Author Topic: System components upgrade contemplation - advice appreciated  (Read 1256 times)

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Offline MP-Ryan

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System components upgrade contemplation - advice appreciated
So, I am currently running:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @3.0 Ghz
Gigabyte EP35-DS4
4 GB Mushkin DDR2 memory
Geforce GTX 750SC
2 500 Gb hard disks (RAID)
Audigy Prelude X-Fi soundcard
DVD-RW (generic)
Corsair VX550 PSU
Antec Sonata III case

Quite obviously, this is no longer future-proof with DA:I out and The Witcher 3 on the horizon.  The wife and I are seriously thinking about replacing our elderly laptop with a mid-range gaming laptop in the late fall of 2015 (originally, after Win10 comes out but with the free upgrade announcement that's no longer a priority), so I was originally thinking of doing a low-end budget gaming upgrade on the desktop to keep two computers in the house, and building a higher performance system in early 2016.  Rethinking that now.

In essence, the only system components I'd have to replace are the CPU, motherboard, and RAM (I've checked, the PSU, despite being older, is Haswell-compatible).  I could do this with the budget AMD CPUs for around $300 CAD.  However, I'm now thinking and wondering if spending an extra $200-300 could put me into range of a respectable i5.

So, fellow system-builder inclined fellows... while I normally rely on the Tom's Hardware System Builder marathons as a baseline (budget to enthusiast models), I'm asking... given a budget of $600 CAD, what would you do for processor, motherboard, and RAM to get another 3 years of decent gaming life out of this?

My go-to parts suppliers: www.memoryexpress.com www.newegg.ca www.ncix.com  (I typically buy through Memory Express due to their proximity and price matching of the others).
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Re: System components upgrade contemplation - advice appreciated
(Just a placeholder post)
Don't have the time right now for a thorough part detail, will post later, rest assured!

EDIT
Sorry, work consumed me more than I thought it would, but LHN91 has some great recommendations
« Last Edit: January 29, 2015, 08:20:17 pm by TechnoD11 »

 

Offline deathspeed

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Re: System components upgrade contemplation - advice appreciated
I have a similar setup, and have been looking at similar upgrades.  This core i5 list I've been maintaining for fun totals $380 US.  I don't know what US-CAN exchanges rates are, but I bet for $600 CA you could double the RAM, and get a more feature-rich motherboard.  I use Toms "best gaming CPU for the money" to help me decide on the CPU.
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Offline LHN91

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Re: System components upgrade contemplation - advice appreciated
For 600$ CDN you could easily get an i5 and 16GB of ram on a mid-range motherboard.

Would you be interested in overclocking?

EDIT: It would also matter if you needed to buy a new copy of Windows.

Here's a quick i5-4690k combo, though this would be tight

PCPartPicker part list: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/8RKtsY
Price breakdown by merchant: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/8RKtsY/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($299.99 @ Memory Express)
Motherboard: MSI Z97-G43 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($124.99 @ Memory Express)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  ($157.99 @ Memory Express)
Total: $582.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-26 10:20 EST-0500

For 582$ at Memory Express - I don't have an issue with MSI boards, though I know a few people who won't touch them, so that's a consideration.

You could very easily save money by:
a) Getting a non-overclockable i5. They start around 215$, where the K is 299$
b) Going with 8GB of RAM instead of 16 would save you ~70-80$
c) Getting a non-overclocking (non-Z97) motherboard which would save you 25-50 depending on featureset. I would only make this change if you don't get the i5-K


EDIT2: Bear in mind I haven't done any price matching - you may be able to save some money by doing that. I went strictly based on what MemExpress' prices were.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2015, 09:26:05 am by LHN91 »

 

Offline MP-Ryan

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Re: System components upgrade contemplation - advice appreciated
I have no plans to overclock at this time.  After writing the OP, I did some research of my own as well, and it seems an i5 4690 bundled with a half-decent motherboard should run me $420ish (or better if on a better sale).  E.g. http://www.ncix.com/detail/ncix-bundle-asus-z97-a-atx-23-97395.htm  8 GB of RAM seems sufficient at this point too.  Do people find 16 GB to be worth it, or would 8 be just fine?  The only real 'performance' application of this system will be gaming, some Photoshop. That's it.
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Offline zookeeper

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Re: System components upgrade contemplation - advice appreciated
Unless by "some photoshop" you mean some heavy editing involving very large files, then I can't see how 8GB would not be enough.

My own experience with 8GB (on W7) is that it's easily enough for anything except working with multi-layered 8192^2-size files; in those situations I do actually run low and have to manage the memory usage (closing all other apps, keeping as few files open as possible, etc).

  

Offline swashmebuckle

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Re: System components upgrade contemplation - advice appreciated
I vote for a non-overclocking i5 and motherboard to save a bit of money while getting close to the fastest thing available, 8GB of RAM like zookeeper said, and whatever's left over use to get a small SSD for your OS and anything else that you love and want to go real fast. Being able to start playing almost immediately after throwing the switch makes more of a difference to me in how much I enjoy using the computer than any other hardware upgrade. Nowadays booting up the non-SSD AMD machine makes me weep.

 

Offline MP-Ryan

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Re: System components upgrade contemplation - advice appreciated
Glad to see people validating my conclusions.

Now to wait for a more substantial sale on components.  Seems NCIX has dropped that i5 bundle into the high 300s before.
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