Hi guys,

I used to be a bit of a geek and have always made my own systems up.

Currently I have:

AMD Phenom x4 9950 Black 2.6Ghz

Gigabyte GA-M750SLI-DS4 nForce 750a SLI Socket AM2+ 7.1 Channel

4GB Buffalo Firestix 1066Mhz DDR2

ATI RADEON 4890 1024MB

CAVIAR BLACK 500GB 32MB 7200 SAT

Win 7 Premium 64 bit

Coolmaster Storm case

800W ATX psu http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/components/powersupplies/NOV-PSU800.html

All that is std and not OC and is using std coolers. I have fitted lots of fans to the case. Front and side is sucking in and back and top as exhaust.

This is a few parts I am looking at?

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail

#43216

£ 124.99

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T 3.20GHz Black Edition (Socket AM3) Processor - Retail

#40096

£ 99.99

Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3 Intel Z68 (REV B3) Socket 1155 DDR3 PCI-Express Motherboard

#45463

£ 64.63

ASUS M5A97 PRO AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 PCI-Express ATX Motherboard

#44770

£ 67.95

8GB Corsair Vengeance Black (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-15000C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit - CMZ8GX3M2A1866C9

#45491

£ 51.75

£ 103.50

8GB Mushkin Blackline #997015 (2x4GB) DDR3 2133MHz 10-11-10-28

#45905

£ 58.29

£ 116.58

16GB Corsair Vengeance Blue (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit - CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9B

#45503

£ 73.00

LiteOn iHOS104-37 4x BD-ROM Drive / 8x DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM

#37131

£ 32.24

Corsair H60 Water-Cooling CPU Cooler

#44805

£ 41.99

Corsair Force Series 3 V2 120GB 2.5" SATA-III Solid State Hard Drive

#45836

£ 108.32

OCZ Solid 3 120GB 2.5" SATA-III Solid State Hard Drive

#44531

£ 104.99

MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 Twin FrozR II OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ FREE Deus Ex Game!

#43820

£ 158.29

I would prefer to go for the AMD due to price and I cant afford an Nvidia GFX card neither lol.

What out of that lot should I get or what should I do to my system to bring it up to date? I mainly play games on it when pos. BF and CoD mainly, also CoH and the Blitzkreg mod.

I was thinking just put more RAM in it and a SSD but due to it being DDR2 its damn expensive or impos to find another pair of Buffalo stuff.

Cheers

Billy

Bold would be my choise

Are you looking at replacing or updating your system?

dont know really,

would like to keep it cheap but I think my CPU is a bit dated.

Alos I dont like overclocking. mainly coz I have no Idea what I am doing.

I want something that going to last 2+ years for playing games lol. the rig I have plays COD MW2 and BF BC2 on full but I find CoH Blitz mod in HD is a tad jumpy. not really sure why.

Plus I think the DDR2 is slow and not enough.

Billy

I like AMD, had them since my first pc Pentium MMX 200Mhz

then the last Intel I had was the P4 3Ghz when that was new and it was pritty good at the time. that lasted till I got the 9950 be again when that was first out.

They do the black edition phenom quad putting out about 3.6 I think? The cosair ddr3 ram is well priced, I also prefer amd, if you think about selling your system let me know, mines horrific and pricing mine up at the mo, your looking at the exact same graphics I am,.

Also I'm hearing the new chip is am3+ so I would hate to get a motherboard that wouldnt support that, then the next week it comes out!

I would wait for Bulldozer to come out, and see how good it really is. It will give you more options, or would at least drive down the cost of Intel. A Sandy Bridge 2500k is a great CPU and (being unlocked) overclocks really nicely. You said you're not into overclocking, but you might as well get the "k" version and have more possibilities for tweaking in the future

I want to upgrade my PC (Q6600 C2D running at 3GHz, not because of more CPU power but need more RAM and 6GB isn't enough). So I'm in the same boat as you but waiting, although my patience is starting to wear thin...

yea, I know, I could wait really as there is no real rush as I dont play the PC much due to work but it is nice to have a blast every now and again.

Whats this Buldozer thing? Ive been reading about it and most places say it should be out? plus being new wont it be really expensive?

mm just looked it up and it says its a x86? thing thats got 16 cores?

I thought x86 was 32bit?

or is this something totally different

it's x86 instruction set, but will run 32 and 64bit applications. You're right in the sense that x86 is sometimes used to denote 32-bit applications and x64 is used for the 64-bit versions.

It can/will have up to 16 cores. I think the first versions will have up to 8 cores, which is the first for a desktop-based CPU platform (you can get AMD Opteron with 12 cores, but it's server-based and expensive!)

Absolutely wait until the new CPU's are out and ideally the January period if you can.

FWIW, you might as well overclock your current system and see if you can buy yourself another 6 months right now.

Xav, why can your Q6600 only do 6GB RAM, it's not a limitation I've come across.

If you want to have a look at an I5 2500k with a ssd and 8gig of ram let me know

It flies thats for sure, I would have waited for the AMD but I got bored lol

Mark, it's 8GB in the form of 4x 2GB sticks - my motherboard is only DDR2 and I know I'll want more than 8GB on my next upgrade so it seems I'll have to change motherboard and CPU just to bring it up to 16GB. I thought 6 would have done me, but working on my large 60-shot panoramic had my PC screaming for more RAM!

Mark, it's 8GB in the form of 4x 2GB sticks - my motherboard is only DDR2 and I know I'll want more than 8GB on my next upgrade so it seems I'll have to change motherboard and CPU just to bring it up to 16GB. I thought 6 would have done me, but working on my large 60-shot panoramic had my PC screaming for more RAM!

Ahh right, I can recommend some very nice Xeons (2 sockets) with 16GB each (32 Total) if it's a work machine.

A couple of ways to think about an upgrade...

.

Do it for the latest tech (which will be out of date in months).

Do it to get the best performance for your needs using the most cost effective tech available now.

Going down the first route you will pay a premium for the latest greatest stuff. Choose the second option and you still get a better spec machine but at less cost.

Cheers guys,

think Ill hang on a while then. one thing, can I Xfire 2 Radeon HD 4890 on this MoBo? Gigabyte GA-M750SLI-DS4 nForce 750a SLI Socket AM2+ 7.1 Channel or is that only SLi?

how do you go about Xfireing it or sli? never done before.

Should say if it's sli compatible on the box, how you go about doing it I have no idea!

SLI only by the model number, some boards do both.