Yep i've got some cash together and its upgrade time, though there isnt much wrong with my trusty 6600 quad core, its pushing on a bit, USB3 is here, I need more storage capacity, my case is too small, upgrade to win 7 etc etc etc

So me and the debit card went shopping

Case is a coolermaster HAF-X large (High Air Flow) with a 750w psu and 3 large fans.
MoBo is an Asus z68 Pro.
CPU is Intel, 2600k with a Matterhorn cooler (its about 6 inches high )
Some nice DDR3 Corsair vengeance 1866mhz ram (2x4gig sims)
1TB western digital HDD
Boot drive is an OCZ 60gb SSD (Agility 3)
A blu ray player (thought it was about time I purchased one )
Now graphics, I can see this being a sticking point for some so its Nvidia, its a 580GTX, its not the quickest clocked card, its also quite expensive but its also fitted with 3 fans and 3gb of ddr5 memory, so thanks to gainward for giving me their Phantom graphics card (well they will probably thank me for paying that much for it )

Considering the spec ive gone from (6600, asus P5KC, 4gb ddr2 corsair mem, 1 500mb hdd, 1 sound blaster card which is going into the new system, nvidia xfx280, Tagan 800w psu (also going into the new system when its all burnt in) and a nice coolermaster case in black )

Time to go put it together

Tony

 

Nice spec Tony i must admit,HAF is probably best case i have just older model HAF 932.

Jura

 

Jura, ive just opened the box to the HAF-X and then the side panel, im drooling it really is a nice case, all quick release and plenty of room in there, no complaints except they could have put the badge on straight (even has rollers to move it around!)

Tony

 

HAF are excellent cases,great cable management,cooling features.
You have newer version of HAF which have Clear side panel..Most people hate the design of HAF because are so ugly(this me remind Bugeye) and so are complicated.

You have which CPU cooler?


Enjoy

Jura

 

I love building kit into a fully working PC... my only query is with the very high spec. graphics card... do you have a monster TV/big monitor to need all that horsepower ?

Enjoy !

dunx

P.S. How about this baby http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/pro...oducts/susanoo

 

This cooler, no need for the nasty push in connectors, has an adaptor for the rear and is screw in
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/alpen...366am2-am2-am3

Tony

 

I'm never upgrading my pc again as laptops are getting better spec and cheaper so thats the way forward, plus there is some resale in an old laptop but no one really wants old pc bits.

 

Dunx, mainly gaming but going to try my hand at Maya, need some graphics processing for that, and it means I wont need to upgrade my card for about 4 years

Steve, I would agree with you in part, but a laptop for the same price to build your own pc just wont be anywhere near as powerful or with the best components I want
I have a laptop for my menial tasks and for when im out and about on the road, for the rest of the time its back to the desktop, in many ways your not going to outdate these, better cooling, better/cheaper components, much easier to upgrade etc, so still quite alot of benefits to them

Tony

 

Four years.... You're having a laugh aren't you

dunx

 

the 2600K is getting some massive overclocks on air cooling these days. you will like the boot times with your ssd.

 

tony i have the HAF and its great 1 thing i want you to change its the 60 gig SSD

The OCZ are the dogs but please please go for the 120

Once u do a bare instal of Win 7 Ultimate youll have apporx 24 gig left

Over time this creeps down with guff, even me being careful it fills up

as for visuals ive always been an nvidia fan but i sacked them off and went ATI and i,ll be honest m8 they have been bullet proof.

Even so you can get 2 x 5870s ( still one of the fastest ) for 300 notes

Pers go for 2 or 1 6870

or stick to ya nvidia but ive been running mine n me sons for 2 years now 5870 n 5850 and both been perfect for MW Warcraft, World of Tanks etc

shout if you need anything mines

core i7 running at 3.8
asus p6 deluxe
12 gig tri channel Ripjaw
1 x 60gig ssd ripjaw
3 x 2TB Spinpoints
1 x 5870 XFX
800w PSU
Pioneer Blu Ray

 

I was thinking of keeping my Q6700 for another 2 years and just changing the GTX275 for a GTX 570

I have told myself though that once i change this gfx card (waiting for 5 months! worth of basic tax code overpayments to return) then i will leave the system alone as it would not be worth updating anymore

Must admit though i still dont have any problems running games at my native resolution of 1024x768 but i do fancy a new higher res monitor at some point and i know the system will be taxed a bit more.

