PC Upgrade time

Hopefully to coincide with the start of March, and a reinstall of Windows 7, I'm looking at updating some of the internals of my PC to make it a bit snappier.

Currently:
E6400
TRU-120 HSF
Asus P5B Deluxe
6GB (2x2, 1x2) DDR2
200GB Seagate HDD
Radeon HD4770

I'm looking at getting a mounting bracket and keeping the Thermltake cooler, and I'm looking at keeping the video card.

What I'd like is a faster CPU, thus I'll also be replacing the motherboard and RAM. I've been recommended the i5 750, and some quick reading comparing it with the i7 920 (which I'd previously been recommended, last year) seems to shine a favourable light on it. But I have no clue about motherboards for it. I'm possibly interested in overclocking the CPU straight off the bat, so I'm also not sure what kind of RAM I should be considering. I noticed that the i5 is a dual channel config (cf tri-chan for the i7) - ideally I suspect it'd be easy to go with a 2x2GB setup, but am I likely to have an easier time of it in chasing up 2x2 + 1x2, or just go for a 4x2 configuration?

A faster CPU is one thing, but I figure I may as well do it properly and look into getting an SSD for the operating system and one or two commonly used games. Typically, I have Windows on a separate drive, games on another drive, and store 'my documents' and general personal data, such as it were, on a separate partition that shares space with one of the above drive. Taking a quick look at my system drive now, Windows and installed applications currently take up ~27GB, including ~7GB for the pagefile and hibernate file. The games I regularly play would take up ~20GB all up. While I'm not really sure on which brands and models of SSDs are preferred these days, would having ~50GB of data on a 60GB SSD be overfilling it? I don't really want to shell out for a 120GB drive, but I haven't seen very many 80GB drives either. Also, my understanding is that SSDs all come in 2.5" cases, and thus I'd need a mounting bracket to fit one into a 3.5" bay?

As far as possible extras, I'm also considering getting a HDTV tuner, and potentially a BRD drive so I can stop buying DVDs of TV shows/movies/etc. A while back, [a friend recommended a Compro e700f, which sounded useful, being a dual-tuner card so I could record one thing and watch another, if there were scheduling conflicts. Are these considered decent, in terms of nothing else having come onto the market that's considered better? I guess I should also mention that if it included an FM receiver (AM would be a bonus, I guess), that'd be great as I can't afford to stream radio stations. Also, as far as BRD readers go, I'm at a complete loss as far as the value or quality of anything goes.

Thanks.

I'm no expert but i'll put my 2 cents in.

If you want to overcloak I'd suggest getting a good motherboard. Something like this:

http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=36_62&products_id=42538

Supports USB 3.0 and has a shitload of other features which help with overcloaking.

In terms of RAM I'd definentaly go with DDR3. A 4GB set will only cost you about $180 so if you wanted to spend a bit more you could get faster RAM or even more GB. Have a look at the prices on centrecom for an average, their prices are pretty competative. CPU I'm not to sure about but I have heard the i7 is good at what it does.

Not sure if it's worth spending so much money on a SSD drive just yet. Maybe you can look into setting up a Raid with the WD 10,000 RPM drives or something.

Looking at getting an i5-750 and a GA P55A board. Probably 4x2GB of RAM.

After doing a heap of reading last night and this morning, I might hold off on an SSD until next year, when it's matured a little more.

Still unsold on a HDTV tuner and BRD drive, tho' they'd be nice : p

the i5 is a very nice CPU, i use 1 in my computer as well as a P55-UD4P motherboard... 1 thing with that board though, when you install the RAM it may not be set to XMP and you'll probably have to do a bios reset to be able to change it...

what sort of RAM are you looking at getting to run with it? im personally running 4gb of 1800mhz corsair RAM and probably going to upgrade to 2200mhz in the near future if i can budget for it...

also, if you live in victoria i'd suggest checking out www.pccasegear.com.au for competitive prices, i got all my parts from there and it's quality products for a hell of a lot less than retail stores sell them...

I'll be getting a mounting bracket for my TRU120 to fit on the new socket, at the last, from PCCG.

Not sure if I'll get the mobo and cpu from there or MSY. Was looking at the P55a UD3 I think. I have nfi on the difference between the UD3/4/5/6 etc, let alone P55/P55a.

Was thinking of grabbing some, uh, Gskill 1333mhz rip jaws. Two of the 4GB packs I guess.

p55a is a revised edition of p55... it's the newer models...

Sure. But I don't know what they revised. I just know it's better.