Am I correct in guessing I'd need to download PC wizard on the desktop I want to upgrade? Cause it's not going at the moment. It's missing a few bits, they got taken out without my knowledge, and thus does not go. Including the power cable. I got another one today, but it's too late to go hook up a monitor and turn the thing on, if it even goes, cause I'm not sure what's been yoinked out of it. Sigh. This is getting complicated.
And damn. I thought that might be the case. Not worried about price drop really, that's kinda unavoidable I think. I'd probably have the money for most of it within 6 months, if I'm really stingy with my money. There are at least some things I could get first that aren't likely to be obsolete that quickly? Thing is there is no way, at all, ever, in any way shape or form short of winning the lottery, that I can buy it all in one go.
Starting to think perhaps I should just not bother.
There most certainly are items that can be gotten without worries of obsoletion as mentioned by Ninja Monkey. However, looks like you already have a case although I dunno what it is. RAM, hard drives, DVD drives are ok investments as well. The CPU, GPU, and MOBO...definitely get together.
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=600006066&IsNodeId=1&Description=g%20skill%20ddr3%201600&name=4GB%20%282%20x%202GB%29...2nd or 3rd on the list highly recommended, but take your pick really.
HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185&cm_re=samsung_1tb-_-22-152-185-_-Product or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533&cm_re=1tb_caviar_black-_-22-136-533-_-Product drives
DVD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204&cm_re=asus_sata_dvd-_-27-135-204-_-Product
So I just picked up my semi-new, bright, and shiny Gulftown i7 990x (seriously! it's sitting here on my desk!).
My project now it to build a computer around it. My goal is a nice gaming platform that can hold its own as a workstations as well. For now, i'm setting my budget (not including proc, obviously) at about $1000. I can hold my own finding a PSU and case and the like, but i really need some good advice for selecting a good solid motherboard, ram, and GPU. Along with that i've got some philosophical questions along the lines of, "is it worth it to shell out for the faster (10k rpm) hard drive or even a solid state drive?" After the uncommon but inevitable recurring crashes i've experienced with my last build (Q6600, p35 chipset, 8800gt, etc), I'm going to try to prioritize stability over performance this time around, but i really hope i don't have to sacrifice much to that ends. If my workload other than games is going to be relatively light for the foreseeable future, what is a good speed/quantity combination for ram? Personally i love the 2gbs of OCZ Reaper i've been running (mostly for their looks), but if someone has good pointers on the finer points of memory selection, that would also be helpful. Of course my primary concern is the motherboard, and i know that with the socket required for the 990x, my choices are a bit limited, but if my goal is stability, what... and who (brand), should i keep an eye out for? As far as video cards, I was thinking about just going for the highest numbered nVidia card that evga has available, but there has got to be a better, more nuanced approach to it (i'm remembering the 8800 era when the "better" card with 768mb memory had so many more stability and performance issues compared to the 512mb version).
Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.
oh and, thanks... ahead of time.
Avoid 10K RPM drives these days. Caviar Blacks and Samsung's F3 drives are close in several performance comparisons to it. SSD's would probably be a worthy investment for you with your budget and what you already have hardware-wise.
G Skill DDR3 RipJaws RAM are very well-received these days, perhaps even more so than stuff from Corsair. Take a look at DDR3 1600 at least.
For motherboard, Gigabyte and Asus X58 chipset boards. One of these two will be fine:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128423&cm_re=x58_motherboard-_-13-128-423-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131665&cm_re=x58_motherboard-_-13-131-665-_-Product
Nvidia's GTX 580 is the fastest single GPU card out with only the dual GPU Radeon 5970 beating it.
Hey guys. Not sure if this goes here or not, or if anybody would be able to answer.
I'm planning on upgrading my desktop for college. Currently, I have an AMD Phenom II X2 @ 3.1 Ghz, Radeon HD 4850, 4 gigs DDR2 ram.
I'm just trying to figure out when the best time to upgrade would be. I have 7 months till college (August). I was curious if anybody knew about new hardware releases within the time-frame? Or would it not make any difference at all to when I upgrade.
I was planning on trying to find somebody to sell my current computer to for like 50% off retail prices (for like $300 or so) and doing a full new build (Minus windows, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and headset). I was planning on going with an AMD Phenom II X4 @ 3.4 Ghz, Radeon HD 6870, and 4 gigs DDR3 ram.
This probably seems like a pointless post, I was just wondering what people's thoughts are on the timeline of upgrading and whether or not it's worth upgrading to the new hardware.
By August, I would expect AMD's Bulldozer chips to be out. They are supposedly slated to be released in Q2 of this year and will be going head to head with Intel's just released Sandybridge.
Ohh, zig-zaggey heat sinks. hehe. it'd be a shame to cover those up with a monsterous CPU cooler.
what's the life expectancy and failure rate for SSDs? How does the read/write speed of http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100008120%20600038478&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=REVIEWS&PageSize=20 compare to the average 7200 rpm hdd?
is the spinpoint much better than any other name brand 7200 rpm TB drives out there right now?
Should just google around for some benchmarks because there are plenty of them out there. These should give an idea of the speed of SSD's:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/10/06/samsung-spinpoint-f3-1tb-review/1
http://www.techspot.com/review/160-solid-state-drive-roundup/
http://www.techspot.com/review/181-solid-state-drive-roundup2/
Western Digital's Caviar Black drives outperform the Samsung's F3 a tad.
» Tue May 17, 2011 1:59 pm 
I just kinda decided last night when I dug the old PC out that I was going to upgrade it. I have no experience, but I figured I could learn, right? All I can see is that my motherboard says "Foxconn" on it, but I can't say much more than that, other than it's about 6 years old 
