upgrade from Asus ENGTS 450??

[jdizzil]

i, im currently moving more towads my PC gaming than my console gaming my Pc build is this

Win 7 64
Asus p7p55d-e mobo
OC I-5 760 @ 3.7GH
12GB 1600MHZ ram
Asus ENGTS 450 Video card
2x WD 500GB Raid 0
32" Full HD T.V

for the moment the card is runng games ok, but for max proformance i think ill need to upgrade soon, my mobo dosent support SLI only Crodssfire so im looking for
ATI card and at a later date buy a second to crossfire them.

so what would be a good card to upgrade too and is SLI / Crossfire 2 ok cards better than 1 really good card??

Thanks

 

[Rakk]

so im looking for
ATI card and at a later date buy a second to crossfire them.

Note: You may need a bigger PSU than you already have to crossfire two cards if you get a second card

and is SLI / Crossfire 2 ok cards better than 1 really good card??

Generally I'd always prefer one better card than two lesser cards, less power usage, less to go wrong etc.
Though Crossfiring/SLI'ing down the line is generally a cheaper way of upgrading than buying one spangly new card every time (presuming your PSU has enough power to do so)

 

[mantadog]

What kind of PSU are you running? That may limit your choice to something with a similar power draw as you have at the moment anyway.

You are ALWAYS better buying one card just now and adding in a 2nd card at a later date when the 2nd card is cheaper and you need just a little performance boost.

Something like a 7850 would be a great choice on the AMD side of things, would be alot faster than what you have at the moment and should last for a long time on it's own without needing a 2nd.

 

[jdizzil]

sorry, forgot to put PSU on, its a OCZ StealthXstream II OCZ600SXS2 600W ATX12V v2.2/ EPS12V 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

ive looked at the radion card u mention and i think ill get this to replace my GTS, even if i get 2 i should be ok with the PSU shouldnt i??

Also on this board, i read somewhere that if i get a SSD drive my PCI-E will drop from a x16 to a x8, i was going to get 2 SSD and raid 0 them, but i dont think i want to take the PCI hit

Thanks

 

[mantadog]

Well 2 7850's will come in at under 250W so it should be perfectly fine to run both those cards from your PSU.

Why would you even want to pair up 2 SSD's in RAID 0? A single intel 520 series SSD is more than fast enough on it's own, having a pair of them in RAID 0 just doubles the risk of a catastrophic failure. I would just pick up a bigger SSD rather than 2 smaller ones as the speed advantage would be rather pointless in everyday use.

 

[jdizzil]

ok so 1 SSD lol, and im gonna get 1 7850 and if i need too later upgrade. ive been looking at my mobo specs but cant seem to find if it supports SATA 3 6GBs, and if it does if it drops the PCI to X8. assuming that is does ive looked at the intel 520 120GB (for my Os and my most used games/programs) and the sandisk extreme 120GB, the sandisk has a faster read/write than the intel and costs less, is this just because intel is a bigger brand and can charge more or is it better quallity Ie more reliable and less chance of it failing? which would you choose???

i know im going on abit and they probably seam like dumb questions but i wanna make sure i make the right choice (assuming i can even use them!)

Thanks alot.

 

[mantadog]

Intel all the way, best reliabilty and probably the best speed in the real world aswell. The very slightly higher read/write speeds of the sandisk would give no noticable performance gain anyway. I jus looked up your motherboard and it lists 2 x SATA 6GB/s ports (they are the gray ones), you also have the 6 sata 3 ports which are blue.

I looked a little on the web for reducing to 8x and having SATA 6GB/s or keeping it at 16 and having sata 3GB/s. Everything i found was fairly old so im not sure how it would apply today, what i do know, you can try it out in various combanations and find out what you like best. You probably wont notice much of a speed boost in day to day applications if you have a 3GB/s or 6GB/s SSD to be honest.