Want to upgrade to i7, please advise?

xera

xera

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Greetings everybody,

I am wanting to upgrade from C2D to Intel i7, but I would like a bit of advise please..

My current setup:
GA-P35-DS3R
E6750, 2.67Ghz
4GB (4x 1GB) DDR II 800 Kingston RAM
GTX 260 Gigabyte
Thermaltake PSU, 500W - TR2-500
Case - Coolermaster CM 590

I use my pc for everything, but mostly programming, running lots of IDE's like visual studio, eclipse, netbeans, and also virtual machines, sql, web servers, etc.
Also would like to use the occasional CAD app, and games.. but yeah mostly running lots of apps at the same time..

Please could you advise me on all parts I'd need.. I was thinking of getting the i7 950. Do you think this would be a decent upgrade for what I use my pc for?

I have been eying the GA-X58A-UD5 mobo - but I see that it's PCI slots are so close together that it wouldn't work so great for the double slot GPU's, if I ever got 2 GPU's... so I'm not sure what to get now.
I would like it to have USB 3, SATA 3, dual lan, and 2 or 3 well spaced PCI x16 slots.
RAM - 3x 2GB or so, and GPU HD 6870 or something

my budget... up to R15k

Any help is appreciated thanks
 
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Could you post your case & PSU model numbers?
You can probably keep your current case and power supply, because the HD 6870 isn't that big and doesn't draw that much power (151W) and the i7 950 is rated about 135W.

i7 is definitely the way to go for your kind of use. You might want to wait for the new Intel socket 1155 to be released in SA though, unless you really don't want to wait till mid/end of January.

I would suggest that you go for the MSI X58A-GD65 motherboard, because:
1) it has a decent spacing between the PCI-E 16x slots. It has 3x PCI-E 16x slots and you can use any 2 of them at 16x + 16x!
2) it's one of the cheapest Socket 1366 boards available at ~R2000
3) it has USB3 & SATA3

6GB RAM + the HD 6870 is a really good choice, although you might only see a 50% performance increase over your GTX 260.
So if you're not that big of a gamer, you can stick with the GTX 260 for the while being. See http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6870/29.html
The main advantages of the HD 6870 would be the performance/watt ratio, incredible CrossFire scaling and DX11 support.

You should definitely add a 120GB SSD into the mix! I have a 30GB SSD at my work, where I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 x64 and the performance is incredible + I have a 120GBGB SSD at home and it's really nice to have :)
 
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Hey thanks for the help!

I was planning on keeping my current pc though, as I don't see the point in a partial upgrade and a second pc could come in handy.
My PSU is Thermaltake TR2-500, and case is Coolermaster CM 590

Which SSD do you have? Is it SLC or MLC and which brand/model?

killadoob said:
Wait until the end of jan if you can.
Click to expand...
Is the socket 1155 going to be better than i7 950?
 
No sure but pricing will drop on the i7 and it's more than likely that it will be better. it is not a long time to wait either, although when the upgrade bugs hits a month can feel like forever :D.
 
killadoob said:
No sure but pricing will drop on the i7 and it's more than likely that it will be better. it is not a long time to wait either, although when the upgrade bugs hits a month can feel like forever :D.
Click to expand...
Lol well thank goodness it hasn't just hit, but the infection is getting worse rapidly.

I could possibly even just get a SSD for now..
 
xera said:
Lol well thank goodness it hasn't just hit, but the infection is getting worse rapidly.

I could possibly even just get a SSD for now..
Click to expand...

You should get a ssd regardless of what you decide because wow they are mind blowing :D. Check wootware.co.za if they still have a few specials on them.
 
killadoob said:
You should get a ssd regardless of what you decide because wow they are mind blowing :D. Check wootware.co.za if they still have a few specials on them.
Click to expand...
Yeah I'm really excited about getting one! Which make/model you recommend? And SLC or MLC?
What exactly do you guys use them for? OS, PF and frequent docs?

Oh I forgot to mention earlier, I would like a mobo with dual lan!
 
Get one of the G.Skill Phoenix 120GB SSD's if you can. They go for around R2200 each.
I have the previous version of that G.Skill SSD at my home and an OCZ Vertex 2 30GB SSD at my office.

I've posted my WEI (Windows Experience Index) scores of my rig on this forum somewhere - where the G.Skill 120GB SSD scored 7.7 :)

Just take note that there are a couple of "compulsory" tweaks that you have to do when you get a SSD, to increase its lifespan.

