£150-200 Upgrade Suggestions

[RadeonHDx]

So I have about £150 (£200 at a push) to spend on a new upgrade for my rig. At the moment I have: fx-4170
ASUS 970 board
Hx 650 v2
7870 with a custom arctic cooler

I know I don't want a new cooler as I'm hoping to be doing a serious water-cooling loop in the future. I was thinking about either a new CPU, a FX 8350 was the one I was thinking of.

My second option was waiting till I have enough for a 3570k and new mobo, but this would impact on how long I would be waiting for my new loop and other upgrades. I have also heard that I will get, within margins of error, the same frame rates than with a FX 8350.

Any other suggestions would be welcomed. Thanks for any recommendations and any replys in advance. Sorry if this post wasn't up to my usual standard of posting.

 

[SieB]

No point in going for a 3570K, Haswell is just around the corner. If you do want to upgrade your CPU and motherboard, i'd wait till June for the Haswell release. Which also gives you time to save up a bit more cash.

Another option would be to get a 128gb SSD.

 

[seumasbeathan]

I would also put forward an SSD as a good option. Really makes a massive difference to everyday use.

 

[alienware]

SSD is like going from dial up 56k to 10m broadband.

Going back is actually painful. There's no excuses now not to have an SSD. TRIM is rife and they aren't even expensive.

 

[airdeano]

SSD will deffo increase productivity and usage. gaming (from what's is told to me)
might get an advantage, but it is now he new norm to have an SSD onboard.

 

[MrKambo]

id spring for an SSD as well, gives your rig that new rig sense, its actually stupid how fast it makes daily tasks

 

[RadeonHDx]

Well I think the definitive answer is to go with an SSD, if I spring for a 120/128GB SSD then I will still have £50 to keep for one of the coming upgrades my rig is in for!

I've had a quick look around Scan and Aria and it looks like the best reads and writes belong to the Corsair 128GB Force Series GS. If anybody has any other suggestions that would help me that would be really appreciate it.

 

[MrKambo]

id go with the Neutron GTX series, probably one of the better drives out there

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-045-CS&groupid=701&catid=2104&subcat=1427

 

[RadeonHDx]

Sorry if this is more complex than this, but the GS series says that it has a much higher write speed and an even higher read speed than the GTX?

 

[MrKambo]

It's not just the speeds that greatly matter, it's also based on iops as well as the type of flash memory used, the force and neutron series both use different types of memory, the neutron series is a lot more consistent in holding higher read and write speeds as well as it reaches peak throughout quicker than any other ssd from corsair.

Tom actually did a really good review on the neutron series, have a quick YouTube watch of it, he explains it million times better than me

 

[RadeonHDx]

Thanks for reminding me about that video! I never actually got round to watching it. Anyway, I can now see what you're saying and i understand about smaller files being written faster on the neutron drives. Will this help a lot more in everyday tasks and gaming etc?
Thanks again!

 

[MrKambo]

well it should do, when i think large files im thinking SQL databases and HD video files, anything smaller than is small in terms of file size today

go with the Neutron GTX series, you wont be disappointed, i haven't read a single bad review about them drives

 

[RadeonHDx]

Well I won't be able to complain, I've been using 7200RPM drives for as long as I can remember.

On a side note, would it be worth using 2 5900RPM drives from a dead laptop in RAID as my secondary drives over a single 7200RPM drive and just use that as backup for the whole system?

 

[leathart123]

aslo look at the 840 pro from samsung as an ssd option

 

[MrKambo]

I can't tell you much about raid, my knowledge has never been up to scratch on raid, I'm sure someone else can chime in

 

[SPS]

Just got the Samsung 840 pro and it's great.

EDIT: At the end of the day as long as you don't go for the low end sandforce synchronous NANDs you will be fine, as they are a lot slower with incompressible data.

well it should do, when i think large files im thinking SQL databases and HD video files, anything smaller than is small in terms of file size today.

Run an SQL database on an SSD haha