Advice on some components

[Bloodfire]

I recently came into a decent amount of cash, and I am looking into upgrading a few parts in the PC, but keep the prices withing reason. Keep in mind I do light to medium gaming on the PC, as in Starcraft 1 and 2, FFXI, FFXIV, Maybe Crysis; depending if the upgrades will suffice.

First off, the PSU is 400W which is under the rating my ATI 5770 requires, so that's the first to go. My questions for the PSU is: modular or non-modular? Is 500W-600W a sufficient power boost?

I do plan on perhaps buying a Corsair PSU, unless the community recommends anything different.

I have also thought of upgrading the CPU, but I am unsure if it would be necessary, or if would make sense putting in a i7 into a Motherboard originally pre-built with a i5. The socket is a 1156 LGA and I know intel has i7s with that, but I am having a hard time making a decision here.

Cooling is not a huge issue, but I have added a second HDD and another fan towards the front of the case(a fan smaller that what is intended for the mount). If I upgrade the CPU, I may need to do something about cooling. Not too sure, Your thoughts?

For references here is a link of the PC and it's stats:
http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/asu...-33964723.html

[sruon]

PSU - Corsair 650W http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139005
CPU - i5 750 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-215-_-Product < That's a true quadcore, whereas your current CPU is just a dualcore. Compared to i7 it would be a i7 930 just without the triple channel and hyperthreading
FAN - No idea... I bought a Freezer Xtreme for my i5 and it works perfectly.

May want to upgrade the 5770 if you have a bit of cash left but with that you'll be perfectly fine.

[Bloodfire]

Can you show me a link to the Freezer Xtreme you are using?

upgrade the 5770 to what?

does it matter if the PSU is modular?

[Shojin]

I like Zalman personally, they are good CPU coolers. I just recently bought this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118054 if you have spare cash, it does a hell of a job and I can vouch for it, it keeps my CPU at 27c-32c on idle depending on ambient temps. Just make sure it fits in your case. Oh and it has a green LED on it, if you like/dislike those sort of things.

Don't upgrade the 5770 just yet, AMD comes out with the Radeon 6000 series this month so prices on older cards should drop or you can get the 6000 series. 6870 benchmarks are already beating the GTX 480.

[Evanos]

If you live anywhere near a microcenter it would be silly to pay that for an I5 when you could get an i7-930 for just a couple dollars more, or a 950 for just a little more than that.

[Shojin]

does it matter if the PSU is modular?

No. All modular means is that it has cables that can be removed for less cable clutter. Get modular if you can. Some are fully modular and everything can be removed, some are semi-modular and have a permanent motherboard power cable, cpu power and pci-e 6/8pin.

[Shojin]

If you live anywhere near a microcenter it would be silly to pay that for an I5 when you could get an i7-930 for just a couple dollars more, or a 950 for just a little more than that.

But then he'd need to buy a new motherboard.

[Binkie]

Modular power supply just means you can remove the extra cables and such, but really, how often are you going to fiddle with the cables. I wouldn't upgrade the cpu yet since you do medium gaming, upgrade the gpu first then if you decide you want more power, do the cpu later. You can just use the stock fan, it sucks, and it might be a little louder than aftermarket, but your cpu isn't going to fry or anything. As for the video card, i agree with shojin on holding on the 5770. Right now, i think the best for the money is a GTX 460.

[Bloodfire]

If you live anywhere near a microcenter it would be silly to pay that for an I5 when you could get an i7-930 for just a couple dollars more, or a 950 for just a little more than that.

Those 2 cpus are socket 1366 so Shojin is correct. Also, the nearest microcenter to me is about 300 miles, so that's out of the question. Shame too cause there are no good PC parts stores around where I live, if there are, they're just there to charge ridiculous prices to fix or build PCs for you. Any parts they do sell are extremely limited and low tier. $199.95 to remove malware and viruses? no thanks...

[Bloodfire]

Right now, i think the best for the money is a GTX 460.

I strongly believe that, my biggest performance issues with this 5770 is power. A 400W psu trying to power a card designed for a minimum of 450W is probably why the PC crashes when I overclock it. Hell, I've probably already damaged it while attempting to set the card to max, and run Crysis on very high settings. Still a GTX is worth consideration

PSU - Corsair 650W http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139005
this seems then to be an appropriate PSU

I am still considering buying a better cooling system for the CPU. I try to keep the inside of the PC as clean as possible, and the only time i really hear the fans to the point of annoyance, is when I open the case.

[Bloodfire]

This is funny, the PSU I am looking to upgrade is failing as I type this post, good thing I purchased that new one lol...