A 500W PSU should suffice for the HD 6870 + i7 CPU, but you'll have to look at a 600W one if you intend on running 2x HD 6870's.
The power supplies that I'll recommend are the Corsair CX500 / CoolerMaster GX550 / GX650. There are lots more, but those are the cheapest decent power supplies that I know of.

The new socket 1155 will include an i7 CPU: 2600 & 2600K, and from what I've seen the performance and overclocking results are quite impressive. I think you would be able to get almost 5GHz OC on air with it!

I can tell you that the i7 + 6-8GB + SSD makes a big difference with programming & virtual machines! I have an i7 860 + 8GB DDR3 1600MHz + 30GB SSD at my office and I'm often running 1 - 3 VirtualMachines at a time, and it's really a dream with that much RAM and Cores/Threads at my disposal :D
My PC restarts + loads NetBeans + FireFox in under 45 seconds!

The online shops that I'll recommend are Prophecy Shop and WootWare.
 
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Yeah, either go for that G.Skill SSD, or look for another SSD with the same/newer SandForce controller.
If I had a SATA3 motherboard, I would've gone for 2x 60GB SSD in RAID 0 :D
 
I'm running a C2Q with 8GB DDR2 RAM and I've yet to find an IDE that stress my machine, so I'm seriously considering waiting for the next generation of Intel chips (post-Sandy Bridge) to upgrade. There is still a lot of life in the LGA775 platform, particularly if you have a quad-core and lots of memory. And yes it also plays all the latest games. :)

That said, if you really feel the need to upgrade, wait until the end of January 2011, that's when Intel launches the LGA1155 platform and CPUs. They will also be launching the successor to LGA1366 (LGA2011) later that year, but for your use an i9-based LGA 1155 solution will probably be best (and significantly cheaper than the high-end i9s for LGA2011).
 
Sandy Bridge launches at CES 6 - 9 Jan, but yes, will probably be the and of Jan until they become available here.
 
The_Assimilator: you're right that a C2Q with 8GB of RAM should suffice for basically any IDE and a couple of VM's, but the problem is that Xera has only an entry level C2D CPU.

So another option would be to try and get a Core2Quad CPU 2nd-hand for like R1000 and then to get a SSD too.
 
Well the Sandy Bridge looks pretty awesome... So I'm waiting for that :)

I would like to if possible get a triple monitor setup as well, that would be setup with an AMD Eyefinity card... I need it for work mostly, but would be awesome for gaming too. My current main monitor is the Samsung 2232GW, 2ms, 1680x1050 16:10 - I really love this monitor, but would love to go 24" or maybe even a bit bigger.
However I'm not quite sure what to think about this 16:9 aspect ratio. For movies and series it may be better, but what about gaming, and work on the pc? 1080 is not much higher than 1050, and height is kinda important in IDE's...

Any ideas please??!
 
At work I have 2 16:9 ratio screens and it works great. Especially in CAD programs with assemblies - they usually take up a good portion of the screen, leaving a more square area left for the actual model. Second screen is for other work related things like MyBB :p and the occasional datasheet of course. But if I had my way I'd ideally want to have 3 screens in portrait mode
 
xera said:
However I'm not quite sure what to think about this 16:9 aspect ratio. For movies and series it may be better, but what about gaming, and work on the pc? 1080 is not much higher than 1050, and height is kinda important in IDE's...

Any ideas please??!
Click to expand...

1920x1200 16:10 is the way to go. Only problem is they are rare compared to 16:9 models.
 
hey guys... I would really like to get the i7 2600K, its not that much more than the i7 950 was, and comparable with the i7 980X in some benchmarks... :D

But what motherboard, RAM, and PSU would you recommend? Know any particular ones? I have already been through alot, but I always find something suspect about a board, and the whole process is taking me months... so any help is appreciated thanks..

And one Q... I have movies, in avi and mkv format... Is this cpu going to be able to play them? Or is that anti piracy thing I heard about going to try and do something clever?

So parts I have decided upon so far:
  • CPU - i7 2600K
  • GPU - HD 6970, or HD6950 depending..
  • mobo - ??? (would like one with sata 3, usb 3, dual lan)
  • RAM - ??? (would like quite a few gb, more than 4GB)
  • PSU - ???
  • SSD - ??? (80GB would be very nice...)
 
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xera said:
And one Q... I have movies, in avi and mkv format... Is this cpu going to be able to play them? Or is that anti piracy thing I heard about going to try and do something clever?

So parts I have decided upon so far:
  • mobo - ??? (would like one with sata 3, usb 3, dual lan)
Click to expand...

No, that only applies to commercial streaming content from websites.

Think the Asus Deluxe has meets your requirements.
 
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