X58A-UD3R Rev one next step W7 or ?

[Graceman]

I have had a reasonably stable system now but am considering a new config and that is to install a ssd drive with Wndows 7 Ultimate, keeping my current drive so I can swap at boot time into what system I need at that time.

This raises several questions.

SSd drive of 128 Gbt (Sata 2 or Sata3?)as Windows operating system  possibly Windows 7 or should I wait for W8 which is supposed to be available next year,?
Do you still need to load chipset drivers if so what order, or does Windows now cater for all this.
The currnt Bios being run is FVB a special one devise by UK Gigabyte to help cure teh noisy capacitor problems should I try and upgrade to latest? Is there a latest version ofr this board?

Most of all would I gain anythig for the several hundreds of Pounds outlay?


Current system board & config. Below

Operating System   System Model
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (build 2600)
Install Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United Kingdom)   Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. X58A-UD3R
Enclosure Type: Desktop
Processor a   Main Circuit Board b
2.80 gigahertz Intel Core i7 930
32 kilobyte primary memory cache
8192 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (4 total)
Hyper-threaded (8 total)   Board: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. X58A-UD3R
Bus Clock: 133 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. FVB 06/04/2010
Drives   Memory Modules c,d
500.11 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
415.02 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

SONY CD-RW CRX320E SCSI CdRom Device [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

ST3500418AS [Hard drive] (500.11 GB) -- drive 0, s/n 9VMEQ9GH, rev CC38, SMART Status: Healthy   3584 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory

Slot 'A0' has 2048 MB
Slot 'A1' is Empty
Slot 'A2' has 2048 MB
Slot 'A3' is Empty
Slot 'A4' has 2048 MB
Slot 'A5' is Empty
  Local Drive Volumes
    
c: (NTFS on drive 0) 257.71 GB 199.38 GB free
d: (NTFS on drive 0) 242.40 GB 215.64 GB free
 
  

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

My first thought would be why not just go ahead and upgrade to Windows 7 64 bit and have done with it. It is a very good and stable OS and not unlike XP in many ways.

Sure upgrade the boot drive to a SSD first, I would advise SATA3 as SATA2 drives are coming to the end now. If you have the money a PCIE version such as the OCZ Revodrive is by far the best but slightly more expensive.

If you do decide on an SSD though make sure that you install it on SATA2_0. Because of the Marvell fiasco this is the fastest and most stable port. Keep the Marvell ports for optical drives and even put them in IDE mode in the BIOS.

[Aussie Allan]

  Graceman .....just to add what DM said....

                  Most of all would I gain anything for the several hundreds of Pounds outlay?

  Just in case you're unaware .... one of the main advantages of going 64bit for you would be the 6GB of memory you have installed already would go from 3.58GB usable to 6.144Gb usable.....that near on a 100% increase in usable memory for zero outlay.

  The difference that SSD will give you in actual day to day usage re program load, boot time and operation is like night and day.

  Aussie Allan

[Dark Mantis]

They are very good points that Allan makes there especially as they won't cost you anything but you will see a huge performance boost. OK the SSD upgrade will cost but probably the best "bang for buck" that you could make on your machine. It is normally the storage that is holding back 99% of systems and by upgrading that the whole system reponds better.

[Graceman]

Having read the replies and also the issues with the Marvell controller. I note that Crucial is using the Marvell controller in its SSD drives is there any know issue with this?
256Gb Crucial SSD@ £249 seems reasonable.
PCIE 120Gb £349 OCZ revo