PC upgrade time

[Wots]

This is (Probably, but i'm changing components everyday ) the configuration of the PC that i'm going to buy.

Case Midi Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced PURE BLACK EDITION

Thermaltake Toughpower XT 575W 80plus [or] Cooler Master Silent Pro M600 600W ATX 80Plus

CPU Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz Socket 1155 95W with GPU Sandy Bridge Boxed BX80623I52500K

Asus P8P67 PRO Rev3.1 Socket 1155 Intel P67 DDR3 SATA3 USB3 ATX

Ram DDR3 G.Skill Ripjaws-X F3-12800CL7D-4GBXM 1600MHz 4GB (2x2GB) CL7-8-7-24 1.5v [or] RAM DDR3 Corsair Classic XMS3 CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 1600Mhz 4GB (2x2GB) CL9

VGA Gigabyte Radeon HD 6950 Core 870MHz Memory GDDR5 5000MHz 1GB DVI

SSD Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" Lettura 415MB/s Scrittura 175MB/s Sata3 CT128M4SSD2

LiteOn IHAS124-19 24x DVD/CD SATA Nero Bulk

[J T]

Tell me some more about SSDs... I think I will start there.

I'm assuming that they aren't all equal, so (in general terms) which ones are good, and what should I look out for to avoid. I understand TRIM support is a must....

[Harrison]

Obviously get an SATA3 SSD is the first must.

Samsung, Crucial, Corsair and OCZ seem to be the makers consistently getting the highest review scores. You will notice these are also all really good PC and memory card makers too. Kingston don't fair quite as well, which is also true for their memory cards to avoid them.

Current SSD drives worth looking at for their best reviews are: OCZ Vertex 2, the OCZ Agility 2 and the Corsair Force

TRIM support is essential. A standard SSD drive without this would make deleted data blocks but not do anything with them when they are marked. Once once you try to request some empty space on the drive would it then look for all the blocks marked as empty and move them all together to create enough empty space in a continuous block to write the request to the drive. With TRIM this does the moving around of the empty blocks in the background, so it speeds up the drive write speed a lot as the empty blocks are already together and ready to be used.

[Bloodwych]

I really don't do anything with the big PC other than web, torrents, and will be trying to sort out our (pretty large) media collection.

In your situation JT I'm not sure you need the power of an i5 or i7, but if money is no object then it makes sense to go Intel as they have the highest IPC (instructions done per clock). Not sure they are the best value however.

Otherwise, what is out there that's a bit tasty, but good value?

Another option is a Phenom II x4 black - I've seen the 3.2Ghz 955 versions going brand new for as little as £90, and the 1055T x6 going for £130. Ebay second user may even be cheaper. With the right motherboard, you can even overclock these to 4Ghz. AMD motherboards are cheaper too, plus with the dirt cheap price of DDR3 at the moment it's a great time to upgrade.

A machine like that would be easily fast enough for your needs and good value. Phenom II's feel VERY snappy in windows - just make sure you go at least Quad core as that's the future.

[Teho]

Yeah, I've been using the Phenom II X4 for a couple of years and have no complaints. The original Phenom X4 got a bad reputation for being a shoddy make which was basically two dual-cores jury-rigged together so people have been wary about the Phenom II. But this one is actually very good, a decent quad-core which is nothing like the original. Only thing is that the heatsink+fan is fairly noisy and isn't very effective at all, definitely get something else to cool the thing.

[Harrison]

Most stock heatsink+fans are noisy and not very efficient.

The one I always recommend everyone, the Arctic Freezer 7 Pro rev. 2 is compatible with both AMD and Intel and comes with all the required fittings for both makes, and at only £15 is is a great buy. Teho you should get one for your existing system. You would see a drop in temps and noise.

[J T]

I'm torn here, I thought I'd give myself a budget of around 300-400 bucks and try and get the most out of that - however when I go and look at things I think 'well, just 50 more...oh, that's got a bigger number and it's just another 30...oh, that one sounds neater for another 20...'

The thing is, I've got the money to spend, but don't really want to 'waste' it on things that I don't really need, and at the moment the old PC (It must be well over 5 years) is still OK, just a little slow.