Upgrading an old i7 920 rig

[Angus725]

Hey folks,

Got an older i7 920 based system that I’m planning on upgrading over boxing “week”.

Relevant specs:

i7-920 (C0 stepping), not OC’d.

Cooler master Hyper 212 plus (not EVO). (I originally planned on OCing the i7 920, but never got around to do so)

EVGA 132-LB-E758 ( [url]http://www.evga.com/support/manuals/files/132-bl-e758.pdf[/url] )

EVGA GTX 275

Corsair 6GB DDR3, 1600Mhz, 9-9-9-24, XMS3 (old variant) 1.65V

Corsair TX750W PSU (so much overkill...original plans on GTX275 SLI was short lived)

Bunch of harddrives, planning to replace all of them with a single 2TB WD black.

Replacing the Antec 900 case. Various reasons, not of much concern.

Things of concern:

Lacking SATA 6GB connections on the mobo, I’m reluctant to get a SSD.

Planning to replace the GPU. Not sure what I can get that won’t run into bottlenecking issues. I’ve heard people running a GTX780 with a 4GHz i7 920, and for gaming, I can almost believe it. My budget is around $180 +- 50 . Prefer Nvidia over AMD due to driver compatibility issues. (quite ironic as I hold AMD stock...)

Any suggesting on how far to OC the i7 920?

Thanks!

[flayne]

I recommend the R9 270 [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127769&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=[/url]
I haven't had any issues with the latest AMD drivers. Keep in mind both companies have driver problems often, and there isn't really a good Nvidia card within that price range unless you are willing to step up the price for the GTX 760. The GTX 660 is priced around the same but it performs much, much worse than an R9 270 (and even the 7870 for that matter).

There aren't really any single SSDs which can saturate a 3 GB per second link so far as I know. Even PCIe cards only really max out at around 2 GB/s.