Minimal upgrade to 2008 PC after MoBo fail for non-gaming

xlay · Jan 2, 2015

Approximate Purchase Date: This or the next week
Budget Range: $300-400
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Surfing the internet, remote desktop, media playback, programming, media editing
Are you buying a monitor: No - have 2 1080p ones already
Parts to Upgrade: CPU, MoBo, RAM if have to, maybe SSD - Existing 500W PSU from Antec Sonata III 500 ATX Case

Other hardware that would prefer to keep:

2 sets of G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
SAPPHIRE 100245L Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-Bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
WD Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Pioneer DVD±R SATA Model DVR-216DBK

Do you need to buy OS: No
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg, Amazon
Location: Seattle, WA, US
Parts Preferences: upgrade to brands that may allow to re-use the existing case
Overclocking: No
SLI or Crossfire: No
Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080
Additional Comments: Would like to minimize unnecessary upgrades since previous PC was doing its job just fine. So don't want a new case for some overheating CPU or a new PSU if 500W will do.
Why Are You Upgrading: MoBo won't start spinning without any sound unless the battery is taken out. New battery doesn't fix it. When battery is removed, standard CMOS error boot happens.

Darkbreeze · Jan 2, 2015

No "upgraded" and current motherboards are going to support DDR2, so that's out. I'll find you a good configuration though.

Darkbreeze · Jan 2, 2015

Have you determined with any certainty, that it isn't a drive or RAM failure? What do you mean by the motherboard "spinning"?

Darkbreeze · Jan 2, 2015

This would be a nice upgrade, even if your current parts were still ok:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($106.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($65.75 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($62.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $235.73
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-02 16:18 EST-0500

That i3 does have hyperthreading, so in reality it's performance is more comparable to a 4 core.

xlay · Jan 2, 2015

Thank you for all the quick suggestions, darkbreeze! I've followed the guide here on the forums by disconnecting everything but the CPU to see if powering up will start spinning its fan. I could only do that if I took out the battery. I bought a new one, and having it in place won't allow to boot. Adding on more hardware won't improve the situation.

Darkbreeze :

Darkbreeze · Jan 2, 2015

Then it's likely that either the CPU or the motherboard took a dive. Bad luck. That's a good setup there for the price and will have really good performance characteristics. It might even be overkill for your needs. 4GB of RAM might be plenty for you. What is your OS version and bit version? If you have a 32 bit OS, anything over 4GB won't be recognized anyhow.

Darkbreeze · Jan 2, 2015

In either of those cases, this would work fine:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($106.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($65.75 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $207.73
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-02 16:33 EST-0500

Lutfij · Jan 2, 2015

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($68.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Biostar B85MG Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $148.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-02 17:14 EST-0500

^ This would arguably be the cheapest you can go without sacrificing on performance and not loose out on the HD4850 but if all you're going to do is the above ( Surfing the internet, remote desktop, media playback, programming, media editing -> photoshop), you can ditch the GPU as well. With the CPU, I'm going by the gaming CPU hierarchy chart which doesn't account for an office environment workload but for a gaming environment. Nevertheless you'll be seeing similar speeds to your initially owned Q6600. Ram isn't bumped up from your previous systems requirements and trying to keep your budget as close to the belly as possible.

or you could go with this;
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($106.97 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus H81M-D PLUS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($44.49 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $186.45
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-02 17:27 EST-0500
^cheaper mobo to get the job done and since you won't be overclocking or the likes the board will hold its ground with that cpu and ram.

Come to think of it, multi-tasking with apps and mutli tabbed operation does tend to take up memory so...
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($106.97 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus H81M-D PLUS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($44.49 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team Elite Plus 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($61.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $213.44
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-02 17:32 EST-0500
^ another consideration was that mobo's due to the price range on;y allow a maximum of 2 dimms to be populated at once thus the decision to get the highest ram within your target budget. If and when you think you have free time to game on your machine with titles like Battlefield 4 or below or Crysis trilogy, you can drop in a GTX 750Ti and be able to game on a single 1080 monitor. i.e if the gaming fever bites you hard

xlay · Jan 2, 2015

Thank you both, it's great to see lots of options! Are there suggestions that would be closer to the $400 range? Why is everyone recommending the Micro ATX instead of regular?

Looking around, the following seems to be a popular option:
CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: ASRock H97M PRO4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory

Now if only, a recommendation can squeeze in an OS-sized SSD for a $400 total I imagine I'll be able to use the system for another 3-5 years?

Darkbreeze :

Lutfij :

Lutfij · Jan 2, 2015

In terms of PCB real estate, matx boards offer the best bang for the buck in manufacturing costs and you can leave it sparely populated to bring the price down lower. A regular or atx sized mobo that is sparsely populated looks very bland and due to the vast unused real estate the cost of manufacturing said PCB goes up and that would mean putting on very cheap components.

Tell ya what mate, whats your absolute maximum budget?

Edit:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($106.97 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus H81M-D PLUS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($44.49 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team Elite Plus 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($61.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M550 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($136.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $350.43
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-02 17:49 EST-0500

Plenty of space for your OS and apps. If you're using adobe's Photoshop - you'll get the benefit of getting scratch disk space on your SSD and as mentioned prior, you can have some spare space for a game or two.

