Trying to stretch out my current system

[Hawkest]

Hey all,

I'm trying to spend as little as possible to extend my current build for as long as I can, moderate overclocked don't scare me however I have a really tight budget.

Games I would like to play at higher that average are shadows of murder, lords of the fallen, ryse: son of Rome and elite dangerous...

Other than gaming I do a little programming, photo editing and college work, using multisim...

I've budgeted around the 150 to 170 to refresh my system and have recently bought a qx9650, striker 2 extreme, 8gb of ddr3 corsair value ram and a 150gb raptor drive for £80. I currently have a q9550 which has a lower tdp but appears to be an equally god overclocker but as in only thinking of taking it to 3.5Ish I don't think that warrants the extra power draw.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/hawkest/saved/Mjqj4D

So with the rest 90ish quid I'm thinking about get some vengeance pro 1600 ram and another 570...

Any thoughts on overclocking, which CPU to use and recommendations on bios settings to get the most out of this set up and the most stable....

Cheers

[Majestic]

What are you hoping to achieve with 3 GTX 570's in a list of games that chew through VRAM?

[Hawkest]

Sorry, my bad... I already own one gtx 570 and planning to get a second... I think it's the way I've picked my parts... lol

[incarnate]

8 minutes ago, Hawkest said:

Sorry, my bad... I already own one gtx 570 and planning to get a second... I think it's the way I've picked my parts... lol

Either way, you'll have to turn down settings in order to get decent framerates. That card just doesn't have enough vram for modern gaming at 1080p

[Hawkest]

Ah well.... what about my CPU dilemma?... any suggestions?...

[incarnate]

1 hour ago, Hawkest said:

Ah well.... what about my CPU dilemma?... any suggestions?...

I would sort out the gpu first. A c2q oc'd will work for now. You'll want at least a gtx 660 2gb or better.

[Steel_Wind]

ROG Striker 2 Extreme is the very best, top shelf of the 775 mobos. They are hard to find and extremely expensive to replace these days. Great motherboard! 

 

Even still, you will find that a $10 add in card for more Sata 6 gb/s will be handy, and there are combo cards with USB 3 and esata on them as well. If you have the slots... it's very cheap to add. The cheap cards off of eBay from China work great, btw.

 

Apart from another GPU card, you might look at a NVME slot based drive -- though those are mondo pricey of course. 

 

For a CPU the fastest option is a socket 771 Xeon X5650. There are microcode patched BIOSes for the Striker 2 nVidia chipsets which run those Xeons. You won't find a faster CPU for that mobo. It will require an (easy) mod to the socket. (Google it or ask for the links here -- very easy to find and the Xeon CPUs are quite cheap to buy on eBay. Much cheaper than a Q based 775 CPU.) The mod won't effect its value as those who are looking for Striker 2 Extremes these days plan to mod them for Xeon use anyway. 

 

The retail Xeons (do NOT get an engineering sample) OC all to hell. You can get it to 4.2 under a 240mm AIO.

 

 

[Steel_Wind]

GPU wise, the release of the 1070 and 1080 will push down used card prices. I would agree that vram is an issue with the 570 and you are better off with a 3GB or 4GB card for 1080 gaming. A Radeon 7950 or 7970 would be a significant upgrade and can probably be found for not much money used. Wait a month or two -- it will be even cheaper. All of the older cards are about to take a hammering on the used market as the new nVidia cards push down the top of the market.

 

For used builds and upgrade inspiration, check out the Tech Yes City Youtube channel. Lots of older tech reassembled and put to use for modern PC gaming on that channel - that is what he does there. Given the gear you've got going on? Tech Yes City is perfect for you.

[SLAYR]

3 hours ago, Steel_Wind said:

ROG Striker 2 Extreme is the very best, top shelf of the 775 mobos. They are hard to find and extremely expensive to replace these days. Great motherboard! 

 

Even still, you will find that a $10 add in card for more Sata 6 gb/s will be handy, and there are combo cards with USB 3 and esata on them as well. If you have the slots... it's very cheap to add. The cheap cards off of eBay from China work great, btw.

 

Apart from another GPU card, you might look at a NVME slot based drive -- though those are mondo pricey of course. 

 

For a CPU the fastest option is a socket 771 Xeon X5650. There are microcode patched BIOSes for the Striker 2 nVidia chipsets which run those Xeons. You won't find a faster CPU for that mobo. It will require an (easy) mod to the socket. (Google it or ask for the links here -- very easy to find and the Xeon CPUs are quite cheap to buy on eBay. Much cheaper than a Q based 775 CPU.) The mod won't effect its value as those who are looking for Striker 2 Extremes these days plan to mod them for Xeon use anyway. 

 

The retail Xeons (do NOT get an engineering sample) OC all to hell. You can get it to 4.2 under a 240mm AIO.

 

 

The x5650 is lga 1366 and will not work in a 775 board, and the 771 to 775 mod is pointless when the OP already has a decent overclocked cpu that will be better then any of the 771 xeons.

[Hawkest]

thanks for all the replies so far.

 

So between the Q9550 and the QX9650 that i currently own am i best putting my effort into the q9550 with its lower TDP?

 

any ideas what i'd be best doing with that raptor drive?

 

Cheers in advance all..:) 

[Steel_Wind]

9 hours ago, SLAYR said:

The x5650 is lga 1366 and will not work in a 775 board, and the 771 to 775 mod is pointless when the OP already has a decent overclocked cpu that will be better then any of the 771 xeons.

No, the OP does not have a overclocked CPU that is better than the 771 Xeons. That's the point.

Sorry, got my branding numbers in the alphabet number soup turned around X5460. That's the 771  at issue.

 

The X5460 and qx9650 are very similar chips. The X5460 is usually (much) cheaper on ebay and will overclock better as the Xeons are binned to higher standards. 

 

Would it make much of a difference to a QX9650 he already owns? Enough to justify getting a Xeon? No, we are talking .1 or .2 GHz greater headroom on an aggressive overclock from the Xeon, So no, probably not. But if he is asking the absolute best GPU for that mobo, the Xeon is the answer.

[Hawkest]

Okies, just reading through these last few comments and understanding things a little more... i think i'm gonna stick however with the Q9550... my girlfriend has just had a massive go at me due to the electricity bill... i've been moved in about 5 months and her bill has more than tripled.

 

So me thinks i need to look at what i can do to keep my system powerful yet efficient... and the q9550 appears to be the most efficient yet powerful CPU you can get for LGA 775... correct me if i'm wrong.

 

Now unless i find a really good deal on a better graphics card... say a 760ti 770 or 780 i think i'm just going to settle with the fact that i can't pump up the detail too much more.

 

Therefore i'm going to throw the rest of the money on 8GB of Corsair RAM and an SSD.