Need feedback on upgrading of a Q9400 system

[Yettyn]

Greetings all! Guess this must be 7th or 8th time I’m upgrading my system but to be honestly I have lost count and it has been a few years since I did something major like this. Still, even if not being a noob on building, some feedback would be greatly appreciated. Also, I have never done it like this before, asked for advice I will keep some parts of old system, both due to quality and budget. I usually do this if possible to allow me focus on quality as much as possible. Below I have answered questions matching the template Knufire use to post in treads, so he doesn’t have to do that again;-)

What will I use this system for?
I seldom have time for gaming any longer, but if I have I still enjoy playing Age of Empire – those where the days ;-) But this rig isn’t necessarily for gaming. Instead, besides being something of a digital omnivore I typically need to have 2-3 VMware Workstation containers running (with loads of snapshots), together with 1-2 instances of Visual Studio (both VS6 and 2010) for software development and testing. So RAM is certainly of importance, not sure if i5/i7 makes any difference there?

Due to some strange click habit I also surprisingly often find a need to have 15, 20 if not 30 tabs open in my FF browser. Well I like to have things going on and also enjoy loading a good movie or tv-show now and then.

My budget?
Converted from my local currency Czech Crowns, it’s about $8-900

1. Does it include Windows? No, already have it.
2. Does this include peripherals? No, will use what I have.

Location?
I live as a foreigner in Czech Republic and will buy all parts from my local shop 2 blocks down the road. I do all my shopping there, usually after online research, and always get a nice discount as a loyal customer. They are also my ISP. While I’m not alien to ordering online I value the personal service and price differences are usually small if any. I think my guy there like it when he gets a chance to practice his somewhat limited English and if I am unsure about something they let me test it to see if it lives up to my expectations.

1 & 2. Yes they have an online catalog here but my guy can usually get thing not present there as well. Usually I can pick up next day if not in store but available from distributors.

So what is my requests & expectations with this build?
1. Overclocking? Yes, I don’t like to wait so optimally as fast as possible. No need for it to be extreme though so I will not try to push the limit. I wont oc immediately though as I first want to get a feel for what I’m driving stock.
2. Size is not of extreme importance, although I prefer midi-tower.
3. Nobody likes noise really, neither do I, but again no need for the extreme but reasonably quite.
4. In the long run I believe it’s always cheaper to buy quality but it can be expensive short term. Hence I like the idea of building as an ongoing process of continuous upgrading, with parts that can last beyond one “era” but it’s also a question of balance I think.
5. I have no plans at the moment to use more than 1 graphic card.

So I have picked together a hw spec and while I basically feel satisfied with everything, except CPU where I haven’t been able to make up my mind yet, any feedback regarding the components I have decided for is appreciated, also like is this a good composition at a whole and where can I improve further (maybe later) or won’t need to etc.?

The spec for my current system can be found in my Sig and this is what I plan to bring forward from it:

PSU Corsair AX750
GPU Sapphire HD5770 Vapor-X 1GB GDDR5
MON ACER B243W and SyncMaster 2443 – Both 24”
HDD 3 SATA-II discs, SG 320GB, SG 500GB, WD 1,5TB
DVD LG Sata drive
OS W7-64 Ultimate
INP Logitech Cordless Keyboard and Mouse.

I would have loved to replace the discs as well but it has to wait a few months or so. They are still in good shape so the data should be safe but I don’t store anything of importance on the oldest one. I also plan to test SSD cache later to see what it may offer for my needs of relatively large storage space.

So this is the new parts that I have picked after lots of research juggling, especially regarding the mobo. I know it’s a gamer’s board but it appears to be a darn good one and who knows, I’m not planning my afterlife yet!

CASE Cooler Master Centurion 5 II, ATX Black
MOBO ASUS Maximus V Gene
RAM 16GB DDR3-2133MHz Kingston HyperX T1 XMP, 2x8GB

I feel quite certain about the above, although ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe would also do but decided to put that extra money elsewhere to get more out of my budget.

I would really like to, need to, have 32GB RAM to please my Vmware containers and juggled about going for cheaper sticks. But decided for the above and plan to add another 2x8 GB at a later stage. The choice of Kingston is simply because they have always worked fine for me and my dealer gives me a good price.

The Cooler Master case I think is a decent compromise of quality and cost, and as I only will see it when I bend over to feed it a CD or DVD it appears to be a good spot for me to save some. I was also looking at HAF 912 and In-Win Mani 136 Black and it’s possible the latter could be an even greater save here – but I like Cooler Master and know they make good cases, I don’t know In-Win and don’t really care how it looks.

