Hey guys, I have an i7 rig that I built in 2009. I'm going to upgrade some of the equipment. I would like your all thoughts on my choices.

Old:
EVGA 250
12 gigs OCZ Platinum, 6 are bad though. running 9's
Old WD 7,200 rpm 500 gb HD
Vista 64 bit
ThermalTank Black Widow CPU fan

New:
ASUS GTX650TI-OC-2GD5 GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB 128-Bit GDDR5
12 new gigs of Gskill RAM running 9's.
Seagate Hybrid Drive ST1000DX001 1TB MLC/8GB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit
Cooler Master Seidon 120V – Compact All-In-One CPU Liquid Water Cooling System with 120mm Radiator and Fan

I have a new PSU to put in as well. I want to give new life to this i7 and get back to gaming instead of waiting for it to boot up and screaming when it randomly restarts. What do you all think? Not a bad upgrade considering all for under $500. lol.

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whats your budget,  I would go with a dedicated ssd, those hybrids are nice for laptops but in desktop i prefer dedicated.

Looks good.

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I agree with three6; those hybrid drivers aren't really all they're cracked up to be.  Plus, I'm always weary of new hardware ideas. Plus I'd have to suggest a slightly beefier GPU. The 650 ti's are kinda the little brothers of series, as evidenced by the narrow memory bandwidth. A bit extra will get ya  a good bump in performance.

How on earth did you manage to have half your RAM go sideways in ya? Slamming too much voltage into them? Are you sure you don't just have bad slots? Are you sure your BIOS is configured properly? Auto-detecting RAm doesn;t always give the correct settings.

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-- Of all the soles I've ever tasted, his had the most   ....cumin. --

Do yourself a favor and do some research on your GPU choice and your model i7 and the game you plan on playing.  Many-times  you will find charts of different benchmarks of GPU's and your CPU with your particular game.  That's how I paired my FX8350 and GTX760 combo.  It's been running great.  Now if I wanted to buy another 760 I could run SLI and get some really crazy performance.  But I'm really happy with my single card.  Everything else looks solid.  Hybrid hard drive are relatively new to desktops and been in laptop for a few years now.  I really don't see an advantage with hybrids as of yet unless they boost the GB on the flash drive to make it more useful.  Of course I'm no expert but i did build my rig a few months ago and did quite a bit of research. My recommendation would to save some bucks on you drive and splurge a little more on the GPU.  Another thought is if you plan on playing BF4 I would seriously look into a AMD GPU with Mantle capabilities. There is a huge improvement with AMD GPUs and Intel i7 cpu combos.  Research and make your own determination.  

Remember I'm no expert, but are you sure your ram is bad and not your MOBO?

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Good input. I reeeeeally hope my mobo didn't go bad. I have tried putting the ram in the other three slots, and they work just fine. Mobo is the ASUS A8N-E if yall wonna check it out. socket 1366. Kinda hard to find a mobo now a days for it.

1st. three6, my budget is $500  

2nd. Abram, it's triple channel mem. I know two sticks went bad. Running stock voltages and times too since day 1. They do however have "lifetime" warranty on them from OCZ but we'll see how that goes....  :roll:

3rd. MisterD, I've always been a Nvidia fan. I do not know much about AMD GPUs. I will definitely look into them if they are a pretty strong contender.  

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Correction! Mobo is:  ASUS P6T LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard

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well for 500 i would spend 300 of that on a gpu, forget the ssd for now, they go on sale alot and just keep your eyes open for a deal in the future.

GPU  amd r9 270x or nvidia gtx 760 both around 250$
WD black HD 500gig  80$
12 gig of ram  ddr 1600    150ish

around 480 without tax & shipping  and this is in CDN dollars.

This setup wout get you good framrates in most new games.

Three6, Here is what I have in my current "wish list" :

2 of  these:  G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ = $135 total

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM = $100

Seagate Hybrid Drives ST500LM000 500GB MLC/8GB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s NCQ 2.5" Laptop SSHD -Bare Drive = $80

Cooler Master Seidon 120V – Compact All-In-One CPU Liquid Water Cooling System with 120mm Radiator and Fan = $50

Club3D royalQueen CGAX-R927X6 Radeon R9 270X 2GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card = $200

The HDD is a hybrid. 500gb of storage plus some SDD space to help load up quicker. I've read all the reviews and all that jazz on them. I need a new HDD for sure considering one I have is noisey as can be.

The list comes to $570.41 with the shipping and all that on it. Lil more than my budget but not blown outta the water. lol.

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That looks good.


But i would just go with a regular HD and a SSD. But if your ok with the hybrid dirve then its ultimately up to you .

Also are you able to find 3x 4gig of ram kits for 135?  or is there a reason your going with 6x 2gig?

Alright... You guys have helped me soooooo much. I have finally chosen, at least I hope you all agree, what I'm going to get. All from Newegg.

Crucial Ballistix 12GB (3 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory  $149.99

PNY XLR8 SSD9SC120GMDF-RB 2.5" 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)  $79.99

PowerColor DEVIL AXR9 270X 2GBD5-A2DHE Radeon R9 270X 2GB 256-Bit GDDR5  $229.99

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Grand Total with free 3-day shipping = $459.97


This will be paired with a new 700w PSU I have, new 500gb HDD I have, and a fresh copy of Windows 7 64bit that I have.

I think this will bring my i7 back to life and get me back to playing some more.

Please let me know what y'all think. Suggestions?

OH! Will be getting new copies of W@W and BlackOPS as well..

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My only suggestion may save you a few $$. According to Maingear , one of the more serious custome pc builders they have this to say about RAM:

Maingear    

Quote:

Memory is an important and often overlooked component in a custom build computer. In today's computing environment, a custom computer with less than 4GB is unheard of, and less than 8GB is less than desirable. For everyone except those on an extremely tight budget, we highly recommend 8GB+ of memory when you build a computer. It's better to upgrade to 8GB of RAM before you upgrade to a faster CPU. Also, for most consumers, quantity is better than speed. We offer some faster frequency memory that is utilized best when we do our performance enhancements for speed-freaks and benchmark junkies, but for every day computer users, the difference can only be felt in the wallet.

A lot of custom builders maintain that 8 GB is what you need as W7 64 bit only actually utilizes  that amount of RAM. Adding more doesn't really help speed. Hope this helps the wallet a bit  

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Arte et Marte                             Per Ardua Ad Astra
Life is about falling – Living is about getting back up

It's a triple channel RAM mobo. So, its either 6 or 12. I had 12 and loved it. lol. I'm also just gonna bite the bulle,t so to speak, and get  MSI Radeon R9 270X GAMING 4GB 256-bit. It's only $50 more. I've changed my mind on so many things but I'm pretty set in stone now on this selection. New SSD, new RAM, and one heck of a GPU. These with a fresh copy of Win 7 and I'll be set.

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Good choices,  i'm pretty sure you wont be disappointed . Google a guide to installing windows on a SSD, there are a few tweaks you do that you dont with a traditional HD.

Well... I've found out a few things. My Mobo doesn't have SATA III. It's only SATA II. Which from what I've been told, does not justify getting a SSD as it will bottleneck. So... I guess I'll look into maybe a 10k RPM HDD???

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