Conroe to Ivy Bridge

Dr DMoney

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I plan on upgrading my motherboard and CPU in just a few days. I am planing on spending around $300. Just to give you a good idea what I have now my specs are below.

Current Specs:
MOBO: ASUS VH232H (Had to get this when my first board went bad)
CPU: Conroe e6600 @ 2.4
CPU HeatSink: ZALMAN CNPS9500
Ram: 8gb 2x4gb DDR3 Corsair Vengeance
GPU: HIS 5770 1gb
SSD: 128gb Samsung 830


Planned Upgrade:
MOBO: ASRock Z77 Extreme4
CPU: Ivy Bridge 3570k

I won't say I am a hardcore gamer, but I do game a bit and I am wanting better gaming performance in the future. I do have a few questions.

The ASRock Z77 Extreme4 looks to suport both 1155 and 755 Heatsinks, but I am not sure. Can I use my ZALMAN CNPS9500 without spending $15 for new mount? Even if I can do this should I get the 1155 mounts to be safe? I am not planing on OC much with this heatsink, but what kind pf safe OCs could I achive with the HSF?

Could I see better performance in games with this upgrade? I know it couldn't be much, unless the 5770 is being bottle-necked by the e6600. I feel my computer is well balanced as of this moment, and upgrading the GPU anymore would put a bottleneck hence I am upgrading the CPU first.

My current motherboard doesn't have sata 3, nor AHCI support, so my 830 SSD suffers. My question is how much it suffers? Could I notice a performance difference between the two?


Thanks for reading... Please comment....
 
Since when is your motherboard your monitor? :p

You would see more of a benefit upgrading your GPU than your CPU. Depending on what motherboard you might actually have, you could always get a cheap Q8200 and then get a GTX 660. Then also, depends on what PSU you have. This applies to 95% of the games out today.

I'm going to assume your motherboard supports SATA2, and that is cutting your speed in half. In benchmarks, this would be a big hit but in real world you wont see too much difference opening up the speeds. I have a Vertex 2 and the difference between it and my buddies Agility 3 full speed is .5 second decrease in boot times.
 
Don't really understand what you mean about the motherboard being my monitor.

I agree a GPU would benefit me more right now in terms of gaming, however I want a faster CPU for my video editing work that I do. I know do know what I will be getting in terms of performance when it comes to video editing, but don't know what kind of improvement it could do for gaming. I think long term this is better for me, but for my next upgrade the GPU for sure.
 
Well then you should have mentioned video editing in the OP ;)
Details make all the difference. The 3570k will give a significant increase in performance and you'll have a well rounded machine when you upgrade your GPU later.

MOBO: ASUS VH232H (Had to get this when my first board went bad)
This is a monitor, not a motherboard. I would know as I have this exact LCD sitting in my closet.

asuslcd.jpg
 
Just got the machine ungraded without a hitch. I am very surprised to say my gaming performance at least doubled when it comes to minecraft. More so with optifine (Muti core mod). Everything feels quicker too. I notice a huge difference in my SSD speed. Random reads are much faster... I love my computer, thanks for the help.

Also to anyone wondering if they should get the mounting bracket for the zalman heatsink and the asrock board with 775 mounting compatibility. You should. The plastic mount lays flat and the huge metal backplate for the CPU gets in the way. It can work but it bows quite a bit.
 
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