks12]

If you have the money to spend then yeh id recommend bluray drive .
Any 4gb kit at pc6400 is fine, look for cheapest if i was you or just get some OCZ or crucial ballistixs.