Planning an upgrade, critique.

H

HotShotMedic

Gawd
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Aug 3, 2006
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Hey guys and girls, I have some extra money coming my way soon and I was thinking of upgrading my main gaming box. I'll be reusing quite a bit of the secondary and tertiary gear. My plan is to upgrade processor/mobo/ram/heatsink cooler for now. Maybe pick up an SSD later.

Here are the parts :

Processor - Core i930
Mobo - Gigabyte EX58-UD3R
Ram - Corsair XMS3 Dominator TR3X6G1600C8D 6GB DDR3 3X2GB DDR3-1600 CL 8-8-8-24
Heatsink - Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme 1366RT REV.C

Will my Corsair HX 620 be enough for this new gear added to my current gear with overclocking in mind?
 
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Drop the Dominator RAM -- it's overpriced -- and go with a 1.5V Mushkin or G.Skill kit instead. RAM timings don't matter as much for DDR3 RAM as they have in the past, and they matter less while overclocking since, in most cases, the motherboard will adjust the timings to match the speed they're being run at.

If you're not trying to obtain the highest CPU overclock possible -- and in that case, why aren't you going with a water cooling set-up? -- switch out the TRUE Rev.C for the Cogage TRUE Spirit. It performs within a few degrees of the TRUE Rev.C's best for a fraction of the price.

Which video card are you using? How old is your HX620? Are you going to overclock the processor and/or the video card? The HX620 should be fine for your proposed setup, but if it's over two years old and you're planning a new video card purchase in the future, you may want to consider getting a new PSU at some point in time (most likely, around the same time as the new video card purchase).
 
thanx for your reply, i'll be using my gtx 280 which has been an amazing card and runs bc2 beautifully, so no need to upgrade just yet.
Im not watercooling, i have no need or desire. air is fine for me. i'll look into that heatsink you recommended.
also, any particular kits i should be looking at for the ram you suggested?
 
We often recommend this G.Skill kit as it's relative inexpensive yet it performs just as well as the Dominator kit in most overclocking tasks (as long as you're not pushing it beyond its rated speed).
 
I think the PSU wil be efficient. Use the link tiradies has provided and browse the bundles avaiable for a motherboard + ram combo.

Is that i930 from MC?
 
tiraides said:
Drop the Dominator RAM -- it's overpriced...
Click to expand...

I agree with this recommendation, especially since that RAM costs $70 more (not including the rebate) than the G.Skill memory in the link on your next post. In addition, if the OP chooses that RAM, he may find out the the Dominator RAM might not fit underneath the Thermalright tower heatsink, especially if the motherboard's memory slots are close to the processor socket.

So if that's the case, then he might either have to choose a lower-profile memory module but keep the heatsink, or stick with the Dominator but revert the CPU cooler back to the stock Intel boxed cooler. I'd choose the former combo, in this case.
 
thanx for the comments guys, gonna keep these recommendations in mind. I'll let yas know how my upgrade progresses.
 
Are you near a Microcenter? Because if you are, that i7 930 is only $200. ;)
 
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