Build Advice £750 to upgrade(spec me a upgrade list^^)

hi guys,I'm planning a upgrade for my current build
this is what i thinked of upgrading

My Current Build is
Intel Core i5-750
Asus P7P55M
Kingston 4GB Single Channel RAM
2x320GB WD Caviar Blue
Thermalright venomous X Cpu cooler
Gigabyte Geforce GTS 250

what i'm thinking of upgrading are
1)Graphics Card
2)Add a Samsung 1TB Spinpoint F3
3)8GB Corsair 1600mhz RAM

If you guys think if there is anything more to add in like a ssd just tell me

For the graphics card i'm quite tempted to buy the GTX 580 but I'm also gonna see how Cayman performs,any cards you guy wanna recommend besides this two?

My Rig will be used mainly for gaming,3ds max,ZBrush,Flash&Photoshop CS5 for the time being


Give me some advice on what to upgrade thanks

will post some pics when i buy my parts

Thanks in Advance

 

If those wd blue's are in raid0 you won't see much improvement except for the storage space with an f3 otherwise you will see some.
You may find it better to put the money from a hdd into saving for a ssd, it may be more effective than a slightly faster hdd.

Moving to dual channel memory will be a big improvement. You looking at 2x4gb or 4x2gb memory, 2x4gb will be better but more expensive.

On the graphics card side of things you can always be waiting for the next thing but if you know you will definitely buy either the new 69xx or the 580 then just wait a little bit for reviews. Other options would be sli/xfire of lower cards maybe the 470 or 6870 but that would make it harder/less effective to add another later than adding another top end card.

 

thanks for the advice,i think i maybe i going for 2x4gb but for the graphics card with the price of the gtx460 falling again and again...do you think changing my mobo to a sli capable lag 1156 mobo and get 2 460s in sli will be a good choice?

for the hdd i'm not running it in raid,i wanna get the 1tb drive is because i want the space to store my work and data

 

Well the f3 is good for storage, I've got a couple, if your not after high speed storage then a green drive could save you a little money on efficiency.
2 gtx 460's in sli can beat a 480 in certain circumstances and may be slightly cheaper but probably not if you have to get a new motherboard to do it. You could look at second hand one's?

 

hmm.....really hated myself when i was building this rig last year's christmas,or maybe my mobo i'll look at what sandy and bulldozer has to offer

if i were going to buy a 5870 now is it a good choice?i heard that the 5970 had some price cut to counter the 580,is the 5970 good?i've heard many users having problems with that card

 

Get a OCZ 60GB Vertex 2E (£95) as a boot drive. Sell the two 320gb's (about £20 each on ebay) and get the Samsung F3 1TB (£40).

Sell your current memory (probs about £25-35 on ebay) and get 2 x 2gb dual channel (£60)

Then sell you 450 and get a new 6 series (ATI) or 5 series card. Wait til the end of the month and have a look at tomshardware for the best bang for buck graphics card.

Thats probs the best route to go down IMO

 

haha nice one there shifty,but in comparison of perfomance does the 6870 beat the gtx 460?

 

All depends on what games you play and the resolution/setting etc. 6870
I think it sits between the 460 and the 470 performance wise and is priced about that level currently.

As for the 5970 it seems to have some issues, though mostly sorted now I think, there's a big thread on here about it, it does have good performance but you could be buying something that may shortly be replaced...

 

i think maybe you are right,i'm playing my games on 1600x900 resolution,so what card would be the best for it at the moment?maybe next year i'll upgrade to 1920x1200

 

any more advice on what to upgrade?

 

Would get AMD 6xxx Series over the 460s cause Xfire Mobos tend to be cheaper and more common than SLI for 1156, and they represent the best performance/price especially when considering power consumption.
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=27053&page=16
Radeon HD 6850 > GTX 460 1GB

 

What PSU do you currently have? Can it support more powerful GPUs?

Oh I note from your sig you're folding. nVidia is much better for that than ATi last time I checked.

