I'm running a C2D E6300 (1.86 GHz), Nvidia 9600 GT, 6 GB RAM, Seasonic S12.
The thing is I'm unhappy with my case, it's an old-school Lian Li PC-60, bought in the fairly short period when I was already interested in good PC hardware but not yet wise enough to pay particular attention to silent components everywhere. (That also explains the two LED light strips on the front, now disabled. *groan*) Out of the box the case is just terrible, the fans are incredibly loud -- even back then I was shocked. At the moment the only fan running is the exhaust fan (near the CPU, controlled via mainboard), the other 3 (!) case fans aren't connected to anything. The thing still rattles and hums for mysterious reasons all the time and bugs the hell out of me; and I've never came close to using its enormous space. The S12 isn't a great fit for the case, either, a PSU with a straight air path would let me rig up a nice dedicated air channel (however, the PSU is still very quiet). The case still looks pretty good, though.
Apart from the swanky, non-illuminated LED strips, anyway. I briefly considered getting a new case and run the current system (+SSD) in it, but I'm pretty sure my next mainboard will be uATX and I'll want a seriously smaller case to go along with it, buying a new ATX case at this point just seems like a waste.
So that's where I'm at.
Option 1 is buying something like the fastest CPU my mainboard will support, which isn't a whole lot faster than an E6300; I think support tops out at around 2.66 Quad (exactly zero of the 45nm Core 2s are supported, which is a shame), but on the upside those CPUs are cheap and overclock well, so it should be a moderate, inexpensive update. Together with an SSD, I am very confident that the system would be more than fast enough to last another year or two. If I do this, I'd like to spend some time (and a bit of money) optimising the case, which I guess means making it heavier for starters.
Option 2 is getting rid CPU, mainboard, RAM, and the case, and building a new uATX system, keeping the graphics card and the PSU. Maybe I could find a way to re-use the RAM, that'd be nice (CPU-Z says its 2x1GB of PC2-5300 and 2x2GB of PC2-6400 modules, FWIW). This is the much more expensive option, obviously, but what's worse that it seems unnecessary, since I'd inevitably buy a whole lot of power which I don't really need, and I'm not sure if I'd end up finding a good use for the old components.
