what should i upgrade?

sef24

New Member
with black friday coming up i am thinking of upgrading furthur on my desktop. id like some opinions on what you guys believe i should upgrade.

my specs are....
gigabyte p55-ud6 motherboard
xfx radeon 5770 1gb vcard
intel core i5 processor
corsiar ddr3 4g ram
750w corsair psu
1tb 7200 hd

i was thinking of updating my vcard and/or processor to the i7, possibly get a water cooler or custom fan for the processor. maybe a new monitor if i have room for it or surround sound hehe. thanks
 
I don't know what your monitor is, but a widescreen 22" or bigger is nice. If you're a gamer I'd drop in a second 5770. An SSD is also a great addition to any system.
 
SSD!! Make that 1TB a storage drive and see if you can pick up a 60GB SSD for a good price, you will get a much bigger performance boost out of that than a new CPU. Also +1 for the monitor like jevery said

For minor stuff if you have the money, video card would be a good place, as would getting an aftermarket CPU cooler if you don't have one
 
Definitely go with an SSD. If not pick another 5770. Go with the 5770 if you are a gamer if not, there is no point of it. Your PC is fine though.
 
yea i am a gamer, what exactly is an SSD?
i never heard of an alternate type of hard drive like that, if im understanding it right.

Whats the differance if I use that?
Also I can use both my 1TB 7200 hard drive and that and get the same preformance?

It sounds interesting.

I may grab another 5770 and crossfire them because they are not that expensive.

Also ill prob get a nice monitor, this one slouches forward and I have to use a coaster to keep it leveled correctly hehe. Bigger would be better.
 
nice, never heard of them till now hehe.

bookmarketed that one, lots to choose from on what i see on new egg. Is that one the overall best choice?

lubo mentioned that i should get a SSD or another vcard, if I purchuse a another 5770 to crossfire and that, it would still make a difference then if I was to grab the SSD only?

Not sure if one mostly makes the other one useless
 
I agree with the SSD,The difference is like night and day and is probably going to be the best upgrade you have done in a while,was for me!

As for the second 5770 suggestions,Nah id recommend selling the 5770 and getting a better single card,But its not really needed yet. :)
 
what brand would you suggest for a SSD drive? samsung?

I dont want to pay a huge amount for one but a decent one for a decent price.

Also another question, im using windows 7. If i do purchuse a SSD, I would need to change my OS from the hard drive to the SSD?
I wouldnt need two OS W7 id assume?

Also, what exactly is stored on these other then the OS. Apps and games? How much room can these carry?

edit: I may ask a lot of questions on this, just because I never really looked into these, but they do sound great.
Id assume that since im running 64bit W7 I would have to purchuse one about 128gbs?
 
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what brand would you suggest for a SSD drive? samsung?

I dont want to pay a huge amount for one but a decent one for a decent price.

Also another question, im using windows 7. If i do purchuse a SSD, I would need to change my OS from the hard drive to the SSD?
I wouldnt need two OS W7 id assume?

Also, what exactly is stored on these other then the OS. Apps and games? How much room can these carry?

edit: I may ask a lot of questions on this, just because I never really looked into these, but they do sound great.
Id assume that since im running 64bit W7 I would have to purchuse one about 128gbs?

Id recommend either Ocz Vertex seriesor Intels SSDs...thats what most people tend to be going with.

as for the windows 7 question,You will have to install windows to the SSD ;)

What you do is install Windows + Anti virus + other small apps that you regularly use to the SSD and everything else like games etc to your standard drive :)

And no you don't need to purchase a big SSD,60Gb will be fine..i still have 40 odd Gb left on mine....check my specs,Im also running Windows 7 X64.
 
I'd stick with your regular 7200 rpm hd. It's not a great deal worse than SSD, and has a ton more storage per dollar. SSD has much improved performance and damage protection, but man they are really expensive. They are reported to have some durability issues, so make sure to research as much as possible before investing the money. If you are like me though, you want a boatload of storage space on your computer- and with SSD's unless you're financially loaded it just ain't gonna happen.
 
nice, never heard of them till now hehe.

bookmarketed that one, lots to choose from on what i see on new egg. Is that one the overall best choice?

lubo mentioned that i should get a SSD or another vcard, if I purchuse a another 5770 to crossfire and that, it would still make a difference then if I was to grab the SSD only?

Not sure if one mostly makes the other one useless

Think of it as a super duper fast Hard Drive. It doesn't have a platter or head, like a hard drive does, it is solid state memory, like flash memory, so there aren't any moving parts. That increases efficiency, power usage, takes away seek time almost completely, means no fragmentation, much faster read/write, and no moving parts means longer life and less failure, because of no mechanical parts.

The only negative at the moment is the price. Per GB, the price is very high compared to HDD's, but if you can get a good deal, it is deffinately worth it, you will get a bigger performance boost spending $150 on an SSD than you would spending it on another component.

As for which to get, any will be a huge improvement, but if I had the money and was choosing one right now, would go for a Vertex 2
 
thanks everyone, i picked up another 5770 video card, although not totally needed, i like the extra frames.

I also grabbed the vortex 2, cant wait to try out these SSDs, seem promising.

Also I grabbed a water cooling system for my intel i5 processor, I dont like using that cheap fan it came with. plus im guessing this can be used better when overclocking. Whenever i look into that.


I will probably buy a new monitor, bigger size and color. Any opinions on those? never bought a monitor online, I usually just went to best buy for those hehe.

Also, crossfireing 5770's support using two monitors?
such as, playing a game on one, and using the other for everything else?
 
looking on tiger direct, there is a deal of the day on a 28" lcd hdmi i-tech monitor.

anyone use this monitor before? for the price, that seems pretty awesome
 
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