- Mar 12, 2014
- 4,052
- 0
- 10,960
My PC is an HP Pavilion Elite HPE-580t which I had for 3.5 years. Recently, the CPU seems to have been getting slower during the past week and games started lagging. I once suspected the GPU to be the issue, but after I tried using another GPU, I figured that the CPU will soon need to be replaced. The PC came with Windows 7 on a 1.5 TB HDD and ran well at first. I since added an SSD and put Windows 8.1 on it, upgraded the GPU and power supply, and swapped the case fan. I was running the CPU at max temps of about 83°C for the past 1-2 years and have now realized that I needed new thermal paste. I did that and the CPU temps fell 10-15°C, but I still had some lagging in games. Even after I tried reinstalling Windows 7 from recovery discs onto the old HDD, Windows felt that it did not perform as well as it used to when I first purchased this desktop. After all of that torture with the high temps, I fear that my CPU may soon throw in the towel. I feel that upgrading to a new CPU and motherboard will benefit me more than any other upgrade. I've been stuck on PCI-E 2.0 and SATA II, the motherboard runs a legacy BIOS which is apparently not compatible with Nvidia 700 series GPUs and possibly beyond, cannot overclock the CPU, and has trouble handling any PSU over 600w. I've always wondered if it's worth upgrading my CPU and seemed to have discovered that I have found the answer. With an upgrade to a newer motherboard, my PC will finally be released from the shackles of the limited upgradeability of an OEM motherboard and will be set free. I would then be able to install any PSU I want and upgrade to a GTX 780 or better without any CPU bottlenecks.
My case will only hold a Micro ATX board and cooling is limited, so overclocking may not be an option; however, I could get an unlocked CPU if I want to upgrade the case and CPU cooler later on. But I hear that overclocking is not really worth it and is just for enthusiasts and hobbyists. So I would draw attention away from an overclocked CPU and get a vanilla Haswell refresh model. I would be interested in the i7-4790 if I could find a good motherboard for it. I'm not sure if my RAM is 1600 MHz as it reads on the system info or if the sticks are actually 1066 MHz. It would determine the motherboard compatibility since I'm not planning to replace my RAM. But I will need to lose two RAM sticks and downgrade to 8 GB RAM, which is still fine.
At least this is what I'd be looking at:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor ($299.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M PRO4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($81.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $381.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-08-26 16:56 EDT-0400
As far as it looks, the motherboard is 1066 MHz RAM-compatible, hence my selection. I also heard that installing a single GPU and TV tuner would not affect PCI-E bandwidth on the 4790k since it supports 16 PCI-E lanes on the CPU and 4 lanes on the chipset. Does this also hold true on the vanilla 4790? Also, should I go with the 4790k due to its higher clock speeds and obtain a z97 motherboard if I wish to upgrade the case and CPU cooler and overclock later? For cosmetic purposes, I'd prefer to keep the same case so that my PC still looks like the PC I purchased in 2011. Will I have any issues installing any Micro ATX board into the case? Also, I noticed that the 4790 does not support 1066 MHz RAM and that I may need to replace that as well. Looking at the screenshot above, will my RAM still work?
My case will only hold a Micro ATX board and cooling is limited, so overclocking may not be an option; however, I could get an unlocked CPU if I want to upgrade the case and CPU cooler later on. But I hear that overclocking is not really worth it and is just for enthusiasts and hobbyists. So I would draw attention away from an overclocked CPU and get a vanilla Haswell refresh model. I would be interested in the i7-4790 if I could find a good motherboard for it. I'm not sure if my RAM is 1600 MHz as it reads on the system info or if the sticks are actually 1066 MHz. It would determine the motherboard compatibility since I'm not planning to replace my RAM. But I will need to lose two RAM sticks and downgrade to 8 GB RAM, which is still fine.
At least this is what I'd be looking at:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor ($299.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M PRO4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($81.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $381.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-08-26 16:56 EDT-0400
As far as it looks, the motherboard is 1066 MHz RAM-compatible, hence my selection. I also heard that installing a single GPU and TV tuner would not affect PCI-E bandwidth on the 4790k since it supports 16 PCI-E lanes on the CPU and 4 lanes on the chipset. Does this also hold true on the vanilla 4790? Also, should I go with the 4790k due to its higher clock speeds and obtain a z97 motherboard if I wish to upgrade the case and CPU cooler and overclock later? For cosmetic purposes, I'd prefer to keep the same case so that my PC still looks like the PC I purchased in 2011. Will I have any issues installing any Micro ATX board into the case? Also, I noticed that the 4790 does not support 1066 MHz RAM and that I may need to replace that as well. Looking at the screenshot above, will my RAM still work?
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