Redoing My Computing Setup - Advice?

[605Scorpion]

So all of my computers are showing their age pretty poorly now. The newest system I have is a Dell Vostro a90. I wont waste bandwidth by typing specs for all my computers. I'll just stick to my gaming system.

I'm going from:
Intel Q6600
GA-P35-DQ6
2GB DDR2 1066
HD4870 1GB
RAID 1 (2x 1TB)

Thinking of getting the following for a bit over $900:
Intel i5-3570K
ASRock Extreme6 Z77
16GB DDR3 1600
HD7870 2GB
120GB SSD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239045
3TB HDD

My first system lasted me from 2007, more or less (I did have the opportunity to upgrade the GPU from a HD2900, for almost nothing). Could this system last me comparably as long? Is this system balanced? Are these parts overkill if I don't plan on overclocking right off the bat?

 

[aznshinobi]

That looks pretty good. Here check out my $850 build here:
http://www.squidoo.com/electronicandmore#module147086871
SSD $93: http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-HyperX-2-5-Inch-SH103S3-120G/dp/B007R67FNA%3FSubscriptionId%3D19BAZMZQFZJ6G2QYGCG2%26tag%3Dsquid1240995-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB007R67FNA
Total: $938

You don't need 16GB ram for gaming and I'd try and reuse the hard drives from the older build, saves you like $60 from buying storage now which is fairly expensive still from the Thailand floods.

 

[605Scorpion]

Another thing I forgot to ask. How much of an upgrade is a 7870 over a 4870, really? Would a 4870 be a huge bottleneck for performance with a 3570K?

>You don't need 16GB ram for gaming
I thought about this. It's my understanding most games don't take advantage of more than 4GB. A good number of games (mostly console ports) don't even challenge my outdated hardware seriously. 8GB, nevermind 4, is plenty for now, but I wonder how long before games start to quickly and ravenously consume memory resources, especially when the next generation of consoles comes out. And given how cheap DDR3 1600 is right now, I didn't think it was a large sacrifice; no telling if prices could balloon a la Vista era. However, I'm also not going to be using this system for anything other than gaming. Perhaps by the time 16GB of RAM would be useful, an i5 would be completely antiquated? I haven't done serious PC hardware research since I bought my Q6600, so I could be completely off base in thinking about how my hardware will age. Thoughts?

>I'd try and reuse the hard drives from the older build, saves you like $60 from buying storage now
I plan to use my myriad of 1TB drives to create a dedicated backup PC/media server running a RAID10.

>which is fairly expensive still from the Thailand floods
The last time I bought a hard drive was well before the Thailand floods, and Samsung and Hitachi HDDs (my brands of choice) both disappeared while I was going through bootcamp. I never thought WDs were worth the price premium, and never trusted Seagate too much (the whole 7200.11 fiasco did little to change my mind). Is the HDD market really expected to recover before SSDs mature enough to supplant platters? It doesn't seem like there's a lot of competition right now, and as consumers we're just going to have to eat these prices for a long, long while.

 

[aznshinobi]

I can GUARENTEE YOU. GUARENTEE You that you will not need 16GB of ram within 4 years. 8GB will be solid for a LONG LONG time especially with just gaming.

GPUs don't get bottlenecked by CPUs, it can be the otherway around though. The 7870 is about 3x better in terms of frame rates.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/548?vs=513
But in everything like temps, efficiency etc, it's miles ahead of the 4870 obviously.

It'd be up to you but a 3TB HDD costs a bit right now and in terms of your "a little bit" above $900, you're going to have to push that cap if you want an SSD and 3TB.
Cheapest 3TB HDD is $150 from WD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136874
It's the Gteen so don't expect fast speeds or load times.

As for your last question, the HDD market isn't expected to recover until around late 2013 or early 2014.

 

[605Scorpion]

>I can GUARENTEE YOU. GUARENTEE You that you will not need 16GB of ram within 4 years. 8GB will be solid for a LONG LONG time especially with just gaming.
Well who am I to argue?

It's hard to argue with those 7870 numbers, especially the efficiency. Also, it'd be nice to have a no compromise top of the line system for the first time in a long time.

 

[aznshinobi]

I'd try getting the 7950 for the sake of future proofing but if you plan to overclock the 7870 will be more than enough.

 

[605Scorpion]

Best answer selected by 605Scorpion.