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Weekend Open Forum: Your next PC upgrade
With the Radeon HD 7000 series trickling out, Ivy Bridge and Kepler bound for mid-2012 and hard drive prices gradually recovering, it seems a great time to begin plotting your next system upgrade. What parts do you plan to buy in the near future? Need more horsepower, storage or RAM? Finally going to splurge on a flash drive or secondary display? Perhaps it's time for a completely fresh build?
Components for Shawn's new X79 test rig
I'm tempted to perform an overhaul this summer, but I think I'll skip this generation and see what 2013 brings. The i5-750 and GTX 460 should hold strong until then. Coincidentally, you are reading this via TechSpot's newly upgraded server, which now has dual quad-core Xeon E5620s, 12GB of RAM and two SSDs in RAID (from dual quad-core Xeon E5335s, 8GB of RAM and 10k RPM SAS drives).
Related Products from Product Finder
AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB GDDR5 PCIe
The AMD ATI Radeon HD 7970 measures 27 cm long (10.6 in), the GPU core is clocked at 925MHz, and the GDDR5 memory operates at the same frequency of 1375MHz (5.5GHz DDR). Still, pairing that frequency with a 384-bit memory bus gives the HD 7970 264GB/s of theoretical bandwidth. The HD 7970 carries 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs, up 33% from 1536 SPUs and 96 TAUs, it's also the first PCI Express 3.0-compatible card.
AMD Radeon HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 PCIe
The HD 7950 has 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs. The only other ports are on the I/O panel where you'll find a dual DL-DVI connector, a single HDMI 1.4a port, and two mini-DisplayPort 1.2 sockets. Supports a max resolution of 2560x1600 on up to 3 monitors.
AMD ATI Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB PCIe
The AMD ATI Radeon HD 7770 measures 21cm (8.2in) long, the GPU core runs at 1GHz, it comes loaded with a 1GB frame buffer, the Radeon HD 7770 also carries 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs. The HD 7770 operates at near silence because even under load it only draws 80 watts and as little as 3 watts at idle, courtesy of the ZeroCore Power technology. Last but not least, AMD has included a single 6-pin PCI Express power connector.
HIS Radeon HD 7750 iCooler 1GB GDDR5 PCIe
The Radeon HD 7750 measures only 17cm (6.6in) long and operates at 800MHz. The HD 7750 reference card has a single slot cooler that uses a low-profile heatsink and fan measuring 3cm tall. The heatsink itself is 9.5cm long, 7.5cm wide and is cooled by a 65mm fan. The I/O panel has a dual DL-DVI connector, a single HDMI 1.4a port and a DisplayPort 1.2 socket.
User Comments: 82
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I'm buying an AMD HD 7870 to replace my HD 6850. But I'll wait until the graphics cards prices drop a bit, since the price for an 7870 will be a bit high when it comes out.
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I think my i7 laptop with a GTX 260M will hold me off for another year, but my system is showing it's age now.
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Will be getting a triple monitor setup with a 7970 or two once prices come down... or whatever Nvidia pull out from their sleeve.
Also it's not quite a PC upgrade but I will be getting a 2nd gen Samsung Series 9 laptop/ultrabook for work. Had a look in store and absolutely loved the design, the thin bezels and most of all the widest viewing angle I've ever seen on a laptop, on a par with the cheaper IPS panels.
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A 2500k or 3570k, an HD 7870 or the nvidia equivalent, and another Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB
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Im still running a quadcore with agp
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Still rolling with some 2008 fossils, a AMD Dual Core 3.2gz, WD 7200rpm 300g hard drive, along with some newer 800mhz 4gig ddr2, an Asus EAH 4770HD and a truck load of fans. Pretty basic stuff which I would love to upgrade, clearly if you were to though, you would have to do it all at once.
My problem is, even this set up can play every game i've tried, at moderate setting at least (mostly on high). New released games would need to consistently be challenging the capabilities of even modern systems to warrant upgrades for any practical purpose. Upgrading every year, or even every 2, currently seems a waste.
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i just downgraded my pu from 560ti to 8800gt. i realized i didnt spend so much time on gaming and i figured out it's better if i got rid of the card asap before the price depreciates even further. removed the internal dvd drive as well. use back the older (but reputable) 520W PSU and got rid of the new 620W modular ones, since the gpu is worse and i can bear with the extra wires. it seems im on the opposite direction
.my next upgrade would be SSD upgrade. im going to transfer this agility 3 to my laptop and probably use faster SSD for the i5 machine. once you go SSD there is no going back lol
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Guest said:
I'm buying a new gaming pc within a few months.
My current one is 2 years old but still really nice. But with the upcoming games i'd like to be completely prepared.
The problem is that i know next to nothing about pc's and upgrading.
It's horrible. I really want to learn this stuff..
And i don't have anyone to ask help from.
Hard to find the right stuff.
Its not hard at all to build your own. take some time to watch some vids on youtube. or buy the parts you want and take it to a computer store near you and have them build it for you
I recently added the Sapphire OC edition 7950. looking to make the jump from an i5-750 and my p55 board to an Intel Core i7-3820 and an x78 board with at least 16gb of ram here soon
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SSD and new generation GPU (class upgrade as well)
I've already done all other upgrades for a few years.
