Upgrade... this or that?

[Millenwagon]

Hey guys, I'm considering upgrading my computer (specs should be displayed to the left under my system tab) to have a better performing gaming PC.

I'm stuck in two minds and hoping somebody can set me on the correct path.

Do I keep the rig i've got and just stick a new PSU and GTX 590 or HD 6990 in there, or do I go the extra mile and purchase a new mobo 1366, an i7 processor, another GTX 470 (for SLI) and probably need a new PSU too. Which would be more beneficial? The cheaper the better obviously, and opting for the GPU and PSU is slightly cheaper but would it be less effective to have a better gaming machine?

Thanks for your time

[Domestic_Ginger]

Look at the newer sandybridge rather than the 1366 imo. I personally don't think either the 6990 or 590 offer good value for money.

Your system looks really good. Whats your PC struggling with? You could always OC your CPU (and your 470).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The system looks fine TBH and if you want a more responsive system you could consider getting using an SSD.

[Millenwagon]

Look at the newer sandybridge rather than the 1366 imo. I personally don't think either the 6990 or 590 offer good value for money.

Your system looks really good. Whats your PC struggling with? You could always OC your CPU (and your 470).

It's not really struggling as such... and i am really happy with it overall, but when playing some of the high demanding games like metro 2033 and crysis the frame rate drops a bit (its still perfectly playable but im just fussy i guess) and also the PSU is quite loud, its supposed to be really quiet but it's far from it. As soon as I start gaming it gets a lot louder, and I know that's pretty normal and it is high enough watt to comfortably run my system, but it's pretty annoying and i cant sleep with this machine on. It gives the name 'stealth' a false impression lol. The graphics card is actually really quiet which is a surpirise considering 470's get quite hot.

The system looks fine TBH and if you want a more responsive system you could consider getting using an SSD.

And an SSD would be great but they're so expensive from what i've seen for such low memory. I'm really intrigued by them though, if for instance i installed my OS onto it, would it speed things up? I'm totally unaware of how SSD work.

thanks again guys

[jim]

Yeah. What I've done is to buy a 128GB SSD for about £150, and stick the OS on it. Then any games or big things like that go onto a second, mechanical hard disk installed as D:\

Means it boots really quickly, and things like office and internet are much more snappy. Games are still same old speed, but I don't want to spend money on a 300GB SSD!

Crysis will always drop the framerate to be honest, it's an appallingly badly optimised game. That's what always holds you back, not hardware. For instance, Oblivion runs at 15 fps on my 5870 - I don't think getting a 6990 would change that, somehow. I just need to find some patches/mods to sort it out. IIRC even the 590 and 6990 in benchmarks weren't really getting to grips with Crysis... still.

[Millenwagon]

yeah even a 120GB solid state is so expensive! hmm, solid state is sounding pretty tempting though... If i kept my OS on my standard hdd and installed games onto an ssd would that help improve things? I can't imagine it would but I could be totally wrong. And you're totally right about crysis, it's got a terrible engine, and in all honesty i think crysis 2 looks much better, and metro 2033 and they both run so much smoother on my machine. Crysis 2 at max settings runs perfect almost constantly and it looks great.

Any good reccommendatioins for PSU's that are really quiet? I'd love to be able to leave my PC running over night but this thing keeps me awake. I think i'll just stick the the gtx 470 for now then, it is a damn good card after all

[jim]

Depends what you want to improve. Games will load much quicker, but I don't think you'll get a huge change in FPS since the graphics is usually the limiting factor.

I prefer to have the OS load quickly and be really snappy, since I spent more of my day opening media players/web browsers/rebooting than loading levels of games. Your call depending on your usage really.

When SSDs become much cheaper, I'll drop a second one in and run my games on that... not yet though!

Don't know about PSUs to be honest. The BeQuiet range have always had a good reputation, but that's about the limit of my knowledge!

[Millenwagon]

Depends what you want to improve. Games will load much quicker, but I don't think you'll get a huge change in FPS since the graphics is usually the limiting factor.

I prefer to have the OS load quickly and be really snappy, since I spent more of my day opening media players/web browsers/rebooting than loading levels of games. Your call depending on your usage really.

When SSDs become much cheaper, I'll drop a second one in and run my games on that... not yet though!

Don't know about PSUs to be honest. The BeQuiet range have always had a good reputation, but that's about the limit of my knowledge!

ahh that makes sense, ssd is definitely the future, but paying upto £2k for 1tb is crazy money! I am actually considering an ssd now, i like the idea of the os running really efficiently, plus it will be a lot quieter than this gritty samsung hdd that im running now. The only trouble is i dont have windows on disc, its an acer machine so its all part of a recovery thing so i have no idea how to do a clean install onto the new hdd :/ any ideas? I have vista on disc but i'd really hate to downgrade to that resource hogging os.

[jim]

With Windows 7 IIRC the manufacturer keys will work with a retail disc, so if you can borrow a disc or download an .iso from somewhere like technet or MSDN then you'll be able to do a fresh install with the new disc and your Acer key.

Technically, many of the SSDs come with software to just port across your installation, but that's far easier said than done... it rarely works in my experience.

[bosh]

SSDs might be expensive but your HD is certainly the slowest point on your system. Compared to a 590 its cheap and wont be old tech in a year and a half.

Look into either the seasonic x series or corsair ax series as both of these operate in fanless mode under a certain power draw so you will be able to leave it on.
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/660w-...ssfire-eps-12v

scan has this on today only for 114