1
Faboo
53MP3RF1
So with christmas (and thus gifts in form of money) being not too far away, I thought about upgrading my PC. I do have PC building experience, so that's not a problem, but idk about current hardware.
Now the question is whether to upgrade or to build a new one and if so, when. Because I don't need it soon, so I can wait for new hardware generations or price drops. I want my money to be worth it, you know :)
What I currently have is:
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955BE (4 x 3.20 GHz; not overclocked yet, but I heard it's pretty easy with this one, but I use the boxed cooler atm which is loud and not really powerful)
Mobo: ASUS M4A87TD (AM3 socket)
GPU: ATI Radeon 5770 by Sapphire (this one is probably bottlenecking me)
RAM: 4x4GB 1600MHz, I upgraded this recently
HDD: 1 TB Western Digital or whatever
PSU: 750 Watt, idk brand (overkill for my system, but I can reuse it)
What is this computer going to be used for?
Gaming (atm heavily modded minecraft, steam games, league, but I will need to keep up in the future, possibly getting a 1440p screen in the future)
Graphics (Photoshop and quite a lot of blender and 3dsMax rendering, sometimes video editing)
And stuff that's not really demanding, like webdesign, schoolwork, coding
Also keep in mind that I have two 1080p panels and might upgrade, so I do need some power
What is your budget?
idk, I'm open for small upgrades or pretty cheap new builds, depends on what gives me the most power/price. Not more than 1200 dollars for a new build though, preferably way lower
Where do you live? If in the US, do you have a nearby Microcenter?
Germany, no Microcenter
What is included in the budget?
Only PC parts, no peripherals, screens or case
Will you be overclocking?
not too sure, I could OC my current build I guess, but it depends. Don't have that much experience with overclocking yet, so I'd prefer not to
Will you be reusing any parts?
RAM (16 gigs/1600MHz), PSU (750 Watts), HDD (1TB, but that's ok with external drives), probably case,
What OS do you want?
I have a couple of 7 licenses lying around, so that's no prob
Any other special features that you want in the build?
No need for WiFi, but I'd really like to get a SSD in the near future to put my current Photoshop/School projects on there
Now the question is whether to upgrade or to build a new one and if so, when. Because I don't need it soon, so I can wait for new hardware generations or price drops. I want my money to be worth it, you know :)
What I currently have is:
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955BE (4 x 3.20 GHz; not overclocked yet, but I heard it's pretty easy with this one, but I use the boxed cooler atm which is loud and not really powerful)
Mobo: ASUS M4A87TD (AM3 socket)
GPU: ATI Radeon 5770 by Sapphire (this one is probably bottlenecking me)
RAM: 4x4GB 1600MHz, I upgraded this recently
HDD: 1 TB Western Digital or whatever
PSU: 750 Watt, idk brand (overkill for my system, but I can reuse it)
What is this computer going to be used for?
Gaming (atm heavily modded minecraft, steam games, league, but I will need to keep up in the future, possibly getting a 1440p screen in the future)
Graphics (Photoshop and quite a lot of blender and 3dsMax rendering, sometimes video editing)
And stuff that's not really demanding, like webdesign, schoolwork, coding
Also keep in mind that I have two 1080p panels and might upgrade, so I do need some power
What is your budget?
idk, I'm open for small upgrades or pretty cheap new builds, depends on what gives me the most power/price. Not more than 1200 dollars for a new build though, preferably way lower
Where do you live? If in the US, do you have a nearby Microcenter?
Germany, no Microcenter
What is included in the budget?
Only PC parts, no peripherals, screens or case
Will you be overclocking?
not too sure, I could OC my current build I guess, but it depends. Don't have that much experience with overclocking yet, so I'd prefer not to
Will you be reusing any parts?
RAM (16 gigs/1600MHz), PSU (750 Watts), HDD (1TB, but that's ok with external drives), probably case,
What OS do you want?
I have a couple of 7 licenses lying around, so that's no prob
Any other special features that you want in the build?
No need for WiFi, but I'd really like to get a SSD in the near future to put my current Photoshop/School projects on there
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6
1
The Intel 730 is not worth it's price. The Crucial M550 is €70 less and trades blows performance wise. Also, it is 256GB vs the 730 only being 240GB. Also, please open your case and look at the PSU to see if you can find the model number or name so we can identify it.
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I don't know about that. this page for the m550 and this page for Intel's 730 series shows the 730 being much better than the m550. Even though it drops a huge amount on the random write test, it begins to climb up immediately and its lowest point still looks about the same or slightly better than the m550's. Anywhere else in the test it looks like it blows it away.
1
Or maybe an mx100, best budget ssd that doesn't compromise on performance or features
1
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (€234.69 @ Home of Hardware DE)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M Anniversary Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (€74.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Intel 730 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€178.04 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Intel 730 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€178.04 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (€37.81 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (€129.90 @ Caseking)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer (€18.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Other: ATI Radeon HD 5770 by Sapphire (Purchased)
Total: €852.27
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-22 13:35 CET+0100
Same logic as with 53MP3RF1's build, but it's a bit more compact (it has a mATX motherboard and case) and already added the PSU.