For instance, playing Dirt 3 at max settings for my setup has the cpu running around 60-70% according to the little desktop widget (i run dual monitors) so it still has a little left in the tank for now

 

ive not run anything in 1024x768 for the last 4 years.

Id seriously look at a new Monitor

 

Tony i have Coolermaster V8,i have tested some,but Arctic Cooling Freezer have good results too and are silent too.If you want silent and good overclocking potential you should have look for Noctua NH-U12P SE2.

Here is few which i tested few months back in our company for one server:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...8-xbu1-gp.html

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...oling/f13.html

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...h-u12pse2.html

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...nh-u9bse2.html


But if you definitely looking for silent and good cooling capability,you should have look for Corsair H50/H70/H60 great watercooling for great money too.


Jura

 

Get some pics up when you're done, Tony

 

Yes I will put some pics up when its all finished

Tony

 

I run two of them though, although only generally use 1 for gaming as you would expect, but having twin screens is great because i can stuff like team speak running on the second screen, or the steam chat messages etc etc, i just never got around to buying anything bigger the nice twin screen desktop is much easier to use when working, although i dont actually do much work now that i am no longer self employed, maybe this is why i was thinking of getting a big gaming monitor

 

Since posting the previous messages in this thread i started getting a hell of a lot of BSOD

Its trying to have me upgrade it, i narrowed the problem down to bad ram, but that is mainly my fault as i have been running it higher than its max speed rating for the past few years

Removed the two lower rated sticks (667)and ordered another set of 800mhz ones to replace, nice and cheap
I have been running 2 x 1gb ddr2 667 sticks alongside 2 x 1gb ddr2 800mhz for the past 2 years, they worked brilliantly with the q6700 @ around 3.45ghz (super stable), now the buggers have died and been taken out, the cpu likes going up to 3.6ghz (3.65 crashed )

 

H70 is quite noisy at full speed... mine can just cope with my i7 960 at 4 GHz...

70 degrees at >90% cpu load.

dunx

 

But maybe not noisy as some CPU coolers


Jura

 

Probably worth to switch to DDR3 motherboard combo with i3-540 for beginning,still good potential for gaming and everything else.


Mixing memories is bad idea,if you are running the overclocked CPU.


Jura

 

thats what i am running at the moment @ 4.4 on air. really fast an with an ssd even faster.

 

Great CPU and don't cost too much,you are running with Hyperthreadin(HT) on or off?




Jura

 

The one thing you have to look out for when upgrading is that some of the latest mobo's dont support ide any more, if you have any ide drives then they are obsolete and you will have to replace them.

Tony

 

I just upgraded my PC as I was still running an AMD XP 4800 (which is about 6 years old) with a Nvidia 8800GT.

I upgraded to an Intel I5 2500 but decided to stick with the 8800GT and upgrade it later if needed.

At the minute I can't see any reason to upgrade. In F1 2010 on the old setup it was barely playable, only with the settings turned right down and then pretty jerky. Now I've cranked the settings right up and using 1920x1080 resolution and it runs perfectly. The graphics are superb.

I'm slightly surprised the old graphics card is still handling it but not complaining.

 

The 8800GT is a great budget card even by todays standards. You won're really need an upgrade of that unless you want to try some of the high spec games.

 

Actually I went for the BFG model of the 8800GT which was pre-overclocked so that probably helps.

What would be a good high spec game to test it with then? I thought F1 2010 was pretty demanding but it is coming up to a year old now I suppose.

 

Try running Crysis on full settings and watch you machine struggle

 

Even my 6600 with a 280GTX struggled with that on full, funnily crysis 2 runs much better, doesnt seem as demanding

Tony

 

I would also be a little worried if I was running a stock core duo of quad with one of the higher end GPU's as the cpu has the habbit of limiting the performance.