Getting ready to get a new system and I am trying to make a few last minute decisions. I have to stick to a very tight budget so I need to know what choice gives me the best bang for the buck.

Here are some basic specs so far:
CORE I7 960 3.20GHz cpu
Western Digtial 1TB hard drive
6G DDR3 ram
SABERTOOTH X58 motherboard
GeForce GTX550

Now should I upgrade the video card to a GTX570 or upgrade to an ssd drive?I don't think I can afford both.

Your input is much appreciated.

well i would go with a 570 vs the ssd..

570 will give you more gaming performance than a SSD.

SSD will give you quicker Power-On to Fully Functional Windows times and loading times in some games. it really wont effect Frames/sec. and you'll also have to do a lot of software settings changes constantly to keep software from using up the SSD Space so quickly (changing software settings to save to folders on a traditional drive etc)

Looks -sorry- wierd. The i7 is a high-end processor and considerably more expensive than an i5. The 550 is a lowish-end GPU these days. In the end it depends what you intend to do with the system and in what resolution.

I would save money on the CPU and get both a small SSD for the OS and a better GPU. Both AMD 6870 and Geforce 560 are easily upgrades to the 550 for a reasonable price.

GPU market roundup for April 2012 should be a good read:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-2.html

the i7 960 is cheaper than the sandy bridge i5 2xxx CPUs.

the performance increase going from a 550 to a 560ti or 560 448 would be a lot better than having a SSD

Good info D.O. and I agree that the card is the better way to go, however my income tax return is quickly evaporating due to other unforseen expenses. The whole deal is in jeapordy at the moment. Thanks for the help regardless.

Timing is everything.

Personally I think it is hard to beat the bang/buck of the sandybridge i5/2500k at $220, that older bloomfield i7-960 seems to be $299.

If you are willing to overclock which is pretty easy now with the builtin AI settings in the sandybridge Asus motherboards you would get a much better bang/buck with the i5/2500k I think, I upgraded from a overclocked i7-920@4ghz Bloomfield to a Sandybridge i5/2500k@4.8ghz and would not go back to Bloomfield, the new generation is much faster and easier to max out.

I may be showing my inexperience here by admitting this, but I had assumed that the I7 processors were newer/faster than the I5 processors.

there's the i7-900 series, then the i7 - 2600 series sandy bridge architecture


Core i7-960 (NewEgg $299.99)
4x 45nm Bloomfield Cores, 8MB Cache
3.2GHz (No Turbo Boost)
LGA 1366 Socket
No GPU Cores
130W TDP
MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2

Core i7-2600K (NewEgg $314.99)
4x 35nm Sandy Bridge Cores, 8MB l3 Cache
3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost)
LGA 1155 Socket
Intel HD 3000 GPU @ 850 MHz
95W TDP
MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX.



So for $15 more you can get a better chip, but you'd have to get a LGA1155 Mainboard.
which would be ASUS SABERTOOTH Z77 LGA 1155 , @ 239.99

I'd Drop the SSD completely, in about 1 year or 2, they'll be faster and cheaper with greater capacity, i had mine for 3 weeks and sold it because of the hassle with programs all the time outweighed the 5 second quicker bootup. a Fast Standard HDD with good ram and a tweaked startup list is just as fast IMHO.


as Kludger said the i5-2500ks can beat the i7-900 series easily.

Core i5-2500K (NewEgg $219)
4x 35 nm Sandy Bridge Cores, 6MB L3 Cache
3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost)
LGA 1155 Socket
Intel HD 3000 GPU @ 850 Mhz
95W TDP
MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX.


Overclock it 125Mhz and your past the i7-2600K for $100 Less

More excellent info. Thanks guys. I don't know how the computer manufacturers expect the average consumer to know all this.