I think he's right. On your system, the SSD will give you the most bang for your buck and balance the system out nicely. You don't really need a CPU upgrade.
Like I said, grab the SSD with the money. You will feel a huge upgrade.
I reckon you made the right decision. I'm very tempted by 2500/2600K but I honestly don't think I'll notice much difference, buit Bulldozer or Ivy Bridge should bring much more to the table.*Sigh* I just canceled my order....everything, including the 970.
I thought about it some more, and it just seems that upgrading at this time is foolish, unless you're coming from a Core 2 or something. Both Ivy bridge and Bulldozer will be out in a few months after all, and it's not like my system is old or out of date, so I can wait a few more months.
Plus I recently bought a NH-D14, which has allowed me to gain an extra 100mhz on my CPU over the Megahalems I was on previously, to put me at 4.3ghz..
With enough tinkering, I may be able to get 4.4ghz, but I doubt it, as my processor is pretty much maxed out.
Not that I need any more CPU power.. I'm just itching for a change! :hmm:
Should easily tide me over until Ivy bridge and bulldozer arrive though, then I can do a real upgrade..
The biggest advantages of SB are IPC, higher overclocking potential and much lower power consumption. Assuming you are not GPU limited, An overclocked 2600k will easily beat an overclocked 990X. So the choice is clear.
? An enthusiast isn't defined by how much $ he spends on a motherboard. In fact a $190 motherboard will overclock just as well as a $350 one unless you are benchmarking for a living. Also, you aren't even running an SSD yet, so it is strange why you would "need" to spend $300 on a motherboard but you are using slow mechanical drives for your OS. Honestly a $130 Gigabyte P67 motherboard with a Vertex 3 will mop the floor with your $300 motherboard and those Raptors.
You really should give a SSD a try. It's foolishness waiting for a 'PURE' SSD setup as we're still about 5 years out before a 1TB SSD is affordable. When I got my first SSD and put in my macbook pro with a 'gasp' c2d 2.66, it felt snappier than my 920 4.0 with 2 150gb Raptors in RAID 0. You're going to notice a much bigger performance upgrade by going to SSD vs. a SB upgrade. I regret the $400 I dumped on upgrading my 920 system to 2600K as it honestly feels more like a side-grade. Even the vaunted QS feature on my 2600K has been a let-down as compression artifacts are quite noticeable on my 65" plasma when doing video conversion.
You guys think I don't want to grab an SSD? I do, but as I said before, now isn't the right time.....at least for me.
I don't want to have to make concessions towards capacity like most people do. If I go SSD, I'm going all the way.....no hybrid!
And to do that, I need at least 600GB of capacity or more to suit my needs.. Now, there are 600GB+ drives available now, but they cost over 1K, and they are all SATA 2 as far as I know..
It would be silly of me to spend that much money on old tech however, when if I just wait a bit longer, I can get large capacity drives like that in SATA 3 flavor with higher performance, and at a lower price.
Another reason why I haven't gone SSD yet, is because honestly, my present system is already very snappy.. You guys underestimate the Raptors, in combination with a fast processor, lots of fast RAM and an excellent defrag program like PD 11.
All the programs/games that I use on a regular basis load/open very quickly due to superfetch, and once they're fully loaded, they stay in the system cache.
Not saying that my system is as snappy or fast as if I were to go SSD, but it's good enough that it doesn't really bother or concern me enough at this point to prompt me into getting an SSD prematurely.
You guys think I don't want to grab an SSD? I do, but as I said before, now isn't the right time.....at least for me.
I don't want to have to make concessions towards capacity like most people do. If I go SSD, I'm going all the way.....no hybrid!
And to do that, I need at least 600GB of capacity or more to suit my needs.. Now, there are 600GB+ drives available now, but they cost over 1K, and they are all SATA 2 as far as I know..
It would be silly of me to spend that much money on old tech however, when if I just wait a bit longer, I can get large capacity drives like that in SATA 3 flavor with higher performance, and at a lower price.
Another reason why I haven't gone SSD yet, is because honestly, my present system is already very snappy.. You guys underestimate the Raptors, in combination with a fast processor, lots of fast RAM and an excellent defrag program like PD 11.
All the programs/games that I use on a regular basis load/open very quickly due to superfetch, and once they're fully loaded, they stay in the system cache.
Not saying that my system is as snappy or fast as if I were to go SSD, but it's good enough that it doesn't really bother or concern me enough at this point to prompt me into getting an SSD prematurely.
This is just a general address to those of you chiding me on not jumping on the SSD bandwagon.