So in the end it all comes down to the CPU and I guess the expression below say it all, doesn’t it?

CPU? i5-3570K :2500K || i7-3770K:2700K || i3-2120 + Extra 16GB DDR3-2133MHz Kingston HyperX T1 XMP, 2x8GB

First of all, I am not a total tech freak even if my understanding/knowledge may be above average and hence not absolutely sure if an i7 would give me anything extra, expect for higher temps and increased cooling needs? It would probably also stretch my budget somewhat. What possibly could motivate me to go for an i7 (and 2 months of salad diet), is if it would make VMware Workstation feel as if it was in the 7th heaven and not just in heaven i5.7?

Then it’s the question of which bridge to cross? Sandy seem to be a safe bet that carries over trouble waters, while Ivy seem to carry the Blues of Muddy Waters, or was his real name Tim? Well, appears more to be a lid than a bridge... but will it matter for me? As you can see I am a bit here , so I even consider going for an i3 2120 (indeed faster than a Q9400), for the time being, and instead add that extra 16GB RAM. Then, when or if Intel fixes their game, go for next generation of Ivy instead. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

As for COOLER I may stick with stock for now and go for overclock and water at a later stage. In this respect it would be good to know if the case I have chosen can handle this?

I guess that's it and kudos to anyone reading this far

P.S. and somewhat O.T. I do indeed some Seti@home as well but won't use that as a basis for decision. However, I have a different user name than the one I signed up here for, and I don't belong to any team. If I decide to join the OC team does it matter and is it possible change my user name w/o creating a new account (and dump this one)? I just had in my head and wasn't thinking strait!

 

[Computer Abuse]

I would stick with the i5 its good enough. But I urge you to consider going all out and getting a socket 2011 setup or the i7 2600k. The Q9400 was no weakling of its time and the 2011 socket is more future proof with better support for the virtualization. But if you want to save some bucks just snag the i7 2600k a salad diet isnt bad for anyones health so its a win win.

 

[Yettyn]

Unfortunately I cannot see that fitting into my budget, even with a salad diet, just the CPU would eat most of it, but thanks for replying mate ;-)

The Q9400 is awesome, well was for its time, but it doesn't help much for current work load with just 8GB RAM available. I will recycle that chip in a Linux box though giving it some other tasks. But that's another story and possibly another thread.

 

[Knufire]

Do you need high speed RAM? It doesn't make a difference for 99% of tasks, DDR3-1600 chips could be quite a bit cheaper.

With the whole TIM and Ivy Bridge vs. Sandy Bridge thing, I think it's blown way out of proportion. It runs a good bit hotter than Sandy, but not unreasonably hot. It performs 3-5% better at equal clock speed, and it draws less power. Whether those three aspects together are worth the increased costs is up to you. IMO, if the difference is $20 or less between the two, I'd go Ivy. Otherwise, Sandy. That's just my opinion though.

I'd spring for the HAF912 as well.

Don't fall for ASUS marketing. They market ROG boards as gaming boards, and that's far from the truth. I'm not saying they're bad boards, they're actually some of the best boards you can buy. And that's the point, they are complete overkill for gamers. They're the board of choice for benchmarkers. You can easily get away with a much cheaper board. The quality of the motherboard you need is pretty much directly linked to how much you want to push the chip while overclocking. And for normal air/water cooling overclocks, you'd be fine on a ASRock Z77 Extreme4 or a Gigabyte Z77-UD3H.

 

[Yettyn]

Thanks for feedback and you are probably correct about the HAF 912 and well Monday came and I got restless eventually moved my legs down to the computer shop and ordered the stuff. Just got it and building now. This from my olf XP notebook.

I went for the Centution 5 II and it feels very genuine so far. It even have an index for the mb mounting posts to outline both mATX and ATX, although for MVG it's wrong on H (in case anyone will do the same MB/Case combination).

As for MB, I was for a while considering one of the Gigabyte boards but neither with UD3H nor UD5H could I establish that feeling of full satisfaction and I wanted to have something that will last for several years. I quickly realized MVG wasn't just a gaming board and what was weighting over was the sound solution as I will some start to work with some multimedia as well, so need good sound but don't want a separate card for it.

I also went for i7-3770K because... I'm one of the lucky having birthday on this Friday 13and I wanted to be at the edge for once

I will report more as I get my new box up and running...

 

[Knufire]

. I prefer to buy based on data, not emotions. Hope you like your purchases.