Considering a Few Upgrades to the Desktop

[Aura]

Alrighty, here are the spec's of my Dell that I've had together since the start of college:

Mobo - Intel P965 (Dell proprietary bullshit)

CPU - C2D E6600

RAM - 2GB G.Skill HK

GPU - EVGA 8800GTS 320MB

PSU - Corsair HX520

HDD's - 1x WD Caviar 250GB, 1x WD Caviar 500GB

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I'm considering:

1) New GPU. This is complicated for me as I haven't been following either Nvidia nor ATi for at least a year. I know of both the GTX and 4-series, but I don't know where the best value is in either lineup. GTX275 looks good but might just be a bit more than I'm looking for. GTX260 perhaps? $160 is very attractive. Both 4890 and 4870 looked interesting on the red side of things as well.

My main use is for Oblivion, which getting a little dated but with my texture mod's has always given my GTS a lot of trouble because of lacking memory. Resolution will be 1680 x 1050 on a 20" wide. No second monitor for now. No need for SLI or XFire, not possible with my board.

Also, I bought my HX520 when they were just released, so I never received an 8 pin (6+2) cable for my GPU. Will Corsair still be willing to send me one or two even after a year and a half? If not, where should I look for one?

Lastly, I am getting to the point where the E6600 is going to greatly bottleneck me with the GPU? It never seemed to hold back the GTS much, but GPU's just keep getting better and better and have outpaced CPU's by a large margin.

2) Additional HDD's.

Probably gonna go with WD Caviar Black 750GB's or 1TB's. If you've got suggestions that go beyond brand loyalty I'd appreciate it. I will say that WD has worked for me 100% thus far.

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Thanks for any/all help .

[tkam]

1) I'd just set a budget and then pick a card from there, any card at the $150 range should be able to handle oblivion at your required resolution with everything maxxed no problems.

Most GPU's come with some sort of power adapters (usually dual molex to 6 or 8-pin whatever the card requires).

Also I wouldn't say the GPU's have outpaced CPU's at all. It's just that most games these days are only GPU intensive. To the point where honestly the CPU is barely used at all in some games.

2) The WD Caviar Black's with the 32megs of cache are very nice drives.

[Fungi]

If it's for plain data, I'd go with WD Caviar Green 1TB drives @ 5400rpm. Lower RPM means lower data rates, but if it's not critical like the OS/program files drive I find it perfectly acceptable.

The only real reason I can see at this point to upgrade your E6600 is to go quad or something. If you want, you can easily overclock it (assuming your mobo, memory can handle it, etc)

[Aura]

Thanks Todd and Fungi .

Atm going to sit around for a deal on either the 4870 or the 4890, whichever shows up first will be the one I get.

I'll think about the WD Greens, though the Blacks are still ideal.

Can't OC the CPU unfortunately, Intel proprietary locks the FSB with no proper way of getting around it iirc. Whenever I get a new CPU, I'll be getting a new mobo and case as well, which is going to amount to a big overhaul. Core i7 and DDR3 are probably in my future, but not anytime soon.

[John E Woven]

I'd say get the 4870 or 4890 over the GTX 260/275/280/285/295/whatever.

Hard drive: The WD Cavier black is an amazing hard drive. The extra you pay for the black over the green is well worth it.

As for the psu cable: Corsair will most likely give you one. Can't hurt to ask, the worst they can say is no.

[Fungi]

I like Caviar Green's <5W idle power consumption, and of course lower vibrations from lower RPM

What can I say, I like to put more restrictions on building PCs since plain old cost performance is too easy.

[Aura]

Turns out my friend has an extra 640GB Black, so I'm gonna pick that one up for $50. He benched the single drive vs. his Samsung Spinpoint 2x 320GB Raid 0 array, and the Black was better in most of the numbers. I was considering setting up a Raid 0 for my OS and games, but I'm just not sure it will be necessary. I guess I could just buy another one later on down the road and mess with it.

[falkon]

Wow you guys are channeling me, it seems.

tkam is right, just get someting in the price range. I have the 520HX and I don't seem to remember if it has 2 6pin plugs because most new video cards require 2.

If you are concerned with power/noise, I'd recommend the GTS 250. Granted, it's not the most powerful but it'll run oblivion fine. If you want something better, I'd try GTX 260 or 4870. One thing to watch for is Dell's terrible cases. Air flow in those tend to be terrible and may have some issues with GPU overheating.

For hard drives, if for file storage, I'd HIGHLY recommend the WD GP drives as Fungi said. They are dead silent, reliable, low power, and plenty fast for file archival. If you plan to run apps off it, look somewhere else. DO NOT look to Seagate or Maxtor. Seagate fell off the boat with the .10 HDs.

edit: saw that you were doing raid0. Probably means that you will be running apps/games. Ignore my WD GP advice.

[Aura]

One thing to watch for is Dell's terrible cases. Air flow in those tend to be terrible and may have some issues with GPU overheating.

My case isn't really your standard Dell, at least as far as air cooling goes -

My GTS idles around 54-55 C, never loads beyond 62-63. Those temps should be just fine.

Before I put any work into the pc, I used to be able to hit over 100C on an oc'd, loaded 7300LE. That feels like a lifetime ago now.

I should be fine on the 2x 6 pin, the HX has two modular 6 pin slots. I'll have to go check for the cable, hopefully it came with two.

[DigiPete]

the .12 Seagate barracudas are nice drives according to Tom's Hardware,

bought one and I concur