OC Upgrade Advice

[rainwilds]

Hi all,

I will be upgrading my OCd Q6600 system (much overdue!). I have been doing a fair bit of research to get the best bang for my buck in terms of the ability to OC. Here are my components I'm looking at getting in March-April (prices are in AUS):

CPU: i5 2500K (B3 Stepping) [$300]

Cooling: Noctua NH-D14 [$109]

Motherboard: Gigabyte P67A UD7 (B3) [$364]

RAM: 8GB Corsair Dominator 1600mHz CAS8 2x4g (dual channel) [$226]

SSD: OCZ (120GB) Vertex 3 (coming in March-April) [$250]

HDD: WD 1TB Green [$61]

Video: Sapphire HD 6850 + one already in existing system (CF) [$216]

[Existing] PSU: Antec 800W

[Existing] Case: Antec P180

[Existing] 2 x Samsung 20" monitors

TOTAL: $1,526

What would you change? I am hoping to get a 4.5GHz OC out of it. One of the biggest questions I've got is will my existing Antec 800W power supply run this system in crossfire?

The main use of the system is 50/50. Split between heavy multi-tasking running Revit (CAD), Illustrator, Firefox and Photoshop with dual screens and then gaming like COD, Dragon Age, Hereoes of Might and Magic.

The biggest motivation for the upgrade is to play the upcoming Heroes 6 and a bit more grunt in Revit.

My budget is $1500 AUS for the upgrade so your expert opinions would be appreciated!

Cheers all.

 

[Tortuga]

Hmm, are you married to that motherboard? Its fanfreakingtastic. But if your wanting to do some gaming, if your tight on your budget, i would opt for a lower end mother board, maybe a UD4 or UD5, since you won't really need the extra lanes, unless your planning a xfire or sli down the road. Take the saved money and get yourself a gtx 560 soc. This is just my opinion lol. And I would look at some mushkin redline ram to save another bit of moolah, plus they are sexy.

 

[Aurus_OC]

You will probably get more than just 4.5 Ghz out of it. Like Tortuga recommend, I would think about getting one of the "lower" end Gigabyte mobos, if you are tight on the budget. Also, what PSU are you going to be using to power this and what case?

 

[alicarve]

instead of the ocz vertex ssd try taking a look at the kingston v+100 drives or corsair performance 3

 

[rainwilds]

Hmm, are you married to that motherboard? Its fanfreakingtastic. But if your wanting to do some gaming, if your tight on your budget, i would opt for a lower end mother board, maybe a UD4 or UD5, since you won't really need the extra lanes, unless your planning a xfire or sli down the road. Take the saved money and get yourself a gtx 560 soc. This is just my opinion lol. And I would look at some mushkin redline ram to save another bit of moolah, plus they are sexy.

Yeah the Mushkin is sexy alright, just very hard to get here in Brisbane. The major benefit I see in getting the UD7 (other than sex appeal) is running two 6850s in CF on 2x16 lanes. I already have one 6850 so was going to get another and xfire them.

 

[rainwilds]

You will probably get more than just 4.5 Ghz out of it. Like Tortuga recommend, I would think about getting one of the "lower" end Gigabyte mobos, if you are tight on the budget. Also, what PSU are you going to be using to power this and what case?

I've just updated my specs above to show the PSU and case. It could be a good idea getting a lower spec Gigabyte but I would like to run 2x6850s on 2x16 lanes. I may not need another video card though as I run a 1680x1050 res.

 

[rainwilds]

instead of the ocz vertex ssd try taking a look at the kingston v+100 drives or corsair performance 3

Yeah they are both good drives. The thing is, it seems that the new SF-2000 series controllers are shockingly fast, more than two times on SATA 3. Check this out: OCZ Vertex 3 review. And apparently they will be priced the same as existing series.