Evil Tactician
Gold Level Poster
I'm currently running the pc as per my signature. I have an urge to upgrade some bits but have ran into a few things that make me think - so am hoping some people here can give their input. I rarely upgrade PC's as I usually use what I have and replace it once every 2 years or so.
Disk Space on the SSD
The SSD is just about right for running system files and a handful of games on, but with TOR on the horizon, I really want to run that from an SSD. I currently run Rift from the 'normal' drive, and can notice this in the loading times. As MMORPGS tend to get an insane amount of hours into them, I want the best experience possible.
Hard Drive Space / SSD:
To my knowledge, and I might be wrong, the Motherboard has 2x 6GB/s ports and 6x normal sata ports.
Both of those ports are occupied by the existing drives. I am really interested in the new OCZ Vertex 3 240gb drives as they are insanely fast. However, their speed requires them to be on a 6gb/s port, else they are rather pointless.
Options;
Does anyone have experience with replacing a hard drive directly by cloning it? How smooth a transition is it?
What about moving a hard drive from one sata port to another on the motherboard? How smooth is the transition, will windows run seamlessly from the drive still without re-installing anything? Anything to bear in mind?
Does someone have an idea or solution which doesn't match any of the above?
Graphics - Future Proofing
The second thing I am looking at (if not right now, certainly in the future) is the graphics cards. The current set-up is reasonably powerful, but does provide some inconsistent performance in specific circumstances. I bought this set-up with the idea to upgrade eventually, and I am wondering what way to go.
Overclocking
Both the CPU and GPU's constantly run at extremely low temperatures and I am wondering if it's worth overclocking the CPU? Hell, OCing the GPU's might be the solution until more desirable GPU's come down in price?
Any insights here are very welcome. I've heard a lot about memory timings as well but don't really know anything about that. I'm an advanced user but have never really looked at overclocking before.
Upgrading Process
Most of the above I can do myself, though adding additional hdd's probably means fiddling with the cabling of the PSU as PC Specialist did a lovely job at making things very neat inside the case.
However, is it possible to buy components from PC Specialist given that I bought the PC here? What about outright having PC Specialist upgrade the PC? (E.g. for example upgrading the primary hard drive and seamlessly moving the existing windows installation and programs)
I don't suppose there is a 'call out to home' upgrade program in place? E.g. come to my house, and install gpu/ssd/watercooling/overclock, something like that? (I trust PC Specialist far more than I trust myself
)
How does sending your PC in for upgrades work? How long does it generally take and how the heck do I get the PC to PC Specialist safely?
Apologies for the many questions
Disk Space on the SSD
The SSD is just about right for running system files and a handful of games on, but with TOR on the horizon, I really want to run that from an SSD. I currently run Rift from the 'normal' drive, and can notice this in the loading times. As MMORPGS tend to get an insane amount of hours into them, I want the best experience possible.
Hard Drive Space / SSD:
To my knowledge, and I might be wrong, the Motherboard has 2x 6GB/s ports and 6x normal sata ports.
Both of those ports are occupied by the existing drives. I am really interested in the new OCZ Vertex 3 240gb drives as they are insanely fast. However, their speed requires them to be on a 6gb/s port, else they are rather pointless.
Options;
- Upgrade the SSD to a Vertex 3 240GB (Fantastic drive) - I guess this involves cloning the current drive and outright replacing it in the case, job done. I have a friend who would love to buy the existing SSD, so no problem there.
- Move the current SSD to a 'normal' Sata port and plug a new Vertex 3 240GB in it's current place. Keep running windows from the old SSD (ensuring it still serves as C:, to keep things nice and easy) and run games from the new SSD.
- I have an identical SSD to my current one in my laptop, which I could replace with a standard laptop drive. I don't use my laptop for gaming since I have my desktop, so I wouldn't really miss it there. In this case, I am quite tempted to raid them on the normal ports.
- Do both of the above, use the 240gb drive to run windows by cloning the contents of the existing drive, then raid-0 the 2x vertex 2 120gb drives on the normal ports and run games from that.
Does anyone have experience with replacing a hard drive directly by cloning it? How smooth a transition is it?
What about moving a hard drive from one sata port to another on the motherboard? How smooth is the transition, will windows run seamlessly from the drive still without re-installing anything? Anything to bear in mind?
Does someone have an idea or solution which doesn't match any of the above?
Graphics - Future Proofing
The second thing I am looking at (if not right now, certainly in the future) is the graphics cards. The current set-up is reasonably powerful, but does provide some inconsistent performance in specific circumstances. I bought this set-up with the idea to upgrade eventually, and I am wondering what way to go.
- GTX 590 is a very nice card, but I don't think I can run two of those in the future, as the mobo only does up to Tri-SLI.
- GTX 580 is lovely - and this computer might just run 2 of those in SLI in the future. How does one of them perform vs. the current GPU's?
- What would the PSU requirement be for 2x GTX 580? Is my PSU sufficient? I do not wish to upgrade the PSU.
- Are there other GPU options? I have a bad experience with an ATI card not long ago, hate their drivers, and like my cards not to sound like a harrier jumpjet.
Overclocking
Both the CPU and GPU's constantly run at extremely low temperatures and I am wondering if it's worth overclocking the CPU? Hell, OCing the GPU's might be the solution until more desirable GPU's come down in price?
Any insights here are very welcome. I've heard a lot about memory timings as well but don't really know anything about that. I'm an advanced user but have never really looked at overclocking before.
Upgrading Process
Most of the above I can do myself, though adding additional hdd's probably means fiddling with the cabling of the PSU as PC Specialist did a lovely job at making things very neat inside the case.
However, is it possible to buy components from PC Specialist given that I bought the PC here? What about outright having PC Specialist upgrade the PC? (E.g. for example upgrading the primary hard drive and seamlessly moving the existing windows installation and programs)
I don't suppose there is a 'call out to home' upgrade program in place? E.g. come to my house, and install gpu/ssd/watercooling/overclock, something like that? (I trust PC Specialist far more than I trust myself
)How does sending your PC in for upgrades work? How long does it generally take and how the heck do I get the PC to PC Specialist safely?
Apologies for the many questions
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