Help me upgrade my rig

[statik213]

I'm planning on upgrading my PC. I'm looking for a new proc, mobo, ram and a SSD.

I've currently got:

Socket 939 Opteron 165
2gb DDR (yes, 4 old school PC-2100 ddr sticks... this alone kills my system)

ATI Radeon 4870 1gb
Audigy 2 ZS
1.5 TB HDD (OS + apps /Media on seperate partitions)
160 GB HDD (Docs / work)
DVD Burner
OCZ 600 W PSU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16817341010)
An old Antec full tower case, w/ 4 80 mm fans

Running Windows VIsta, I was getting BSOD patching to SP1 w/ the 4870. I had a x850 that ran sp1 fine. I figured it was the mobo combination or something. So i've been running w/ pre-sp1 for abt 6 mos now. Longer than i intended to .

Anyway: I'm thinking of getting a PII 955, 8 GB DDR3 and one of the 120GB OCZ Vertexes.
What mobo should I get? Can't decide between the 790FX and 790GX; I doubt I would ever go crossfire.
I would like links to specific Mobos and reasonable RAM. I doubt I would OC, never seem to get good results


I am Looking to do the upgrade within the next 2 or 3 weeks but I know that AMD is releasing new processors and the 785 next mo. Should I wait until then for 955/945 "liquidation"? BTW w/ no OC is there a significant difference between the 945 and 955?

I'm looking to game on this rig, tf2, ra3 etc. Hopefully it will handle sc2 at a decent frame rate whenever it comes out. I run my monitors at 1680x1050, so it's not full 1080p rez. I also do some software development and would like to move some of the dev I do into virtual machines.

I don't do photoshop, and don't do media encoding.


So, what say you? Should I be looking at a Core i7 setup instead? I think the SSD would be a killer upgrade.

 

[brblx]

so what are you looking for? cpu, mobo, and ram for under 600? an SSD would certainly take a sizeable chunk of that budget, without it you could go i7. if not, you can save significant money with a phenom2. i'd go with 4gb of ddr3 in that case. 8gb just isn't needed for gaming right now, and ddr3 will get cheaper.

i think the i7 will give the best increase in gaming performance, though it would eat your entire budget up. the ssd just isn't going to do anything for gaming performance, other than load times. it's up to you whether or not it's worth it.

 

[statik213]

Originally posted by: brblx
so what are you looking for? cpu, mobo, and ram for under 600? an SSD would certainly take a sizeable chunk of that budget, without it you could go i7. if not, you can save significant money with a phenom2. i'd go with 4gb of ddr3 in that case. 8gb just isn't needed for gaming right now, and ddr3 will get cheaper.

i think the i7 will give the best increase in gaming performance, though it would eat your entire budget up. the ssd just isn't going to do anything for gaming performance, other than load times. it's up to you whether or not it's worth it.

i guess gaming isn't the most important thing. i tend to run a lot of apps, and do some development on small projects at home.

 

[deputc26]

Originally posted by: statik213
Anyway: I'm thinking of getting a PII 955, 8 GB DDR3 and one of the 120GB OCZ Vertexes.

Good call, the SSD is a killer upgrade. Checkout these awesome 945/mobo combo deals.

 

[s44]

If you're not going to crossfire, get a 770 mobo. This combo gives you one for free AR. Note that the 955 is back, and actually cheaper than the 945 at the moment...

 

[jdjbuffalo]

Originally posted by: brblx
so what are you looking for? cpu, mobo, and ram for under 600? an SSD would certainly take a sizeable chunk of that budget, without it you could go i7. if not, you can save significant money with a phenom2. i'd go with 4gb of ddr3 in that case. 8gb just isn't needed for gaming right now, and ddr3 will get cheaper.

i think the i7 will give the best increase in gaming performance, though it would eat your entire budget up. the ssd just isn't going to do anything for gaming performance, other than load times. it's up to you whether or not it's worth it.

He is going to need the RAM for the VMs he is running. I run a couple of VMs most of the time and having 8GB of RAM is very much needed. Having lots of processor cores also helps a great deal.

 

[mmntech]

Look at my system. I paid $320 CAD for the CPU/mobo/ram combo. Works out nicely.