Upgrading my PC

[The Wise Monkey]

I'm thinking about upgrading my current PC to a new i7 based build within the next couple of months:

Current Specs
E6750
Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R
Powercolour 4850
4GB Corsair DDR2 800

Proposed Specs
i7 920 - £240.76
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R - £157.60
Zotac GTX260 core 216 - £142.10
6GB Corsair DDR3 1333 - £63.99

Total comes to £604.45 = $880.99

In addition to replacing all these components, I was thinking of doing a sort of picture step-by-step to show differences in performance and just give people a general idea of how I roll. :D

Might have to wait a while before I can do this though, as I need to save up to buy the components. :)

[RickyTick]

Its funny that you brought this up. We are at very similar places with our current pc.
I have
Q6600
P35
8800GT
4gb ram

I would like to beef mine up too, but the cost of going i7 is still rather high (for me). :)

I was thinking of upgrading to;
Q9550
GTX260 or 275
another 4gb of ram

I'm wondering how this would compare to the i7 you suggested as far as performance vs investment. I know the i7 is much faster, but is it really noticealbly faster for the simple tasks that I do. What do you think?

btw, I'd really be interested in watching you make the upgrade step by step.

[The Wise Monkey]

I was seriously considering just getting a Q9550, as everything else I have is still pretty good. The cheapest I could find that CPU over here in the UK was £216 ($314), which is really expensive compared to the US.

Hmm, I think that I may have just convinced myself not to upgrade everything at the moment - I might do what you are doing and buy a new CPU and graphics card to last for at least another 12 months or so. That said, a Q9550 and a GTX260 are still going to set me back £360 ($524)...

As for performance of the i7, you will really only notice the performance difference in very multi-threaded applications e.g. WinRAR, video encoding etc. The higher clock speed of the Q9550 gives it a slight edge in some games, but not a huge amount.

I'm still undecided... xD

[RickyTick]

I'm going to upgrade my gpu to the GTX275 and then wait until later in the year to possibly upgrade the cpu. Maybe the price will drop some as the i7's become more mainstream, idk.

I don't see why a cpu/gpu upgrade won't extend my pc life by at least 2 years. What do you think?

[RickyTick]

I just took a peek at Newegg.
Q9550
GTX260 c216 Superclocked
4 more gb of ram (could probably do without)
$505

I'm betting on the GTX275 dropping some, or maybe a weekend special at some point. If so, I'll get that instead, and I'm looking at about $575.

To go i7
i7 920
x58
GTX260
6gb ram
$800

Tough choice.

[The Wise Monkey]

It is a tough choice. I might wait for Windows 7 to come out before doing any upgrades, because I really can't be bothered to rebuild my OS before that. :D

[RickyTick]

You might find this interesting.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2009/04/23/core-i7-waste-of-money-says-nvidia/1

[The Wise Monkey]

That is interesting, but I don't just use my PC for games. It is primarily a gaming thing, but I also do a lot of compression and some video encoding, so I think a quad core would be best for that.

I might just get a Q6600 and overclock it then. :D