Need some advice on a new MOBO or Not.....

[rescueswimmer]

Looking for some advice. Don't want to through money away. I built my PC about 6 or 7 years ago and it has served me well, as the gaming, primary family PC. Long story short my SSD started acting up. Check disk no errors, Samsung smart tools said it was good but would not clone, no matter what I tried and what software I used. So I did a fresh install of Windows 10 on a new SSD and I'm having all kinds of issues with compatible drivers. The new Samsung SSD won't show up in the Samsung software, so I can't use any of the smart tools for it. No driver support from ASUS for it.

specs.
Asus P8z68 deluxe Gen 3
Intel I7 2600K LGA 1155
2x GTX570's
500 gig Samsung SSD
X-fi titanium HD sound card.
16 gig ram.

So here is where I could use some advice. I was thinking about upgrading to a newer MOBO that had windows 10 support. but not sure that would help my fresh install out. A quick search shows most Z77 boards are pretty pricey, Figured they would have come down in price.

What graphics card could i go with for a noticeable improvement but i won't end up bottlenecking some place. Right now when gaming my CPU usage is always very low.

Does the X-FI card do anything better than the onboard Audio these boards have on them?

Anyadvice would be appreciated. Like I said I'm just going over-things outloud and not sure If I could get any appreciable gains from this old setup.

 

[cryoburner]

I'm not entirely sure about your drive compatibility issue, but as far as the performance of your system goes, a 2600K is still a reasonably good CPU these days, since Intel's per-core performance hasn't improved a huge amount since then. And of course, 16GB of RAM is still more than enough.

I can agree that the GTX 570's are low-end now, and since support for multi-card setups is spotty these days, you would almost certainly get better performance out of a single, faster card. Unfortunately, cryptocurrency mining has roughly doubled the cost of most graphics cards in recent months. Personally, I would wait a few months or so for a graphics card upgrade, since I suspect the prices will get better again, and a new generation of cards will probably be coming before long. If the prices weren't messed up, I would say something like a GTX 1060 would be a good improvement for up to 1080p gaming at high settings and frame rates in today's games, or maybe even something like a 1070 if you wanted to spend more. The going rate for those cards is currently hundreds of dollars more than the prices they launched for almost two years ago though, so it's not really a good time to be buying a graphics card if you don't have to.

As for the sound card, I would keep it, since it will most likely sound a bit better than onboard audio. Having audio components packed in close proximity to other components on the motherboard tends to not be great for sound quality, and while integrated audio may be better than it was in the past, a dedicated card will likely still be better.

 

[rescueswimmer]

Thanks for the info, My thought process for the SSD not being recognized is that ASUS has no support for windows 10 with my board and chipset, so windows loads what ever it wants, for all the drivers. With me installing a clean version of windows I thought maybe a new board with support might help out? but it may not make a difference at all.

With my old SSD drive when I tried to clone it to the new ssd, Samsung magician recognized my new drive as an sammy SSD but now it does not. So I don't have a clue what is happening.

 

[cryoburner]

I can't say I'm familiar with the software for Samsung SSDs, though I wouldn't think the motherboard would need any explicit support for the drive. Do you have the latest version of the software from Samsung's website?

http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/

 

[rescueswimmer]

Found out it was a bad Sata Cable, The original SSD did die though. Now its up and running.

 

[jr9]

Yeah an SSD should run just fine on Sandy Bridge with no issues or drivers. The chipset takes care of it for you. The Samsung software is uneeded just like you don't need to install your monitor drivers for it to work.

If you are looking to upgrade I would do a complete rebuild. Going up to a 3770k and a newer single GPU is cheaper but not as good in the long run. Core i5 8600k or 8400 would be big upgrades and will be gaming good processors for a long time. That with a GTX 1060 or 1070 is the best combo these days.