To upgrade or not? That is the question!

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fusionrs

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 7, 2004
Messages
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Current rig is in the signature...

I'm going to 64-bit when Windows 7 hits the shelves. I want to go to a minimum of 8GB of RAM.

I really don't have much time for games anymore but I do a lot of heavy multitasking.

So is it worth it moving to i7?

I'd be reusing my HDD's and monitors just upgrading everything else. I'd like to spend about $1,000.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

Photoshop, heavy multitasking

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

$1,000-$1,500

3) Where do you live?

USA

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.

Everything sans HDD and monitors/keyboards

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

HDD

6) Will you be overclocking?

Of course.

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?

24" x's 3
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

Next 30 days

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.

RAID don't care too much about SLI or crossfire as I don't game

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
Yes.
 
You will notice a difference when working with photoshop on large images or doing media encoding on i7 over your e6600. You may be able to do socket 1156 build with the i5 750 if you want quad core, but don't need hyper thread and triple channel memory (best price/performace for heavy multi-tasking on i5 is 8GB ram whereas i7 on 1366 you can do 12GB for under $300). The i5 750 performs similarly to the i7 920 for less money (and motherboards and memory kits are also cheaper). If you want to upgrade to i9 hexa core processor later, you want to stick with 1366.

FYI, there is no reason to do i7 on 1156. You spend enough there, that you might as well go 1366 (x58 chipset).
 
notsane said:
You will notice a difference when working with photoshop on large images or doing media encoding on i7 over your e6600. You may be able to do socket 1156 build with the i5 750 if you want quad core, but don't need hyper thread and triple channel memory (best price/performace for heavy multi-tasking on i5 is 8GB ram whereas i7 on 1366 you can do 12GB for under $300). The i5 750 performs similarly to the i7 920 for less money (and motherboards and memory kits are also cheaper). If you want to upgrade to i9 hexa core processor later, you want to stick with 1366.

FYI, there is no reason to do i7 on 1156. You spend enough there, that you might as well go 1366 (x58 chipset).
Click to expand...

When will the hexaprocessors be coming out?
 
It looks wiser to move to 1366 as it appears that will be what is sticking around for quite a while.
 
fusionrs said:
It looks wiser to move to 1366 as it appears that will be what is sticking around for quite a while.
Click to expand...

We don't really know if one platform or the other will be around longer. They could keep both for the full lifespan. I think it is a bit annoying that intel is doing two sockets, but there are technical reasons it is needed. Will find some i7 parts for you though.
 
Here you go!

You need to pick you own video card. In a recent build we did for photshop we used the gtx260 as it is qualified with Adobe CS4. I would also recc getting an intel x25-m (g2) 80GB for system drive and a WD black 640GB drive to store photos.

bare_bones_i7.jpg
 
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