New mobo to work with what I have

[LittlBUGer]

Hello,

I need some suggestions/recommendations as I have a dilemma about a possible future upgrade.

I'm mostly a gamer but also watch plenty of movies on my computer as well. I have a custom built system from late 2009 that still works great and I believe I have upgraded it as best as I can except for one thing: SATA III

I would love to be able to use my two Samsung 850 Pro drive in RAID 0 and get over 1 GB/s instead of a 'paltry' 500 MB/s on my current SATA II motherboard. I know, probably overkill, but I like having instant load times and I also do a lot of video conversion, so it helps there as well.

My current PC setup is as follows:

Case: CoolerMaster HAF 922
PSU: Corsair 1000HX 1000W
Motherboard: Asus P6T
CPU: Intel Core i7 960
CPU Cooler: CoolerMaster V8
RAM: 12GB Corsair Dominator (*upgraded from 6GB somewhat recently last year)
Video: ATI Radeon 5970 2GB (yes, one of the first, great dual-GPU DirectX 11 cards and it still works great)
HDD set 1: 2x 256GB Samsung 850 Pro in RAID 0 (main C: partition) (*just upgraded to within past couple months)
HDD set 2: 3x 750GB WD Black in RAID 5 (data/backup partition)
Optical: 8x LG Blu-ray burner
Audio: SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
Headphones: Sennheiser HD 558 (*just upgraded this past week)
OS: Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
Network: Bigfoot Killer Xeno Pro 256MB NIC
Addon card: 2-port USB 3.0 PCIe card (*added somewhat recently this year)
KB/Mouse: Logitech MX 5500 combo
Monitor: 24" Dell 2408WFP

My dilemma is this, what new motherboard and CPU (and heatsink) would be the best bang for the buck without touching any other parts? I can probably part with the Killer NIC if number of slots becomes an issue, and of course the USB 3.0 2-port card would go away (motherboard would have USB 3 built in). I can still play nearly all games at max/ultra settings at 1920x1200 resolution so I have no issues there. Can anybody recommend something that would work?

Thank you!

 

[cin19]

The best combo will be i7 4790K + asus Z97 hero + water cooler ( NZXT Kraken X40, X60, or Corsair H80i, H100i ).
If you don't want to oc the cpu then get the Xeon e3 1231V3 + H97 + air cooler ( like hyper 212evo, ZALMAN CNPS9900MAX, Phanteks PH-TC14PE )

CPU cooler reviews
http://www.madshrimps.be/articles/article/1000363/Corsair-Hydro-Series-H80i-and-H100i-Liquid-CPU-Coolers-Review/0#axzz3K1QnLvrZ
http://www.legitreviews.com/corsair-hydro-series-h100i-extreme-performance-cpu-cooler-review_124024

CPU reviews
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/CPU-Hardware-154106/Tests/Xeon-E3-1231-v3-Test-1126500/
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/CPU-Hardware-154106/Tests/Core-i7-4790K-im-Test-1125871/

Xeon E3 1231 V3 vs i7 4790K http://www.pc-specs.com/cpu/comparison-versus/2118/2103/xeon-e3-1231-v3-vs-core-i7-4790k-4-core-4-0ghz

 

[Calvin7]

New mobo to work with what you have. That is not very realistic. The Intel X58 chipset was released in November 2008 and is now obsolete. The X58 Socket LGA 1366 motherboard hasn't been manufactured in years. On eBay used ones sell for premium prices. The Core i7 960 gets good scores on CPU benchmarks.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7+960+%40+3.20GHz

HighPoint Rocket 640L PCI-Express 2.0 x4 SATA III (6.0Gb/s) RAID Controller Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115114

Desktop Class Hard Drives (WD Blue, WD Green and WD Black) are tested and recommended for use in consumer-type RAID applications (RAID-0 / RAID-1). RAID 5 is not a supported configuration.
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1397/~/difference-between-desktop-edition-(wd-blue,-wd-green-and-wd-black)-and-raid

 

[LittlBUGer]

Thank you for the suggestions.

I had someone else also suggest a PCI-e RAID card, though I'm a little skeptic on how reliable they will be for years to come versus the native ones on the motherboard. It is definitely something to think about though due to price, if they work well.

As for replacing my motherboard, I knew that I would also have to replace my CPU but I would think all of my other accessories would work just fine, as long as the motherboard had the ports/slots for it. I understand it's 'old' but it still works great for all my gaming needs (though the newest game I've been playing is BioShock Inifinite) and movies are great too, HD or otherwise.

I think I may do more research into a quality RAID card but I'm open to any other suggestions.

Thank you!

 

[Ukracer]

I have a similar dilema. Although my Mobo needs changing as it does not boot for a week (locks in a cycle of reboot after reboot. Then it will work fine for a couple of weeks and then stop again. lol

I have an even older board than you but dont do gaming, but I do a bit of video. I also have 8 meg of DDR2 Ram which means I might be better off with a BUNDLE. I am guessing you have a decent graphics card BUT one that m9ght not work with a Newer Mobo.

Have you thought about a Bundle ? (Board ram and CPU)

 

[LittlBUGer]

I have a similar dilema. Although my Mobo needs changing as it does not boot for a week (locks in a cycle of reboot after reboot. Then it will work fine for a couple of weeks and then stop again. lol

I have an even older board than you but dont do gaming, but I do a bit of video. I also have 8 meg of DDR2 Ram which means I might be better off with a BUNDLE. I am guessing you have a decent graphics card BUT one that m9ght not work with a Newer Mobo.

Have you thought about a Bundle ? (Board ram and CPU)

I've never had any problems with my motherboard as you are describing with yours so I'm not sure what's going on there. I do have a good video card as I listed in my first post and as far as I know, it will work just fine in any newer mobo as it's just PCIe.

As for a bundle, I may do that down the road, but I've decided for now that I won't do anything. I did a lot of research on a PCIe RAID controller but for any relatively cheap but decent brand that I found, there were always several people with a similar setup as me (using 1+ SSDs) that had issues or said it was slower than using their built-in SATA connection on the mobo. So I decided it wasn't even worth it just to see if I could gain a little bit more raw speed. But when my PC starts to get further outdated, I will definitely look into a bundle or barebones PC or something, or maybe just order the parts separately myself, who knows.

Thanks for the extra input.