Advice on upgrade

[happybelly]

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

Gaming

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

$1200

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

USA

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.

None, just best performance/price

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

Case, PSU CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-1000HX 1000W, DVD.

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.

Not really

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

Undecided

8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with.

1920x1200

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?

Now, but I'd like to know if I should wait.




So my biggest question is if there's any technology worth waiting for coming out within the next couple months. I know in this industry there always is, but I guess I mean any major leap in performance cpu or video card wise coming soon?

I would also like to include an SSD in the budget.

My current system is an E8500, gtx 260 sli, 8gb ram if you need to know.

Thanks

 

[pitz]

Basically you're probably looking at an i5-2500k (~$200), Z68 motherboard (~$120), a 120gb or 160gb SSD (~$150), 16gb RAM (~$80), and whatever video cards you need to round it all out.

Should be plenty of sales over the holidays.

 

[happybelly]

My plan is to get something that can tide me over til Haswell comes out. I'm assuming this would more than do the job. What's the consensus for best single video card in the $300 price range? Also is it worth going for an i7 if I mostly do gaming?

This is what I have so far:

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL


MSI P67A-G43 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000 BX80623I52500K

How are those? I need suggestions on the SSD and video card. I want a very fast SSD and probably 120 GB size.

Thanks.

 

[lehtv]

For $300, 6950 2GB or GTX 560 Ti 448 cores (or GTX 570 if on sale) are pretty much the only choices. Usually 6950 2GB can be had for $250 after rebate though, which makes it a better deal IMO than 560 Ti 448. In addition, VRAM is a big factor here, as gaming on 1920x1200 can use more than 1280mb in certain games and on certain settings, especially if going crossfire. GTX 260 SLI to a single 6950 would be pretty much a sidegrade anyway in terms of pure horsepower, and on your budget you can afford a 6950 2GB crossfire setup.

That said, it could pay off to wait. You could upgrade everything else now, while keeping your 260 SLI until HD7000 series, or even wait until NVIDIA Kepler which will be released a bit later than HD7000. Depends on how urgently you need better gaming performance.

Corsair Vengeance LP 1600 2x4GB is only $40 at the moment. You should get a Z68 board: Asrock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 $115AR is the best bang-for-buck board. Your case probably doesn't support USB3 in the front panel so that's not an immediate concern. Crucial M4 128GB is a great choice for an SSD but it's OOS on newegg at the moment... Wait for that to come back in stock or try to find some holiday deals on Intel 510?

 

[happybelly]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm ok paying for the GTX 570 if it's worth it. My question is how big an upgrade is it over GTX 260 SLI? I've tried searching for an answer or benchmarks and haven't been able to find a definitive answer.

 

[mfenn]

I agree with lehtv overall. As for the GPU, you probably want to stick with your SLI config. GTX 260 SLI is about on par with a GTX 480, except that it doesn't have DX11 support. A GTX 570 is pretty much the same thing as a GTX 480 in terms of performance.