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Upgraded last Fall after being with AMD for many years from a AMD 955 quad to a 2600k, upped my ram from 8gb 1333 to 8gb 1600, from a single 5870 to 2 GTX 580s 3GB versions in SLI on a 30" 2560 x 1600 monitor, also from a 64Gb Crucial SSD to a 128GB M4 Crucial SSD and XFi Fatality surround card. Also went with a MSI GD80 Z68 mb thats Ivy ready and PCI Exp 3.0 ready. Did it all to have a BF3 ready PC so I could max out everything. After some tweaking I'm sitting pretty. Thinking of going with a Ivy bridge CPU and 2 GTX 680s in SLI this summer just cause I can and its a hobby. I want to hit 5GHz stable next from my current 4.5
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I've got no such plans in the near future. I'm holding steady with my 6yr old Acer T160, and I've upgraded pretty much everything in it already so.....
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Well my first thing on the list is a headset, precisely the SteelSeries 7H's
Second will be more RAM, I would prefer to have 8GB instead of my current 4GB.
Third will be a sound Card to go along with those lovely headphones
IF I do fancy changing my graphics card this year it'll be a high end Nvidia card but my 560ti just doesn't struggle with anything so I may give it a miss, appart from that my system is already water cooled, already SSD'ed up and i7 2600K'ed up, I don't really have a reason to upgrade for a long time
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Wagan8r said:
I'm waiting for a Kepler card, probably the GK104 a.k.a. GTX 670 Ti by most accounts. My GTX 260 has done me well, but I'm Jonesing for some ultra Battlefield 3 play!
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Marnomancer said:
If we wait some more time, we might either see h/w prices hit rock-bottom, or skyrocket. Duh...if only my economist sister would let me know.
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Captain828 said:
Planning on getting a SSD this year and perhaps upgrade to an Intel i-Series CPU (got a Q9550 @ 4GHz now).
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Just my opinion but I think EVERYONE's next upgrade should be an SSD.
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good timing
I'm currently awaiting delivery of a new case (NZXT Phantom replacing a CiT Storm), PSU (Antec Truepower New 650W replacing a Be Quiet 530W) and mobo (Maximus IV Gene-Z replacing an MSI P67-GD55 that's suffering from cougar point woes)
all to prepare for replacing my 6950 with either a 7970 or something nVidia flavoured in a month or so
should be here tomorrow
excited
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My next upgrade will be with a Enterprise like computer. Hope I will not get Data as a bonus ^^
How many lives I need to wait?
:-/
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Jibberish18 said:
Just my opinion but I think EVERYONE's next upgrade should be an SSD.
+1,000,000
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My next upgrade will take some time to realize since I'll be waiting for the 22-nm version of the Core i7 3930K or whatever they call the next generation of LGA 2011 / X79 parts. I intend to pair it with 32 gigs of Corsair Vengeance memory and probably Nvidia's or AMD's next multi-GPU model, haven't decided on which brand since I currently own both. It will probably be a relatively long wait since LGA 2011 CPUs and X79 boards have yet to reach my little corner of the planet. Probably just as well because I'd need to save some more as this will be my most expensive upgrade to date. I've already ordered a Corsair AX1200 PSU and will probably settle for a Cooler Master Storm Trooper case to fit everything inside.
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DarKSeeD said:
SSD and a new case.
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Clearly lots of gamers on here! Here's a completely different view.
Believe it or not, I plan a complete replacement (duh!) of a decade-old PII based machine. I am waiting for Ivy Bridge because of the better performance vs. power ratio. This is an audio production machine which must be very quiet since it is used on location, so lower power means lower fan noise. I will go with an i7, however, to allow more plug ins during mix down.
I plan to use a solid state boot drive, periodically shadowed to a low-power laptop HD. Data drive will be a 2 Gig Seagate Barracuda -- cost no object there. Traditionally, audio workstations have been built with mid to low-end fanless graphics cards, but I'm thinking Intel motherboard graphics might be adequate now. I also need to add a firewire card (TI only, please!), because firewire is disappearing from modern motherboards. Changing interfaces is not an option: pro-grade audio interfaces cost much more than the computer.
Case will be a 3-space rack mount with acoustic treatment and the quietest power supply I can find. I haven't figured out what to do about the CPU cooler, as quiet alternatives to Intel's liquid cooler seem to be slow in coming.
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Well...
I lucked out and grabbed two (2) Crucial M4s for $79/each... & had already had a Hitachi Desktar 1TB (7K1000.D).
With high-end ram being "reasonable" I am just going to build a whole new system to compliment my-ever-growing home network.
So, In leu of the newly released Intel LGA 2011 i7-3820 @ $300 bones, I can "afford" myself the extra $100 it takes to move to the X79/LGA2011 platform..., as it has much longer legs than the LGA1155. Plus, I am certain that within 2 years time, there will be a killer 8-core monster within a few ticks (or, is that tocks..?)
I don't splurge and would never had bought those 2 SSD's had they not been such an absurd steal. But I do believe that since AMD blundered with Bulldozer and the New CEO hitting up Mobile, an Intel rig (folding/gaming/3d modeling) has a better upcycle to it, than AMD right now. Matter-of-fact, I havn't built an Intel rig in 5 years, though I built 14 AMD rigs in the last 2 years for others.
I will also be building my first HTPC this fall, that will almost assuridly be based on AMD's "trinity" APU "fusion" technology. Plus any laptop advice will lean towards AMD platform.
I am unbias, just see logic & reasoning.
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There are no games, that I know of, that my system can't already max out. And nothing I know of on the horizon either.
The only upgrade I want to make is more monitors (for daytrading), and more high-speed SSDs to replace the RAID HDDs.
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more high-speed SSDs to replace the RAID HDDs.Honestly is a non-raid SSD not fast enough for you?
Especially seeing as you are still using HDD's.
Or is the raid configuration for redundancy purposes?
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