i7 Upgrade

[smithmr8]

I've had my current setup for coming up to 4 years.

Intel Q6600
3GB DDR2
Corsair 620HX Modular
Antec 900
1TB HDD
500GB HDD
2 - 20x Burners
23" Full HD Monitor


Looking for upgrade to a new i7 build. Not planning on changing the PSU unless more power is required. Tempted to change the case though..

Want to change:
CPU --- i7 2600 1155 @ 3.4GHz [£238.30] [eBuyer: 252535]

Motherboard --- Looking for recommendations. If possible, two PCI-E sockets (SLi) for future-proofing

RAM - 16GB (4 x 4GB DDR3 1600) [£102.16] [eBuyer: 264750]

Graphics Card --- Looking for recommendations. Max spend around £150~. Suitable for Crysis/2 ect.. on high if possible. Open to suggestions slightly more expensive.

SSD ? --- Warey about the "write-endurance" of an SSD, whilst tempted by the speed. Advice ?

Would greatly appreciate some help on this. Was going to get an iMac, but don't want to spend that much on so little.

Cheers.

[smithmr8]

Also, would appreciate some advice on a decent HSF. Which would handle the temperatures if I choose to overclock. Keep it nice and cool. Noise not an issue.

[Jasp]

Whats your primary use and budget, I would suggest dropping the ram down to 8gb and putting the extra towards a better GPU like a 570gtx at around £210 if your primary use is going to be gaming, otherwise I'd probably suggest a 560ti at the £170-180 price point on a deal.

Other option would be a 6870 at the £150 price point, they do amazing well at bitcoin mining if you wanted to get into that from what I've read.

[shaithis]

If it's mainly used for gaming, save a lot on the CPU (go i5 or even am3+) and RAM (8GB Max for a gaming rig and even that is OTT) and spend 200-300 on the gfx card instead.

As for SSDs, their MTBF for writes is quite high but if you buy 2 smaller ones and raid 0 them, it normally works out a few quid cheaper, gives double the performance and twice the lifetime.

[jim]

The lifetime of SSDs is really overstated. Okay, so if you use them intensively, they might give up the ghost in 4 years' time. So might a hard drive. And by that time, SSDs will probably be ten times the size, ten times the speed and a tenth of the cost, so who cares!

[smithmr8]

Maximum spend would be £700~ish, but may be more. Depends.

System will be used for gaming, graphical design and software development.

[smithmr8]

Something like this ? Would like it to be able to keep up with most games for a few years. Considering I've never had a game I couldn't play on my 8600GT. Albeit with low settings. But still. Would like a card which can play most games on high settings. E.g. Crysis ect..

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/253805

Or would getting two cheaper cards and running them in SLi be a better way to go ?

[Platinum]

As a note if you want to overclock make sure you get the K version of the CPU.

[dfour]

Or would getting two cheaper cards and running them in SLi be a better way to go ?

The 560Ti is a good card but 2 lower end cards in sli is a false econemy as your too dependandt on software to make suer it all works properly especially with new games where 1 higher end card will always work 100%.

[jim]

Not to mention the heat, noise, cabling hassle...

[smithmr8]

Ah, thought I'd ask. Just incase.

So the 560ti is the card for me then. Unless there are any others, around that price point, which perform better.

Was planning to go for the K version . Want to try take it to 4.5ghz or so, eventually.

Build proposal looking like this: http://ziz.im/TnoKP4

Might substitute the BD-RE for an SSD. Don't think my case is going to be a problem (size wise) with the card.

Will a 620W PSU be sufficent to power this, plus 2 DVD-RWs and a couple of 7200RPM drives ?

[jim]

Easily. Could probably power another 2 graphics cards on top of what you've already specced.

[smithmr8]

Excellent! Always find it hard to judge the power consumption.

Should I drop the BR Drive, and bung an SSD in there ? Adding the BR drive in the future.

But other than that, anything look wrong / odd with the build ?

[jim]

If you don't actually have a purpose for the Bluray drive, then definitely. You'll notice the difference between an HDD and an SSD, it's like night and day.

Bluray drive on the other hand, if you don't have blurays to watch on there, or you have another bluray player in the house, it won't make a blind bit of difference to you. Also, I suspect that prices for BR drives will drop a lot more rapidly in the future than SSDs - DVD drives are so cheap now, and blurays will eventually reach that level. Just a guess, of course.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

16GB of DDR3 is OTT. I would also get an HD6950 2GB if you intend to keep the graphics card for as long as possible and change the motherboard.

[smithmr8]

True. Already have a BR Player, so would be slightly pointless.

Go for a 60GB one, like this: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/268239 (£90)
OR 120GB, e.g. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/268693 (£165)

Any brand preferences when it comes to SSDs ?

Tbh, for £50, I don't really mind the RAM being more than required. Going to have to do some 3D modelling in the future on it, so will be used eventually.

How does the HD6950 compare to, eg, a 560ti ? I've read that the graphic RAM doesn't immediately suggest increased performance. E.g. a 1GB version would be similar to the 2GB ?