The 6950 is unlockable by a firmware update and can be made into a 6970, literally. IF you get something like an MSI Twin Frozr fan or similar then it's no issue....

Also there are some great deals on the GTX480 at the moment.

But still, the GTX 560 Ti is a nice card :) 

Actually, let me rephrase that. I don't intend on overclocking 'at first'. A couple years down the track I would consider it, hence why I was getting the 2600K as I didn't want to leave myself stuck with a system that can't be overclocked. Reason being I don't see much need for overclocking now, when all the games I play are 2007/08. They'll pretty much all run on full on this system without overclocking. But when Crysis 3 hits in a few years and I'm getting problems running it on full, then I might overclock it. Then again, if it's as easy as you say to overclock it, perhaps i'll do a little bit. 

Anyway that CPU will go to 5Ghz no problem, But they do like good coolers. Besides a big fancy rig like that with the red-LED fans and the SSD and such - it deserves a good cooler. By the sounds of it you wont need one at first, but it might be more convenient to put one in at the start... 

The first batch of motherboards had the P/H67 chipset on them, but after the OEM customers got their hands on the chips to put on their mass-produced motherboards (dell, Hewlet Packard etc) their testing uncovered a bug where after 3 years of use, approx 15% of chips would have SATA2 controllers failing. So there was a mass product re-call back in February. Cost Intel apprx $700'000'000.00 (!!).

The B3 suffix means that the motherboard has the 'fixed' Cougar Point SATA2 controller, and is one of the motherboards made from March onwards.

Incidentally my board is a 'faulty' one, with the non-B3 stepping. Haven't had any problems (yet)...... 

if your 460 is having trouble running a Quake map then something is very very wrong indeed!

I'm currently using version 267.24 on my system and they are fine, these were the beta drivers released for Dragon Age 2 but I've not had any issues in any other games while using them.

Are you un-installing your old graphics drivers correctly before installing the new ones? Uninstall the current graphics driver from your add/remove programs, then reboot into safe mode and run your preferred driver cleaning program (I use DriverSweeper). Then reboot once again and install the new updated drivers.

Sorry if you already knew that :) 

i find it's worth getting 'fancy' cpu coolers just for noise reduction.
i got a thermaltake spin q vt and it cut the noise down from my machine in like half (i have super quiet case fans too).
the only thing left now for noise would be to get SSDs but even the WD HDDs i have are pretty quiet-- just a sort of low key mumbling when they are reading/writing. 

If it is affecting performance in multiple games then it could be a PSU problem. What kind of PSU and Motherboard do you have? How old is your motherboard? 

No, it was only Stalker with that mod. I can run Crysis 2 on max with a smooth frame rate. Although for some reason it keeps freezing the entire system after a while, complete with artifacts and sound failure. Using one detail level below seems to work fine. 

This is rediculously good deal:

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/23%22+Samsung+S23A350H+Widescreen+LED+Monitor+-+Glossy+Black+with+FREE+Dirt+3+Game+%2B+FREE+Shipping+?productId=45577

Sorry, I just couldn't contain myself....... 

anyone here who's had an SSD for a while now? how it's holding out and is it still awesome?

prices have been dropping and i've been thinking about picking one up for an OS drive. 

I have an Intel 120gb which runs as my OS. I wouldn't consider anything under 120gb... i've only got 30gb left on mine and there's still some big programs I don't have installed, like most of the Adobe Creative Suite. No games go on it either.

I've only had it for 4 months, but no problems so far. The Intel ones aren't the most expensive, but they're definitely not the cheapest either.

I don't really know how much of a difference it makes to the computer, but it starts in about 20secs which is cool. 

that's not the overwhelmingly positive response i expected, tbh.

i can probably hold off on a full upgrade for another year i suppose. guess i'll wait and see. thanks for weighing in. :) 

I sav a 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 a little while ago on aria.co.uk - 500MB/s Read speed and 450MB write. That is really fast. SATA 6Gb/s interface recommended. My point is that it was �140 which really wasn't bad. I was tempted. But I doubt I would put Steam on it, though I maybe could. I would want my OS on it, for the general performance increases, and slow loading apps like GIMP probably. And Quake, obviously..... 

Although it's in a laptop, and laptops have traditionally had slow drives, and I haven't had it very long. 

Dont get one, they suck:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-fx-8150_9.html#sect0 

just one question, is it worth to switch to win7 ? currently im still on xp 

yes, very much! I use Linux and don't even have a copy of win7 but whenever I get to use it for some repairs or teaching it is a bliss. 

Yeah it probably is. Not so much if you have Vista, but XP is little outdated. I like win7. Get 64bit though, not 32bit. 

