Proposed system upgrades:

[Agnostic Bear]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=HD-003-IN
to use as my main os hdd

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=CP-231-IN
to replace my q6600

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=CA-147-CM
to replace my non-modular psu

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=MB-280-AS
to replace my "P5Q" (not pro)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=HD-053-SA
4 of these to complete my raid array

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=MY-173-CS
to replace my 667mhz ram


I will be buying these / whatever I decide based on your suggestions early July, as well as a few other things (raid controller from ebuyer though, as overclockers use dpd but they don't have the controller i want).

I wont buy i7 for the time being, and I definitely will not go DDR3 or any other brand apart from Corsair XMS2, they're the only brand I trust for RAM as every other has had RAM problems with me (g.skill, ocz).

So yes, go wild. Suggest things and tell me things I am all ears (apart from issues listed above).

[Recursion]

Whats with the Q9650? You could easily overclock your Q6600 to around 3.6GHz stable.

Also, why not go i7 and 6GBs DDR3 RAM if you have so much money to blow?

[Agnostic Bear]

Whats with the Q9650? You could easily overclock your Q6600 to around 3.6GHz stable.

Also, why not go i7 and 6GBs DDR3 RAM if you have so much money to blow?

Basically at the moment DDR3 latency is pretty poor and i7 is being phased out or something stupid because of AMD, so until it's all stable and starts to mature I wont be buying i7, in the future I will though. I want 45nm because it's pretty much faster (the architecture, not the process) and I'm not all that keen on overclocking, too much effort.

[N!ck]

Good choice of SSD, one of the best, but also extremely expensive for what you get. I'd probably save a few quid and see not that much of a performance dop from one of these. I can't find any benchmarks comparing the two, the nearest I see is the the Intel against the 256GB Samsung which kills it in the read/write times but has nothing on it in everything else. http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2...,938.html?prod[2325]=on&prod[2333]=on

CPU - I personally don't think you're going to notice much of a performance increase over a Q6600 unless you're constantly doing CPU intensive tasks.

PSU - Nice choice, but at that price you're in range of the high end Corsair PSUs. I don't know if you'll need 850W? You won't if you're only running 1 graphics card. The HX series are pretty much the best you can get as far as PSUs go. 750W - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...23&subcat=1084 850W - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...23&subcat=1084 The TX series are very similar, but not modular.

Motherboard - Fine, just make sure it has what you need for your RAID controller. I'd be tempted to spend a little more on the board considering the rest of your system.

HDDs - Probably the best 1TB consumer drive available.

RAM - whatever, but you could save £10-15 per 4GB if you chose a different brand. I've never had any trouble with some of the others.

[Agnostic Bear]

Good choice of SSD, one of the best, but also extremely expensive for what you get. I'd probably save a few quid and see not that much of a performance dop from one of these. I can't find any benchmarks comparing the two, the nearest I see is the the Intel against the 256GB Samsung which kills it in the read/write times but has nothing on it in everything else. http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2...,938.html?prod[2325]=on&prod[2333]=on

CPU - I personally don't think you're going to notice much of a performance increase over a Q6600 unless you're constantly doing CPU intensive tasks.

PSU - Nice choice, but at that price you're in range of the high end Corsair PSUs. I don't know if you'll need 850W? You won't if you're only running 1 graphics card. The HX series are pretty much the best you can get as far as PSUs go. 750W - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...23&subcat=1084 850W - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...23&subcat=1084 The TX series are very similar, but not modular.

Motherboard - Fine, just make sure it has what you need for your RAID controller. I'd be tempted to spend a little more on the board considering the rest of your system.

HDDs - Probably the best 1TB consumer drive available.

RAM - whatever, but you could save £10-15 per 4GB if you chose a different brand. I've never had any trouble with some of the others.

I might get a different mobo, but I use a p5q currently and it's rock solid, so I'd imagine the pro would be just as solid. Also I'll be getting the 750w you specified if it's in stock when I order next month.

[N!ck]

I might get a different mobo, but I use a p5q currently and it's rock solid, so I'd imagine the pro would be just as solid. Also I'll be getting the 750w you specified if it's in stock when I order next month.

Yeah, sure they're a decent motherboard series.

I'd probably get an aftermarket cooler on your CPU even if you're not overclocking just to make it quieter than the stock one. Get some decent case fans as well so the only noise you here will me the whir of all them hard drives.

[Agnostic Bear]

Yeah, sure they're a decent motherboard series.

I'd probably get an aftermarket cooler on your CPU even if you're not overclocking just to make it quieter than the stock one. Get some decent case fans as well so the only noise you here will me the whir of all them hard drives.

My PC is really quiet as it is (thankyou lian-li!) I will be buying another cpu cooler, I'll look about for some reviews, check it all out.

[Flisker]

Looks like you are splashing some serious cash there. I can't see anything wrong with all that. Good luck

[Josh-H]

You have £550 to spend on a SSD ... wow.. just wow. Is the improvement worth that much?

[Mentor]

Outside of laptops i really dont think ssd's are worth it. for that price you may as well just raid 0 a rew raptor drives together, which would probabaly increase speed and save you money at the same time, (not so easy on case space though :p)