First off, why not games? There is a lot of evidence which shows that games certainly benefit from being on SSDs. In fact, Intel itself had accumulated quite a bit of data showing this. I'm sure you can still pull it up on the web if you want to see it..
The fact is, I am a GAMER. Thats what I use my computer for primarily (a long with surfing the net and a scant few productivity apps ), and games are by far the largest, and most complex pieces of software that I have on my HDD..
If SSDs didn't benefit games, then I wouldn't invest in them....plain and simple.. But I know they do, so I definitely plan on purchasing one in the future.
As far as "snappiness" is concerned, you guys still don't get it. I have 12GB of memory in my computer, with no pagefile. After superfetch has loaded the exes, binaries, dll libraries and whatever else, practically everything I click on loads or opens almost instantaneously because a significant portion of it is being launched from memory.. The only thing that doesn't load instantly are large programs, like games.....which is to be expected, but the start up time is still reduced dramatically after superfetch has done it's work.
Regarding the raptors, when I first got them, I was underwhelmed. I knew they could never be as fast as an SSD, and while I did see an improvement over my previous Caviar blacks, it still wasn't as much as I'd hoped.
Then I downloaded PerfectDisk 11, and I experienced a significant increase in I/O performance. My boot up time for instance dropped by 5 seconds, and apps or programs that weren't cached but launched from the HDD, had a very noticeable reduction in loading times.
I cannot stress how important PerfectDisk was to getting the most out of my raptors! After using PerfectDisk 11, I have no real performance complaints in Windows to be honest.
My only complaints now are in a few games like the Witcher 2 which stream lots of data. While the Raptors in RAID 0 are quite fast in linear reads, like all HDDs, they are slaughtered in access times by SSDs..
And anyone thats ever played the Witcher 2 knows that while there are few loading screens, there are still loading points. Going into one of those loading points can create judder, as the HDD has to rapidly search for the data. It's things like these that can benefit greatly from SSDs..
Still, after you've been through a loading point once, it's now cached. So if you go through it again, there is no judder effect.
All I'll say is try finding a Vertex 3 with 1.2TB of disk space. There's a reason my games install drive is comprised of Raptors in RAID 0. Mainly has to do with money and the fact that game loading is largely a sequential read operation anyway.
Well its pretty clear based on this post that you are convinced you are not missing out on anything with those Raided Raptors compared to an ssd (besides access times), an no amount of post or links presented will change that.
Which is fine you are entitled to your opinion.
An SSD won't add FPS in games, but it will significantly reduce your load times and speed up OS performance.
Anyone doubting about SSDs in Gaming and where its going, read on.
http://a676.g.akamaitech.net/f/676/...drenaline/e-alerts/assassins_creed_051311.pdf
Well its pretty clear based on this post that you are convinced you are not missing out on anything with those Raided Raptors compared to an ssd (besides access times), an no amount of post or links presented will change that.
Which is fine you are entitled to your opinion.
Sounds like you already made up your mind. But that cheap 2600K + $200 mobo still comes out to less than the $500 970 itself. And you don't necessarily need 1.5v DDR3 for SB. There are plenty of people using 1.65v with DDR3 with SB setups.
*Sigh* I just canceled my order....everything, including the 970.
I thought about it some more, and it just seems that upgrading at this time is foolish, unless you're coming from a Core 2 or something. Both Ivy bridge and Bulldozer will be out in a few months after all, and it's not like my system is old or out of date, so I can wait a few more months.
Plus I recently bought a NH-D14, which has allowed me to gain an extra 100mhz on my CPU over the Megahalems I was on previously, to put me at 4.3ghz..
With enough tinkering, I may be able to get 4.4ghz, but I doubt it, as my processor is pretty much maxed out.
Not that I need any more CPU power.. I'm just itching for a change! :hmm:
Should easily tide me over until Ivy bridge and bulldozer arrive though, then I can do a real upgrade..
i had raided veloraps in my wife's computer... replaced them with a 240GB vertex 3 and she can't stand using any other computer/laptop now that doesn't have an ssd of any kind. she's usually oblivious... but yea.. everyone is entitled to their opinions.
Wow, you spent around $80-90 (newegg's price) for a 100 mhz difference?
What a waste of money. That would have been much better spent on something else for your system.
OP: I think the issue everyone is having is that you were perfectly willing to throw $500 at a cpu that would give you no perceivable performance difference while you are clearly unwilling to spend the same (or much less) on something that would give you a very noticeable bump in performance.