Upgrading Current Build/Help me spend my tax return

[williamlexcrawford]

Current system:

i7-950 @ 4 GHz

Asus Rampage III Formula

4 GB Corsair XMS3 RAM

KingWin Mach 1 1000w PSU

Corsair H50 CPU cooler

2 TB Seagate HDD

64 MB Crucial SSD

HAF 932 case (so space shouldn't be an issue)

I'm looking to make some upgrades. I don't think there's anything really wrong with my build but did want to make a couple jumps up in two departments.

I think an obvious choice would be RAM because I'm running a X58 motherboard in only dual channel instead of tri. This was originally a Sandy Bridge build but my motherboard when down a day after everything went pare shaped with the supply so I decided to just go with something that already had the kinks out instead of waiting for the new boards to come out. Given that I have a little extra money to spend I was thinking about going with 3x4GB sticks. Likely candidates could be the Corsair Vengeance, Mushkin Blackline or G. Skill Ripjaws. I dislike the enormous heatsinks on the Corsair RAM but like the 1.5 volts, which the G. Skills also run at 1.5 with much smaller heatsinks. Any advice as to brands would be appreciated.

The next matter of business is the video card. The GTX 460 is running fine but I am looking to upgrade and just pop it into my secondary computer or add another GTX 460 in SLI. I could possibly justify going all the way up to a GTX 580 but another GTX 460, or one 570 or 560 Ti would probably be more realistic considering I'm already going to spend $130 to $170 on the RAM.

This leads into my next question: whether or not 1000w is enough to run two GTX 560 Ti's or 2 570's if I want to SLI in the near future without worrying that my PSU is going to explode any minute and kill my entire system. I read that 700+ should be good for the 560's but I just want to do it fairly worry free.

Anyway, any advice would be appreciated.

 

[SmoulderingCircuits]

2x 460/ 560s, i don't see why not. 2x 570s, i'd say that'll be a healthy usage of your unit but shouldn't blow it, i'd estimate it using about 900w at most but may wanna check a few psu calculators or look on LinusTechTips channel on ytube he frequently takes a reading of a system's consumption from the wall. it's if you went to 2x 580s you'd need to upgrade to a 1200 unit to be safe. i do not know the exact usages of the 500 series cards but i have a rough idea going by what the amd equivilants draw and adding a bit more, coz well, it's nvidea

 

[Rastalovich]

You'd not need over 1kw (of a quality psu) for 2x580, that's crazy talk.

There's not that many home pcs that need over 700-800w for any reason, 2x sli/xfire or not.

A single 480/580 will run fine in a rig with a quality 550-650w psu, suggesting it would need that power again for a second card doesn't seem right.

Definition of quality may be the sticking point.

 

[SmoulderingCircuits]

Don't forget to allow leeway for capacitator aging, overclocking and future upgrades though. No point replacing your psu every 6 months

 

[ciksas]

As Rastalovich said you don’t need to upgrade your PSU. 1KW PSU for your rig is like a duble overkill it can run two 580 whit no problem. So I would scratch the psu upgrade from your list. 12gb ram for what?

 

[williamlexcrawford]

12 GB because while I realize it's overkill, it's cheap and it's sort of a why not sort of thing.

I guess the million dollar question is which video card to go with. I'm sure a 580 would bludgeon anything to death, but am I going to see much difference over a 570 or a 560 with the possibility of another later? I don't mind spending the money but I was wondering if anyone thought it would be a waste or I should just say to hell with it and go for the overkill factor?

Oh, anything I play will be at 1920x1080 if that helps at all. This was my first build and I've educated myself on quite a bit but I still feel a little in the dark when it comes to GPUs.

 

[Rastalovich]

As Rastalovich said you don’t need to upgrade your PSU. 1KW PSU for your rig is like a duble overkill it can run two 580 whit no problem. So I would scratch the psu upgrade from your list. 12gb ram for what?

Yeah, the only quandry I'd have is that the psu had the correct connectors so I wouldn't have to do any crazy adapter things to get all the pcie powers sorted. Don't *really* like using the adapters for long-term builds, for benching it's fine.

12g ? sheesh. I've not played a game without faults that's used more than 85% of 4g. Most of those that do are beta'd and get fixed (I do have an off-screen viewer for this sort of thing). 8g is extreme overkill - 12g is really if you just have cash burning a hole in your pocket

On that note, do make sure it's the best memory. I'd rather 3g (or 6g) of the very best quality/speed than 12g of mediocre. And as far as overclocking is concerned, historically mobos don't play best with all slots full. Sure it's do-able, but in many cases you need to make some compremises with your settings. If you're not oc'ing, then nevermind, the mobo should sort it out for you.

Talking of cash to splash, with all this expense, don't settle for any resolution monitors that are XXXXx1080. These aren't pc resolutions, these are media resolutions. Since the popularity of HD Tvs, the buzz word was "1080", manufacturers took this hook to make cheaper panels as monitors. A gaming pc's resolution should be 1920x1200. (although I can accept that you are using your existing monitor, but if it was me spending bags of cash, it'd be the first thing I'd look into)

 

[williamlexcrawford]

I do overclock, any good advice on a 3x2GB kit? I was sort of thinking of the Mushkin Radioactive but I'm not sure how I'll like the yellow in a red and black rig. At 1600 they are rated at 6-9-7-24. Otherwise I could go with the blacklines rated at 1600 and 8-8-8-24.

 

[ciksas]

That is your decision, but personally I wouldn’t put yellow ram in a all black or red rig. Instead would go for the blackline but you could put any ram in it since you have a H50 and tall ram sticks aren’t a problem.

 

[williamlexcrawford]

Please don't fault me for being a an uninformed noob at all this, but I have a question about the power draw of the GTX 580. According to an article in the March 2011 edition of Maximum PC, it states that a GTX 580 needs a power supply that supports a +12v current power draw of 42A.

I have a KingWin Mach 1 1000w. Looking at the table of voltages am I right in assuming that I wont' have enough power since the highest on their table is 35A or will it be an issue since the 6 pin and 8 pin would/could be on different rails?

Also in a johnnyguru review, he states, "As promised, the above table shows the 12V rail distribution. What it doesn't show you is that several 12V rails were bridged by solder. 12V1 and 12V2 were combined to one big rail, as were 12V4 and 12V5. Yes, the PCI-E connectors get one big 70A monster rail, almost the whole 12V capacity of the unit."

Electricity escapes me a little.

 

[ruthless_villain]

thats why you buy corsair... dont worry about that stuff i have no idea either

 

[Rastalovich]

Please don't fault me for being a an uninformed noob at all this, but I have a question about the power draw of the GTX 580. According to an article in the March 2011 edition of Maximum PC, it states that a GTX 580 needs a power supply that supports a +12v current power draw of 42A.

Which in itself would suggest 504w (12x42) required.

Add together the power requirement for the rest of the rig, and it would suggest you need beyond 750 just for one card and a 1010w psu ALONE just to supply 2 of them in sli. Consider the rest of the rig, that'd mean a... 1300w or so psu ?? for an sli setup ?

There's a word I'm thinking of, doesn't come to mind at the moment...

(I don't think you're the only one uninformed)

 

[williamlexcrawford]

Haha, thanks Rast, the GTX 580 comes in today!