Opinions needed for upgrade options

TadghsMuffins

Honorable
Feb 7, 2013
31
0
10,540
So I had a low budget gaming rig (>350 euro) I built in 2010. It wasn't very good.

I've been upgrading it since on a tiny budget (so barely at all) up until early June. All of a sudden, I have a decently paying summer job *hurrah!*. So far I've bought a decent PSU and a pretty strong GPU. I now need advice on how to proceed.

I have this:

Athlon II X4 365 @ 3.1GHz
XFX R9 280x
8GBs 1333MHz RAM
1.5TBs HDD Storage
Asus m4a78lt-m mobo
XFX 550W 80+ Bronze PSU

2 21" 1080p Screens
A decent pair of speakers (Creative T90s)
A Behringer Eurorack UB802 without a power supply

360 euro to spare at the moment, and 150 coming down the line, for a total of 510 euro (£403 or $683).

I need, well, a lot frankly. This machine has 3 primary functions: Gaming (emulation of PS2 and PS3 *which is apparently now possible*), Video Editing, and a Media Center (for a small, currently unfurnished house).


List of items I have earmarked to buy:

A new CPU. For 166 euro (that includes P and P) I can buy a AMD FX-8350 - which I believe to be the right choice. My Athlon II is hugely bottle necking the system, I wanna be able to play CPU intensive PS2 games on a 40inch from my bed. I get 3fps on GT3 :(.

A new Motherboard. I find mine poorly laid out. I also have need for a lot of peripherals, but I'm two down due to a broken USB port and need for a USB network card (onboard was blown up when the powerlines got hit by lightening, surge protector failed on the router, fried everything physically connected to the router). I also only have SATA 2 and USB 2.0 on my current, I'd like SATA 3 for:

An SSD. It takes me far too long to boot up, I'd like to fix that, I'd only be getting a small one (128GB?) for basic programs and the OS and maybe Premiere Pro. (Question: would getting higher clocked RAM be noticeably beneficial? I'm guessing not)

A PCIe TV tuner. I have a dish on the roof to connect it to, our magic boxes (excuse my incredibly professional TV talk - I'm utterly clueless here) are Irish Freesat. Tuned into Astra 26.8e (Or something?? - I can check when I get home if it'd be helpful). But this can come later and is non-essential.

A PCIe sound card.

A new power block for my UB802. Allowing me to wire up extra inputs to my speakers and connect a:

A third party Subwoofer. The Bass that comes out of my T90s is pitiful. I don't need something fancy. I need something that actually produces low frequency bass.

A 40 inch 1080p TV. I've come to terms with that this isn't gonna happen right now



Basically friends, I don't have a lot of money, and I have to turn my PC into an all singing all dancing media center. I've been banging my head of a wall with this list for weeks, trying to gauge what to spend money on and what not to. Shopping wise I've only gone as far as searching for and selecting one appropriate component (the CPU).

Any comments on what people more experienced than I think I should buy would be appreciated, links to suitable products even more so.

And please if some kind soul would sit down and just run me through this list and their thoughts and ideas I'd be so grateful.
 
Solution
You seem to be approaching it right.

First thing I'd do is replace the cpu, mobo and ram with

fx8350, Gugabyte GA 990fx UD3 and 2 x 4gb 1866 1.5v cl 9 ram

The mobo will have a lot better sound than what you've got. So don't worry about a sound card.

That will take care of most of your 500Euro.

Save some more and buy a 120GB SSD.
You seem to be approaching it right.

First thing I'd do is replace the cpu, mobo and ram with

fx8350, Gugabyte GA 990fx UD3 and 2 x 4gb 1866 1.5v cl 9 ram

The mobo will have a lot better sound than what you've got. So don't worry about a sound card.

That will take care of most of your 500Euro.

Save some more and buy a 120GB SSD.
 
Solution

TadghsMuffins

Honorable
Feb 7, 2013
31
0
10,540

Thank you, I'll look into that, I really appreciate the recommendations, I really do.

Also can I just ask, how significant is the change gonna be with the new ram? Because if I were to skip out on the ram and get a smaller SSD that would give me wriggle room for a new PS for my UB802 and a subwoofer, because I really notice the poor bass on my T90s, I'm not exactly a hardcore audiophile but it is killing me inside a bit.

Also as a final question, seeing how you're a CPU Grandmaster and such: (sorry, AMD is a price thing, it's not personal ;) ) do you reckon the fx8350 will be suitable for more challenging emulation? That's an important thing for me and I would be willing to shell out more money IF I had to. I think it will do fine but I've only read the reviews.
 

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