Edit 2: for the heck of bringing in your ATX suggestion,
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($106.97 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97-GAMING 3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($97.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team Elite Plus 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($61.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M550 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($136.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $403.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-02 18:01 EST-0500

or this

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($106.97 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty H97 Killer ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($100.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team Elite Plus 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($61.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M550 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($136.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $406.92
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-02 17:59 EST-0500

If you may have a slight change of heart

,
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($187.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97-GAMING 3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($97.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($134.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Crucial M550 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($136.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $557.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-02 18:07 EST-0500

Darkbreeze · Jan 2, 2015

Pardon the interruption, but my understanding was that you were looking for a minimal system,

Would like to minimize unnecessary upgrades since previous PC was doing its job just fine.

and no place did I see ANY mention of it being intended for use as a gaming rig. If I've misunderstood something, I applogize, but my impression was you wanted to get the best rig you could with as minimal of an investment as possible. I wouldn't have recommended the G3258 as Lutfij did due to the fact that it IS similar in performance to your old rig, and it makes no sense to upgrade to new components but have the same performance.

It's common knowledge that to get ANY relevant performance from the Pentium it needs to be seriously overclocked and you indicated you did not want to overclock, which is why it was excluded as an option. You also never answered the question regarding your Windows version including whether it was 32 or 64 bit.

If you WANT to spend the full 400 bucks and get as much as you can out of it, strictly for the uses you listed above, this is another option that will pretty much allow you to do anything you desire and while it stops short of i7 performance for things like high level rendering, it's extremely capable.:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Asus H97-PLUS ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($95.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($66.30 @ Newegg)
Total: $382.28
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-02 21:29 EST-0500

Or if you prefer you can go this way with a Xeon which gives you very decent workstation performance with 4 cores plus hyperthreading, allowing for an additional 4 threads beyond what the i5 provides. Personally, for your intended use, I think this is the much better option. It will certainly be more advantageous when multitasking and for editing or rendering video.:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($242.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($72.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($66.30 @ Newegg)
Total: $382.27
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-02 21:33 EST-0500

Lutfij · Jan 2, 2015

^ You seem upset

I'm in no hurry to get Best Solutions. I'm just here to help.

That being said, I poked a jab at the parts list OP found to be as popular option(s). Now would you care to shine some light on this;

It's common knowledge that to get ANY relevant performance from the Pentium it needs to be seriously overclocked

^ OP has stated that the requirements would be south of gaming i.e; Surfing the internet, remote desktop, media playback, programming, media editing and all of them do not require more than the oomph of a Pentium. In terms of gaming, you'll need that serious overclocking.

Darkbreeze · Jan 2, 2015

That wasn't a lash out at you bud, it was just a "Hey, I thought we weren't doing that" response to a change in criteria. Heh. No bunched panties, K?

Also, I agree that the Pentium is sufficient to browse the web and run office apps, but so is a Phenom II. It's just that I wouldn't recommend somebody buying one new, unless that's all their budget could encompass. But it would definitely work, AND the price WAS much lower, so it's still a good option.

Lutfij · Jan 2, 2015

I put in the $500 suggestion since I noticed a slight bump from the $300 cap otherwise for his intended use and needs I'd suggest the G3258 with the cheapest mobo and ram kit the market has to offer as the OP had asked for such a thing. Besides not like OP will be pushing every clock for clock with the workload/applications stated above.

Truth be told I was going to suggest OP to get the above recommendation either yours or mine and ditch the HD4850 on Ebay and net a return on investment until I noticed OP may be running a dual monitor setup and could be gaming.

Darkbreeze · Jan 2, 2015

Yeah, I saw that in the beginning but I just figured it was to increase screen real estate and improve workflow since no mention of gaming was made. Could go either way and for video stuff the card is probably beneficial anyhow. Again, none of these options above is bad and is certainly better than what he has now, which is nothing. Heh. Any rig is better than no rig when it comes down to it.

nikoli707 · Jan 2, 2015

i would just get the i3-4160 now any motherboard will be fine. if your previous setup was doing fine, then 4gb should be plenty. if you go with some of the micro atx motherboards that only have 2 ram slots, i would get a single stick of 4gb instead of two 2gb sticks. this way if your needs change and you want 8gb, you can just add another 4gb stick. if you get a different motherboard that has 4 ram slots, then two 2gb sticks is fine... unless of course you decide to go with 8gb. but being that these ddr3 1600mhz sticks are much faster than your old ddr2 800mhz, your going to get a performance jump anyways.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor ($111.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($45.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: A-Data XPG V1.0 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $192.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-02 23:24 EST-0500

xlay · Jan 3, 2015

Thank you once again for an expanded list of suggestions. To clarify, I'd definitely be using x64 OS and was wondering about the larger MoBo as I'd prefer to have options for a future memory upgrade too.

One final question for darkbreeze - is the Xeon option going to be OK for my existing 500W source if I add on the SSD and will the stock fan/cooler be enough too?

Darkbreeze · Jan 3, 2015

The Xeon has little to do with any additional demands on the PSU. The priority consideration on PSU capacity is almost always, well, pretty much always, the GPU, if a PCIe graphics card is installed. Plus, the Xeon only has an 80w TDP, which is lower than almost any other desktop or workstation CPU, or in any case, most modern ones. One crucial factor about the Xeon however is that it cannot be overclocked as it is a locked CPU, but since you have no plans to overclock, doesn't matter.

What is the brand and model number of your current power supply? If I'm not mistaken it's an Antec Earthwatts 500w unit that comes in that case, which is a very good unit so that part is probably ok.

And yes, the stock Xeon cooler is fine, again, it's a very low TDP chip. An aftermarket cooler is always a good investment though. For that, I'd probably recommend one of the low profile Noctua, Scythe or Thermalright units. You don't need a tower cooler with that configuration.

Lutfij · Jan 4, 2015

^ Good advice!

If you're going to use the stock cooler, the only cheapest investment would be aftermarket TIM. That can drop a few degrees on your temps when paired with a stock cooler. If you do decide to buy an aftermarket cooler, you may be able to use the leftover TIM on your new cooler but you'll naturally get TIM bundled on an aftermarket cooler anyway.

Minimal upgrade to 2008 PC after MoBo fail for non-gaming

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