My PC is seriously out of date and I'm just getting poor performance and such in my games lately. My old specs as follows;

Asus P5VE VM Motherboard
Intel Pentium D 3.40GHz Dual Core
Radeon HD2600XT Pro
2GB Ram DDR
450W Powersupply

I've been looking around and putting together an idea for a PC build that seems within a good affordable price range and pretty modern (?) I have a preference to Radeon because I've been using them since I remember. Results of this are below, I'm wondering if this is pretty decent or if there's anything I should know about? Wish to get a new PC together as soon as possible, but any pointers is helpful since I'm a newbie with hardware (besides the setup part)

Case: Corsair Carbide 400R Mid Tower Case
Card: ATI Radeon 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express
Board: Asus P8H67-M Intel H67 (Socket 1155)
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz
PSU: Corsair Builder Series CX 500W or 600W (slightly more �)
Win: Win 7 Pro
RAM: Two, Corsair XMS3 4GB (1x4GB) DDR3 1333MHz
Fan: Zalman CNPS9900-MAX Blue LED CPU Cooler or Zalman CNPS11X Extreme CPU Cooler, depends on price/availability
Monitor: Asus VE228H 22" Widescreen LED

Cheers! 

heh, your old rig is better than mine. :P

that said, is there any reason you don't want an SSD? even just for your OS? to buy all those toys and stop short of one... 

Actually, good thing you reminded me. I had my eyes on an SSD after reading up on them, simply for the OS, but the thought went off my mind while I was looking up all the other stuff. Cheers. 

The 2500K is a monster of a processor (good taste in CPUs BTW), but it is predominantly designed FOR overclocking. You dont need much cooling either to get it up past 4Ghz. I have a crazy cooler, and mine is running at 4.6, although I was running is at 5Ghz for a long time.

BUT

Your motherboard is a H67 motherboard, which is a chipset which is designed for Sandy Bridge CPU's but it doesn't support overclocking.

You need to pair your CPU with a P67 or Z68 motherboard. Then you will be able to overclock it.

If you dont want to overclock, then you might as well get the i5 2500 (non-K), because it's exactly the same thing, but it has a locked multiplier.

The P67 or Z68 motherboards compined with a K series CPU allows for very easy overclocking. You can get surprisingly far by only adjusting about 2 settings in your BIOS.

Don't skimp on the RAM either. Especially because 1600Mhz RAM is so cheap! You will gain performance from the better RAM in this instance. Sandy Bridge CPU's like 2133Mhz RAM, but that is a little more pricey, but you might aswell go for atleasy the 1600Mhz stuff. Just make sure it's 1.5v or less. 1.5 is fine.

I would go for the 600 watt PSU, but im sure you could even overclock on the 500 if you wanted to. 

Since I don't think I'll be overclocking, then the 2500 should sit well enough for me. it also answers the question I've been wondering about the 2500/2500K difference. Though I've never overclocked before, so I should do some research into this and tweak my choices where viable.

As for RAM, I was playing it safe since I'm a little confused in that area, whether or not the motherboard I chose will work with the RAM or such. So many numbers. So I should be safe with choosing 1600Mhz or higher for my board choice then? 

Yeah - 1600Mhz is ideal

Overclocking is a lot less intimidating then it used to be. With Sandy Bridge K CPUs you leave most of the settings as they are, you just adjust the multiplier and you will get quite far. I think you disable speedstep and increase the multiplier. You wont have to adjust any voltages to get to around 4Ghz. You only have to adjust a little bit to get a little bit further. Multiplier of 33 gives 3.3Ghz because the bus is locked at 100Mhz. So you just increase the number to 3.8 for example.

Then you get Coretemp (free), and Prime95 (free), run the blend test (default) on prime95, and check your temps. If it's less than 65degrees (70 is probably fine TBH) after ten minutes, and the test is still running, then you know you are OK.

The RAM. You want dual-channel DDR3, 240pin 1.5v 1600Mhz 9-9-9-27 or 9-9-9-24 are gonna be the timings. The lower the numbers, the faster the RAM. The last number should hopefully be 24 and not 27. The other three will be 9. If the last number is 27, it will still be fine.
You want to buy a 4Gb or an 8Gb kit. 4Gb is still OK, but a couple of games claim to be able to utilise more than 4Gb. 64-bit OS for more than 4Gb.

The same RAM will work with most of the AMD motherboards, the Intel socket 1156 and 1155 motherboards, universally. The 1156 RAM was 1.65v. But most 1156 mobo's will take 1.5v RAM, just not the other way round. YOU are buying 1155. This does NOT like 1.65v. It is designed for 1.5v or less. 

If you go with H67 you are limited to a max speed of 1333 Mhz. If you went P67 or Z68 than you could use up to 2133.

But if you are going to stick with that motherboard then you might as well get the 1333Mhz stuff.