Help me decide what to upgrade next (biggest performance gain/future proof)

[valden83]

Hey there folks. The wife and I are in the process of upgrading our systems to revolve around the i5 3570k. We of course bought the motherboard and memory to go with it. We are basically just replacing those particular components and re-using what else we can.

Now here is my dilemma... Do we get new sata III solid state drives (256 gig or so range) or do we upgrade our video cards? Currently we are each running a 560 ti for video and we each have an 80 gig and 160 gig Intel X-25 solid state drive along with a mechanical drive. Down the road we would like to piece together a third machine for use as a file server and maybe play around with linux and something like Windows server and so we would probably cannibalize the mechanical drives for the file server. Only problem with that is we are worried that the 160 gig might be getting cramped and from the recent gaming downloads we have purchased these drives are filling fast, and a full SSD is an unhappy SSD.

Right now, even though our Solid states are pretty slow compared to what is on the market today, they are still really fast compared to your standard mechanical drives. On the same token, the 560 ti still runs about any game we play at max or close to max when gaming at 1080p. I guess the one thing the Solid state drive option has is that it is quite a bit cheaper an option. If I were to upgrade the video, I really feel like it wouldn't be worth the purchase unless I got a GTX 670 or better, so part of me wants to wait for the 700 series to buy but that also makes the cost likely to be a lot more than the SSD option.

So what do you folks think? We mainly game, and we do some basic HD streaming from our PCs.

[Valiea]

If you plan on upgrading to 2560x1440 or if you are running 1600x900 and want to upgrade to a couple 1920x1080's I'd say GPU first. Grab a 670.

You have SSDs, older ones, already but getting a newer bigger drive while helpful won't give you a gaming boost outside of load times. I'd grab a better GPU first then save up and get a couple http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147163 for 250 bucks slap them in raid 0 for lolspeed and get down to business.

Just for reference, not that I would notice ANY difference, but putting my SSDs in raid0 vs having a mechanical drive was like LUDICROUS SPEED. My OS can't handle that speed. But ya, personally, grab the better GPU then the better SSDs. Unless you only play WoW, in which case the opposite might be better.

[valden83]

If you plan on upgrading to 2560x1440 or if you are running 1600x900 and want to upgrade to a couple 1920x1080's I'd say GPU first. Grab a 670.

You have SSDs, older ones, already but getting a newer bigger drive while helpful won't give you a gaming boost outside of load times. I'd grab a better GPU first then save up and get a couple http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147163 for 250 bucks slap them in raid 0 for lolspeed and get down to business.

Just for reference, not that I would notice ANY difference, but putting my SSDs in raid0 vs having a mechanical drive was like LUDICROUS SPEED. My OS can't handle that speed. But ya, personally, grab the better GPU then the better SSDs. Unless you only play WoW, in which case the opposite might be better.

Well see, thats the thing. We are only running 22 inch monitors and neither of us really feel the need to change anytime soon. Also, we don't really plan on going dual monitor either. So basically the video card upgrade would be mainly just to avoid having to run games at lower settings, and to just have more power to continue cranking the settings higher. The SSD upgrade is not just a performance deal, but would also be a bit of a convenience so that we could slip our mechanical drives into a file server and then load our PCs like this: OS on the smaller 80 gig SSD, Steam and higher end games(mass effect 3, skyrim etc.) on the newer fast SSD, and older legacy games like sims 3/roller coaster tycoon and such on the 160 gig intel SSD.

I think both options are sound, though I could jump on the SSD bandwagon a bit sooner since its cheaper. Raid 0 is intriguing, but is Raid 0 with current solid state drives really that much of a difference? I mean it is already blazing fast :P

Love hearing your opinion though, definitely helps me put it in a different perspective when I hear what someone else would do in my shoes.

[Valiea]

Nah Raid0 vs a single drive you won't see any noticeable differnce as far as I'm aware. Outside of benchmarking. I did not see a difference between my single drive when I first got it in terms of loading times versus my two drives in raid0. The benefit you get from 2 is just more space and you can just flex your benchmarking muscles at people. I have read / write speeds at 920mb/s each. And with zero faults since I got them back in January.

If you are only running a single 22 keep the 560 ti for now, just upgrade the SSDs as that will be the better upgrade in the short term for you. Get the most space for your money while not compromising durability in your drives. Raid0 also has that issue of if one fail they both fail. Even if it's unlikely to happen just don't store anything on it that you don't want to.

I have a 2tb that holds a back-up of my files and my important documents. While my SSDs just hold my OS and everything else in one big partition. SSD prices are also pretty cheap now. I got my 2x 180gb for 199 each. Go with the SSD for now then in my book, you don't plan on upgrading monitors, higher gaming, or multiple monitors. SSD seems like a better option.

[vesseblah]

We are only running 22 inch monitors and neither of us really feel the need to change anytime soon.

Would say that graphics card upgrade is not needed then unless some game you like to play forces pushing settings to medium or lower. That's one piece of technology where pushing the upgrade as long as possible gives biggest gains because previous tier high end cards can drop to half price in just a year.

OS on the smaller 80 gig SSD, Steam and higher end games(mass effect 3, skyrim etc.) on the newer fast SSD, and older legacy games like sims 3/roller coaster tycoon and such on the 160 gig intel SSD.

Would rather recommend using the new 250GB SSD as both boot and location for your most used games & steam, and depending on the disc usage have either the 80GB or the 160GB put to 'legacy stuff' and other one as backup. Setting up a backup out of system files and game settings would be good idea if you aren't doing it already, and when doing it on local SSD it'll only take seconds and not be a chore.

but is Raid 0 with current solid state drives really that much of a difference?

No. It's just for ePeen.

[potis]

Buying a 600 series over a 500 series is a waste of money, wait for the 700 yourself as you said, will be a few months to a year.

Neither of the upgrades is really worth it but!

I would go for the SSD since you will need the space eventually and the new ones are awesome, i just bought one myself and i am only filling it up with games.