I have SLi'd 460s and they are great, cost me around the £340 mark. I game in 1920 x 1080 and it's all very smooth.

I've never run into issues with 4Gb of RAM, you may not notice much from having 8Gb. PC-12800 dual channel should do the trick, you can pick 2x2Gb sticks up for less than £60.

Definitely recommend the OZX Vertex 2E 60Gb as a boot drive. I run Windows and couple of games of mine and the loading speeds are awesome.

 

thanks guys +rep ^^

ok here's the problem now,my mobo is a micro atx mobo which can only run one card,
so getting some sli or crossfire business means i need to get a new mobo,and my psu
only has two 8pin pci-e connectors which means i can only support up to one powerful gpu

i currently have a £750-£950 budget,very confused with my ram as i don't know buying 2 single channel 1333mhz kingston ram(the same ram in my rig)or getting a dual channel 4x2GB 1600mhz
is better?

so if i'm in for sli or crossfire i will need these things
1)PSU
2)Sli/CrossfireX capable mobo

for the OCZ SSD if it is in the budget i'll think i'll have one,for the gpu i'm quite tempted to buy the GTX 580 as Cayman is delaying further and further

can you guys spec me a upgrade build within my budget which is £750-£950

sorry for the long post and thanks by the way guys

will change the name of my thread to let you guys have a clearer image of what i intend to do

 

2x2GB of 1600MHz memory in dual channel configuration is not very expensive and it would be an excellent investment for your build. Because of how cheap it is, whenever possible you will want dual channel over single channel for the bandwidth increase. (low price memory modules on scan)

For SLI/Crossfire you will also need another identical GPU or 2 new identical GPUs . Keep in mind that if you have the OEM windows 7 version when you switch your mobo out you will need to call microsoft and lie a bit to get your windows revalidated.

An SSD helps a lot with certain tasks like updating windows and starting up your computer, but in game difference between an SSD and an HDD is not as noticeable.

Deciding on whether you are content with a 580 or if you want dual GPU will change what you do for your upgrade. I don't think it was clear from your last post whether you wanted to dual or to do a 580 so I can't spec you a single upgrade and say "get this"

 

ok here's the thing i'm confused right now,my PSU has only two 8pin pci-e connectors,so going for
sli/crossfire means a new psu anf a sli/crossfire capable mobo to replace my current PSU and mobo.

I've currently spec out a sli build and a single powerful gpu build
here it is

 

hey guys,a major update here...my budget got a cut as my father wants to change his phone,a Desire Z maybe,and he told me to do some value for money build

for the gpu which one is better?6870 or gtx 460?i think will add one of these card(depend which card i go for)together with a sandy bridge mobo with the UEFI Bios

so its confirmed i will go for a sli or crossfire setup,i'm planning to replace my psu with a Corsair HX 850W,I'm will also go for a silverstone rv02 and my old case will be used to house my home server hardware which is now housed in an old case which is loud and noisy,and also 8GB of dual channel RAM.

so guys sorry for the changes my budget is now limited to 750 bucks,please advise me on will graphics card to get,my rig will be used for work on photoshop,3ds max,zbrush,flash,gaming and of cause folding

my second gpu will come later with the sandy bridge mobo and cpu cheers!

 

The 6870 competes around the area of the 470 at stock speeds. If you take a good overclock to a 460, you can get well above the power of a 470 (testimony by my friend). I don't know how well a 6870 overclocks.

A sandybridge mobo uses a different socket type than what you have right now (at least the last time I checked). It either uses LGA 1155 or LGA 2011. Your processor right now uses LGA 1156 which won't fit into a sandybridge socket.

 

look at my last post,i said i'll get a sandy bridge mobo and cpu haha,the socket will be lga 1155

for what i've heard the 6870 can overclock well up to 1.2ghz dunno wheter is it true,but is the hawk version of the 460 good?I do want my card to be silent and not too loud well under load.

 

in terms of 3d applications like 3ds max, maya, after effects etc. Which card is better? The GTX 460 or the HD 6870?

 

2x 470's its the sensible decision