Greetings all.
I am trying to piece together a system, I have been researching for the better part of two weeks, and I am more than lost.
I am currently running an (acer) Athlon 2 5000+, 3gigs DDR2, Vista, Radeon HD 6670.
I am looking to build a machine that will make the upgrade worthwhile, without breaking the bank, and give me room to grow. Power and reliability and (yes i will say it anyway) "futur-proof". It will primarily be used as a media center HD video storage, transcoding and some editing. Several large sata drives. Gaming is covered by the PS3.
the current PC has run into two problems. The nvidia chipset won't support hard drives larger than 2Tb (lack of FW update), and I can't help but feel my 300w (so far reliable) PSU is quickly reaching capacity (4 int. HD, DVD+R, WIFI Card, GPU, Ext HD, webcam, etc.) and it just doesn't seem worth it to invest much in said system.
I have decided on building around a i5-2500k with 8 gigs DDR3 and 550-650W PSU. I am going to keep the Radeon 6670 as it does what I need it to so far and I am on a budget. Windows 7 to start, and in the future I would like to get into Linux and overclocking.
>>>>So the Mobo Question: I am stuck around the price range of the Asus P8Z68-V Pro, Gigabyte Z68XP-(UD4, UD3P) or maybe an MSI board.... Z68A-Gd(60,80?). The ASRock Extreme4 is a bit pricey for me, so i was inclined towards the Asus.
********Questions:
1) significance of Gen 3 vs the previous gen same model board if I don't plan on upgrading this system or GPU (other than memory and OC) in the next 3-5 years.
2) Virtu ....Helpful or hinderance?
3)pci-e backwards compatibility
4)I was going to get 2000mhz memory, but it seems that 1600 mhz is more realistic?
At least two of my HDs support Sata 6gb/s so I want to know I will be able to expand on that.
thanks in advance.
I am trying to piece together a system, I have been researching for the better part of two weeks, and I am more than lost.
I am currently running an (acer) Athlon 2 5000+, 3gigs DDR2, Vista, Radeon HD 6670.
I am looking to build a machine that will make the upgrade worthwhile, without breaking the bank, and give me room to grow. Power and reliability and (yes i will say it anyway) "futur-proof". It will primarily be used as a media center HD video storage, transcoding and some editing. Several large sata drives. Gaming is covered by the PS3.
the current PC has run into two problems. The nvidia chipset won't support hard drives larger than 2Tb (lack of FW update), and I can't help but feel my 300w (so far reliable) PSU is quickly reaching capacity (4 int. HD, DVD+R, WIFI Card, GPU, Ext HD, webcam, etc.) and it just doesn't seem worth it to invest much in said system.
I have decided on building around a i5-2500k with 8 gigs DDR3 and 550-650W PSU. I am going to keep the Radeon 6670 as it does what I need it to so far and I am on a budget. Windows 7 to start, and in the future I would like to get into Linux and overclocking.
>>>>So the Mobo Question: I am stuck around the price range of the Asus P8Z68-V Pro, Gigabyte Z68XP-(UD4, UD3P) or maybe an MSI board.... Z68A-Gd(60,80?). The ASRock Extreme4 is a bit pricey for me, so i was inclined towards the Asus.
********Questions:
1) significance of Gen 3 vs the previous gen same model board if I don't plan on upgrading this system or GPU (other than memory and OC) in the next 3-5 years.
2) Virtu ....Helpful or hinderance?
3)pci-e backwards compatibility
4)I was going to get 2000mhz memory, but it seems that 1600 mhz is more realistic?
At least two of my HDs support Sata 6gb/s so I want to know I will be able to expand on that.
thanks in advance.