Is it worth upgrading?

A

Altissimus

Active member
I have a 4-year old PC Specialist PC in which I've already upgraded the graphics card (specs below). I am looking now at adding a 1TB SSD (Samsung 840), but the interwebnet seems to think very little of the Marvell Sata III controller on my motherboard (see here and here for example).

Swopping out the MB and keeping the rest is beyond my technical skills. I can just about plug in a new graphics card - will have to get youtube to help me install the SSD! A motherboard refresh would only end in tears.

Below is the spec of my PC. Basic question: Is it worth keeping, or should I upgrade? Has the world noticeably changed in 4 years?

I predominantly use it for gaming (and, occasionally, when I must, work). Elite:Dangerous, Smite, Far Cry 4, Borderlands Pre-Sequel, GTA V (soon). That kinda stuff.

All help gratefully received :)

Cheers!

A

Case
ANTEC NINE HUNDRED TWO - UK, The Ultimate Gaming Case, Evolved
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950 (3.06GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI
Memory (RAM)
6GB KINGSTON HYPER-X TRI-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (3 x 2GB KIT)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 (upgrade from a Radeon 5770)
1st Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD6402AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£76)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI EXPRESS CARD (£19) (This was horrible and I took it out very early).
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
 
A

Altissimus

Active member
keynes said:
What sort of issues were indicated online? 1tb SSD as the primary drive?
Click to expand...

Soz I don't understand what you mean here. I provided the links of the issues. Basically the issue is that the Sata III Marvell Controller achieves worse performance than Sata II Intel, and it apparently also causes disk issues (can't recognise the disc etc). I haven't bought the SSD yet, so haven't verified this myself, but there are two disparate sources saying the performance is poor.
 
A

Altissimus

Active member
Anyone got any opinions on this please? Is this rig still good in today's world, or should I think about an upgrade?
 
keynes

keynes

Multiverse Poster
I was asking the problems because I didn't see the link and was not aware of the problems. I would assume regardless of the possible issues it should still be faster than a standard HDD.
 
A

Altissimus

Active member
keynes said:
I was asking the problems because I didn't see the link and was not aware of the problems. I would assume regardless of the possible issues it should still be faster than a standard HDD.
Click to expand...

Well yes....SSD even at Sata 2 would be a lot faster than a standard HDD.

And do you have a view on whether the rest of the rig is still up to standard? No problem if you don't know. Just asking.
 
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