[SkyhawkCaptain]

All,

Current system:
Cooler Master Mystique Case
Rosewill 750w PS
ASUS P5N-D Mobo
E8200 Wolfdale (not OC'd) with a freezer 7 pro
4gigs Corsair XM2 DDR2 mem
Gigabyte GTX 460 GPU
150g HD
Win XP SP3


My question is that I want to spruce the comp up and start with a fresh install and need to know the best path. I am really wanting to do a full system build but cannot afford for quite some time. So what I want to do is get win 7 64 bit, 8 gigs of DDR2, and a fresh hard drive to do a clean install on.

--Should I acquire a SSD for the boot drive and have a secondary unit for storage? Do I have to be concerned with a SSD wearing itself out faster?

--should I stay with the Wolfdale or upgrade it to a Q9500? (again I know its outdated tech but I can't help it). I don't do any hardcore vid editing or anything (I don't know how to OC but would love to learn, suggestions anyone?) but am looking for the best I can pair with the P5N-D.

--If I go with a SSD, do I need to specially configure it so it doesn't fail? How can I setup the SSD and storage drive to work in synch?

--And finally for now, how would I go about transferring files over from my current HD that is formatted with XP?

I thank you all for reading this and and any responses I get.

Edited by SkyhawkCaptain, 23 December 2011 - 09:13 PM.

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The very first thing you need to do is see if your current hardware is compatible with Windows 7. So you need to run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor.

The newest SSD drives are not going to wear out any faster than hard drives and likely will last longer since there are no moving parts.

Since you are getting a new HD, if me, I would simply install the old drive as secondary drive and then copy your files over. It is still best to reinstall all your programs to ensure the registry is properly set up.

However, since you are considering a new CPU, new HD, new RAM, and a new OS, are you sure you cannot wait a bit longer until the budget allows for another $100 for a new motherboard too? That would make much more sense to me.

[Digerati]

The very first thing you need to do is see if your current hardware is compatible with Windows 7. So you need to run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor.

The newest SSD drives are not going to wear out any faster than hard drives and likely will last longer since there are no moving parts.

Since you are getting a new HD, if me, I would simply install the old drive as secondary drive and then copy your files over. It is still best to reinstall all your programs to ensure the registry is properly set up.

However, since you are considering a new CPU, new HD, new RAM, and a new OS, are you sure you cannot wait a bit longer until the budget allows for another $100 for a new motherboard too? That would make much more sense to me.