Upgrade Time!

[kwijibo]

My old PC is coming up to its 5th birthday, so I think its time I treat myself to an upgrade.

Any suggestions based around this:

PC Case Gear - Shared Shopping Cart
1 x Intel Core i5 4690K - $325.00ea
1 x Gigabyte GA-Z97M-D3H Motherboard - $159.00ea
1 x G.Skill Sniper F3-14900CL9D-8GBSR 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 - $95.00ea
1 x Seagate Barracuda 3TB ST3000DM001 - $135.00ea
1 x Samsung 850 EVO Series 250GB SSD - $159.00ea
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 WindForce OC 4GB - $479.00ea
Total: $1,352.00 - @pccasegear.com 23/06/2015

That's about my price range - but I'm a bang for buck guy, so if spending a little extra gives me massive performance gains, I'll go for it. Will use my existing case and PSU (Corsair 650w).

Mainly for gaming - small bit of video editing.

[r8response]

Looking like a great system.

Personally, if you're upgrading everything also get a new PSU. It's 5 years old and they do lose efficiency over time. There's no real reason not to plug a new one in.

If you're not going to bother with Overclocking, you can throw in a Intel Core i5 4690(same performance, just locked) and put that saved coin towards a new PSU.



I'd also double check to make sure that 970 can fit into your current case as it is a long GPU.

[DexterPunk]

Looks pretty good bang for buck. I would be hesitant to use a 5 yr old PSU though. They start to put out less juice, and that's a pretty beefy vid card.

[DexterPunk]

Beat me to it r8.

[kwijibo]

It's currently powering along SLI GPU's seemingly without problem. Would I notice if it put out less juice?

I've never bothered overclocking in the past.. but for the sake of $26 not a bad option to have up my sleeve I guess.

[kwijibo]

I'd also double check to make sure that 970 can fit into your current case as it is a long GPU.

Hmm, that might be an issue

[Cutter]

Check if there is room in the case for a 31cm long card, including the room to get it in and out.

[kwijibo]

Nope.. the 3.5" drive bays go all the way to the bottom, so would be in the way. New case it is!

[AstrO]

I'd recommend pushing to more than 8GB of RAM of you can. 12 is probably what I'd call the minimum these days and 16 would be my recommendation for going forward. I only say this because the next generation of games is going to be pushing beyond the 8GB limit (with max settings) and this is going to be a gaming system.

What cards are you currently running in SLI? Because if they have a total power requirement higher than a 970, you should be fine to keep the 650 (depending on which series of Corsair PSU it was).

[kwijibo]

Its so old I'm not even sure I think they're gtx460s.

The psu is quite good (expensive back in the day) so I'm sure it will be fine. Everything I've read says 16gb isn't worth while, but i see your point. In 5 years time out probably will be

[Duke]

I've stuck with 8GB of RAM & have no issues with RAM usage but I'm only playing races sims with it.
Have you considered, budget dependant on grabbing a higher clocked RAM, RenZ is adamant that 2000mhz+ reduces, if not removes micro-stutters for his system.
Also imho going to 16GB right now isn't cost effective if you only want 2 sticks of RAM. Remember running 4 sticks does introduce a slight performance / bandwidth hit.

I'm not sure 2x 460's will cut the mustard with the most modern sims / games. Have you looked for a shorter 970 card like an ASUS DirectCU card?

I'd also stick with the "K" version of the CPU. It's not considerably more $'s, they are really easy to OC these days & will give you some headroom & future proofing.

[kwijibo]

I'm not sure 2x 460's will cut the mustard with the most modern sims / games. Have you looked for a shorter 970 card like an ASUS DirectCU card?

You misunderstood - I currently have 2 x 460's - but am going to have a 970 in the new PC. I'll grab a new case to fit it.

[Sarsippius]

You realise you've chosen a micro atx board right? If that's what you want no worries just checking.
Honestly you could save yourself $76 by going for the i5 4460, doubt you would notice any difference at all. You could also save yourself ~$40 on the mobo. Unless there's specific things you have to have on the one you've chosen there's nothing wrong with the one's around $100-120, it's a common area to overspend. The GTX 970 is known for it's low power requirements so a new psu, not sure.

In terms of a case I have a Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 and I'm so happy with it I bought the matx version, the Deep Silence 4 for the wife's pc.

[kwijibo]

I don't know what the difference between micro atx and other is.. so no I didnt realise As long as it all fits together I should be right.

She's all ordered now anyway. Changed to 16gb ram just because it wasn't hugely expensive to do so, and added a case in. I'll see how I go with my current PSU for now.

[Sarsippius]

Micro ATX has smaller dimensions compared to ATX, they tend to be cheaper but will have less PCI and PCIE ports as the main thing, possibly less SATA ports and other things.
In your case it shouldn't be an issue but if you bought a mATX case then you wouldn't fit an ATX mobo in there

[Enforcer-J]

Upgrade time for me too! Kind of overkill for now, but I received a healthy tax cheque and scored a new job so fuggit!

New:
Processor: Intel Core i5 Z170 6600K
Motherboard: ASUS Z170-AR
Cooler: NZXT Kraken X31 120mm AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
Case: NZXT S340 Mid Tower Case White (bye bye DVD Drive!)
Ram: 2 x 4GB Kingston FuryX DDR4 2400
Wi-fi: TP-Link 450Mbps Wireless N PCIe Adaptor

Flogging from old system:
GPU: XFX Radeon HD 7850 DD 2MB
SSD: Kingston Fury X 240GB
HDD's: 2 x 7200RPM 1TB
PSU: Corsair CX500
Monitor: BenQ 24"

Currently, my system is bottle-necked by the CPU and board... that's all about to change and now the GPU will be the bottle-neck. I'll upgrade the PSU and GPU in due time, but I'm looking forward to full AI grids in race sims for now!
Should be some decent future proofing here with the ability to OC the board and CPU, DDR4, 2x PCIe3.0 x16, M.2, SATA express, USB 3.1 type A and C, dual card support etc.

[Shaun]

If trying to future proof go 16gb ram

[Enforcer-J]

I figured I'll get another 2 sticks for half the price by the time I need it. 8GB should be plenty for gaming for a while yet and that's the hardest my system will have to work.

[Shaun]

For the extra what $50 for 2 8gb sticks if you are already building mayaswell in my opinion. Mad max coming out recommends 8gb so wont be long until 8gb isn't enough

[Enforcer-J]

Its around $100 for the cheapest 8gb DDR4 and $200+ for 16gb. Ive never seen my system max out with 4gig, gotta stop somewhere otherwise shit gets out of hand lol.
Future proofing is mostly in the board anyway, upgrades need to be compatible with that before anything and memory is more of a replaceable

[Shaun]

Fair enough man i reckon when i did my system it wasnt much different like 50 bucks maybe. But ddr3 not 4 i think

[wobblysauce]

DDR4 is coming down in price.. was more then double DD3 last year.

[Enforcer-J]

Fair enough man i reckon when i did my system it wasnt much different like 50 bucks maybe. But ddr3 not 4 i think

Yeah it's not a huge amount of money and I had considered 16gb for sure....but when I see comparisons like this I just don't think it's going to be an issue in gaming for quite some time.


http://techbuyersguru.com/does-memory-m ... ing?page=1

Yeah, it's 2 years old but I can't see things progressing that much... I'm happy for technology to prove me wrong but my crystal ball says pocket the $100

[GT VIRUS]

They need to do that graph with Cities: Skyline and a big city

[Exar Kun]

I just chucked a new SSD and 2 GTX970s in my otherwise 5 year old PC. It's running really well. Old i7 930 at 4 GHz with 12gb RAM.

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