Maybe older...but hauls !@#

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10-03-2012, 12:31 AM
CompTech

Maybe older...but hauls !@#

Kind of new here so I thought I would share my system's specs. Might be old but can keep up with 1st gen i5 systems. Any suggestions on possible upgrades for the system as it sits? Im out of money to spend on really big upgrades like mobo and cpu for now.

HTPC System Specs:
Case: Cooler Master CM690 II Advanced

PSU: BFG 550w Modular

Motherboard: Gigabyte P43T-ES3G (socket 775) Energy Saver Series

CPU: Intel Core2Quad Q9450 overclocked @ 3.4GHz

RAM: 16GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3

Video: EVGA GTX 550Ti Fermi

TV Tuner: Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1600

Hard Drives: All drives are 7200RM, 32mb cache, Sata III, except the ssd of course
128GB OZC Vertex Plus R2 SSD (OS only)
2TB Seagate Barracuda
1TB Seagate Barracuda
1.5 (3X) Seagate Barracudas
1TB Seagate Barracuda in Fantom Drive eSATA external enclosure

Optical: LG BluRay burner

Other: PCIe 1x eSATA/Sata/IDE controller (using for optical sata and external drive connection)
PCI sata controller (using for case eSATA and Sata hotswap bay). Rosewill Windows MC remote.

LCD Panel: nMedia Pro-LCD

Cooling:
CPU: Antec Kuhler H620 liquid cooler with dual XIGMATEK XSF-F1252 120mm fans in push/pull
Hard Drives: 3 of the drives are mounted in a Vantec HDC-800A bay cooler
RAM- XIGMATEK Dragoon-n422 on all 4 modules
Video- ARCTIC COOLING Accelero XTREME Plus II
Case- Single stock 140mm front intake, Single stock 140mm top exhaust, Single Antec 120 case floor intake

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit with a complete boot time of 13 seconds. XBMC Eden 11.0
10-04-2012, 09:27 PM
Timman_24

What are you wanting to achieve? Nothing sticks out as being upgradable without touching the motherboard. The videocard could use a boost, but that's not cheap. I'm curious to why you have so many harddrives though. Are you running RAID on any of those? With that many hard drives, failure statistics are stacked against you.
10-04-2012, 09:35 PM
CompTech

Quote:

Originally Posted by Timman_24

I'm curious to why you have so many harddrives though. Are you running RAID on any of those? With that many hard drives, failure statistics are stacked against you.

I am a digital hoarder. music, movies, tv shows.
10-05-2012, 10:31 AM
James

Quote:

Originally Posted by CompTech

I am a digital hoarder. music, movies, tv shows.

Look into using some old parts to build a NAS, it's not worth having it all on a single system. ;)
10-05-2012, 01:21 PM
CompTech

Quote:

Originally Posted by James

Look into using some old parts to build a NAS, it's not worth having it all on a single system. ;)

Already did that. Built a system using an old P4 and it runs FreeNas. There is 6TB worth of drives in it and the htpc described above uses SyncBack to back up to the NAS box.
10-05-2012, 03:46 PM
kujoe2002

That system is similar to my old system but mine was even slower (only 4GB RAM, Q9550 @2.8GhZ, GTX 260). The current setup is not that bad imo. You can keep everything but the CPU and mobo. You will have to replace them together. Luckily, you have DDR3 RAM so you can use that as well. Like Timman said: what do you want to use your computer for? I mean your system should be able to handle BF3 pretty well. Since you already have SSD, that's taken care of. If you were to get a greater vid card, it might not really be worth it ATM.
10-13-2012, 04:28 PM
kpxgq

i think my cellphone is faster than most of my older rigs lol
10-22-2012, 03:09 PM
agello24

its a quad core. just upgrade video card. nothing else needs touching. with that amount of memory on a quad core. you can run proablaly 7-10 programs without it hiccuping!! i would try the new nvidia 660. even though i moved on from nvidia cause of slow release and power hungry cards. the 660 seems to be well rounded.
10-22-2012, 04:09 PM
CompTech

Quote:

Originally Posted by agello24

its a quad core. just upgrade video card. nothing else needs touching. with that amount of memory on a quad core. you can run proablaly 7-10 programs without it hiccuping!! i would try the new nvidia 660. even though i moved on from nvidia cause of slow release and power hungry cards. the 660 seems to be well rounded.

I have been hearing from several sources to upgrade the video card which begs the question what's wrong with my eVga 550Ti Fermi card? It came overclocked out of the box to run at 952Ghz (stock cards core was 900) and with the cooling I have put on it allows it to run at 1Ghz stable without breaking a sweat. I don't game on this machine. Its primarily used for watching movies and TV shows in XBMC and streaming from hulu and Netflix and serves media to my 3 other machines in other rooms.

I have considered an upgrade video card but the performance of my 550 is pretty solid for what I use the system for and it is barely a year old.
10-22-2012, 04:10 PM
CompTech

I hear your there. I have the Samsung Galaxy SIII 32gb and it smokes my other media center pcs .
10-22-2012, 11:10 PM
agello24

actually nothing is wrong with ur 550ti. i was just suggesting an upgrade if u really wanted to upgrade. if the 550ti does what u want it to do, then an upgrade wont be needed.