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (€234.69 @ Home of Hardware DE)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M Anniversary Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (€74.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Intel 730 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€178.04 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Intel 730 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€178.04 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (€37.81 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (€129.90 @ Caseking)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer (€18.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Other: ATI Radeon HD 5770 by Sapphire (Purchased)
Total: €852.27
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-22 13:35 CET+0100
Same logic as with 53MP3RF1's build, but it's a bit more compact (it has a mATX motherboard and case) and already added the PSU.
1
Building a whole new computer would allow you to change everything up. Intel has now really pulled ahead in the CPU market, but the more expensive CPUs AMD has to offer are still a viable choice. I've put together a build below that should serve you well. The one thing I did not include was a new graphics card. AMD is set to come out with a new line of gpus in early 2015, and they should crush nVidia's 970 and 980.
My logic behind this buld:
CPU: i7s are just Xeons with an integrated GPU, and because you already have a discrete card you can just use that for a few months and (hopefully) buy a 380x/390x when they pop out of AMD's factories in early 2015.
Motherboard: This motherboard is really, really nice. It has M.2 and SATA express, which are nice little ways of future-proofing, and it's got nice heat sinks over the important parts of the motherboard. It should have a very nice, long life.
Memory: This is yours.
Storage: You can use your HDD, but I highly suggest you get a drive or two like this one and then one like this so you can have a main storage drive and an offloading media drive for when you don't need your projects anymore (for example, at the end of the school year). The two SSDs in the build would be running in RAID 0, which shares data across them and increases their performance. The only drawback of this is that if they fail, all the data is erased. However, Intel SSDs have famed reliability so this hopefully shouldn't happen - if it does, hopefully you'll have backed up your important files to your HDD.
Video Card: AMD's new cards are supposed to kill nVidia's offerings, so I suggest waiting for them to come out before you jump for a new GPU.
PSU: You can use your own, but if it's not very high efficiency I suggest you invest in one like this one. Seasonic is a trusted brand and they consistently are great performers.
Case: Corsair makes very nice cases, and the 200r is no exception. It's a budget case that feels like a pricey one. And it's worth it.
ODD: Just threw a cheap one in there. It functions as a DVD reader/writer, and a CD reader/writer. That's all it needs to do.
Good luck on your build!
Build
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (€234.69 @ Home of Hardware DE)
Motherboard: MSI H97 Guard-Pro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (€96.97 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Intel 730 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€178.04 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Intel 730 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€178.04 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (€55.34 @ Hardwareversand)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer (€18.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Other: ATI Radeon HD 5770 by Sapphire (Purchased)
Total: €761.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-22 13:09 CET+0100
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (€234.69 @ Home of Hardware DE)
Motherboard: MSI H97 Guard-Pro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (€96.97 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Intel 730 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€178.04 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Intel 730 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€178.04 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (€55.34 @ Hardwareversand)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer (€18.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Other: ATI Radeon HD 5770 by Sapphire (Purchased)
Total: €761.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-22 13:09 CET+0100
My logic behind this buld:
CPU: i7s are just Xeons with an integrated GPU, and because you already have a discrete card you can just use that for a few months and (hopefully) buy a 380x/390x when they pop out of AMD's factories in early 2015.
Motherboard: This motherboard is really, really nice. It has M.2 and SATA express, which are nice little ways of future-proofing, and it's got nice heat sinks over the important parts of the motherboard. It should have a very nice, long life.
Memory: This is yours.
Storage: You can use your HDD, but I highly suggest you get a drive or two like this one and then one like this so you can have a main storage drive and an offloading media drive for when you don't need your projects anymore (for example, at the end of the school year). The two SSDs in the build would be running in RAID 0, which shares data across them and increases their performance. The only drawback of this is that if they fail, all the data is erased. However, Intel SSDs have famed reliability so this hopefully shouldn't happen - if it does, hopefully you'll have backed up your important files to your HDD.
Video Card: AMD's new cards are supposed to kill nVidia's offerings, so I suggest waiting for them to come out before you jump for a new GPU.
PSU: You can use your own, but if it's not very high efficiency I suggest you invest in one like this one. Seasonic is a trusted brand and they consistently are great performers.
Case: Corsair makes very nice cases, and the 200r is no exception. It's a budget case that feels like a pricey one. And it's worth it.
ODD: Just threw a cheap one in there. It functions as a DVD reader/writer, and a CD reader/writer. That's all it needs to do.
Good luck on your build!
1
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/samuelyap/saved/Nq8zK8
I presume you're counting in USD?
EDIT: You need to upgrade your PSU (if you don't know the brand it's another reason to get a new one too) to maybe an 850w
I presume you're counting in USD?
EDIT: You need to upgrade your PSU (if you don't know the brand it's another reason to get a new one too) to maybe an 850w
