Full Upgrade (MoBo, RAM, CPU, SSD, GPU) Recommendations

Schweetness101 · Apr 20, 2015

Hello,

Here's my current rig (about 7 years old, except the GPU is about 2 years old, and i just got Win 7):

Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q9450 OC'ed to 3.2 GHz
IceQ HD 7850
4 GB DDR2 800 MHz RAM
750W Corsair Power Supply
ASUS Rampage Formula E3559 MOBO
500Gb HDD
Windows 7

I'm looking to upgrade the whole thing pretty soon, probably in the next six months if not sooner. I think that my power supply, although old, should be fine given that it's a 750w Corsair (what do you think?), the HDD is fine, and the case is large with good fans, optical drive, usb ports, etc...(its an old Digital Storm. I forgot the model type, but the case is big.).

I want then a new MoBo, CPU, GPU, Ram, and maybe an SSD (or do you think I shouldn't recycle the case et al because of how old they are now?). I'm looking in the range of these parts, and whatever other near equivalents they have:

CPU: 4460 or 4590 or 4690k
GPU: GTX 960 or GTX 970 or AMD R9 290
Ram: 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz or 1866 mhZ
Mobo: H81 or Z97 or H97 or H87 or...I have no idea, I'm most confused about this part
SSD: no idea, probably 120 or 240 GB, dunno brands, enough for OS and a few games if you think its necessary for the new generation of games

so probably roughly in the $500-$800 range? What's the sweet-spot for price/performance here? The 4690k can over-clock, but it's a little more expensive, and to do so I'll need an after market fan and a better MoBo than the 4590 requires, so it adds up in cost. Is it worth it? And, will I notice the difference between the 960 and 970, given my needs (below)?

I mostly like RTS's and RPG's and have spent ungodly time on Men of War 2 Assault Squad, all the Total War games, Mount and Blade plus mods, Divinity Original Sin, Skyrim etc...and would like to be able to play in the years to come the next Elder Scrolls installment, the next Total War, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Mount and Blade 2, The Witcher 3, Star Citizen, and others. I will also probably get an Oculus Rift once it's out of Development, if that's relevant.

Incredible graphical fidelity is not important to me, as long as I can continue to play new games on Med-High settings with around 45fps at least, and rare CTDs, for the next say 3-4 years.

Is now a good time to do this? My current rig is fine for what I play now, but it won't be pretty soon coming up here to play the next generation of games. Will there be major new generation of hardware that I ought to wait 6 months to a year for? Like Nvidia Pascal, or the next Intel CPUs, or whatever equivalents?

Thanks for any help!

James Mason · Apr 20, 2015

You can keep the case, the PSU needs more details the just wattage, some of corsairs PSUs are bad. You may be able to reuse windows 7, I don't know how you bought it though.

If you can keep the PSU, you can definitely upgrade to this, you don't "need" an aftermarket cooler to do a little overclocking, and you can always get one later on when you need to overclock:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($226.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($84.98 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($54.23 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($69.88 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($52.49 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card ($303.99 @ Best Buy)
Total: $792.56
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-20 18:51 EDT-0400

If you can't keep he PSU, then you could go with an un-overclockable system and new PSU:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($187.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M Anniversary Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($68.98 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($54.23 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($69.88 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($52.49 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card ($303.99 @ Best Buy)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($58.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $796.55
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-20 18:56 EDT-0400

You can wait for new tech for eternity. There won't be a huge difference between the newest stuff now and the next newest stuff. It's just when the the next newest stuff comes out the current stuff won't be worth recommending anymore.

Schweetness101 · Apr 20, 2015

Thanks a lot for the help!

The PSU says TX 750W Corsair. Do you need more info than that? I think it's a pretty good one, I remember specifically getting one that outpaced much of the rest of the build for safety and upgradeability's sake.

Will I notice much of a difference between the 4590 and the 4690k in terms of performance? Will it be a much greater difference after overclocking the 4690k? What would you choose? I save about 60 bucks here with the 4590 when you take into account the mobo difference as well. Worth it? How do you think the longevity of the two CPUs compares?

I also notice that you put the 970 in both builds. Would you say this is the better price/performance option? It is significantly more expensive than the 960...

I've already got the old HDD which still works fine, but I see you recommend getting a new one along with the SSD? I don't have a big music or picture library, so if I had an SSD for the OS and a few games that would be pretty much all my storage needs. Should I still het a new HDD?

Also, with the 4950 can't I save a little money and get an H81 board instead of an H97?

Thanks Again!

James Mason · Apr 20, 2015

Ehh, your PSU is kinda meh, it's not exactly recommended to OC with it.

Non OC'd, there isn't much difference in terms of performance between the two CPUs, you wouldn't notice it outside of benchmarks.

There is a fairly noticeable difference between a 960 and a 970 in terms of graphics performance. The difference between a 970 and a 980 is much less, but the price disparity is greater. You can still go with a 960 if you want to spend less money though.

Only reason I recommended a new HDD is because they die eventually especially if they aren't high quality like WD. It's also possible the 500GB you have a 5400 RPM drive that can kind of effect ingame performance, normally HDDs don't but they can if they are slow enough.

SSDs will run out of space stupidly quick as well with these 60GB games like GTAV, and probably Witcher 3, and Star Citizen will probably be even larger. If you don't get a HDDand get a 960, you could probably get a larger SSD as well to offset this, though 250gbs will still mean a lot less in the years to come.

It's "possible" the h81 board you get won't have the updated BIOS to use the 4590/4690k and then you wouldn't be able to boot up the PC. They "should" be updated by now but I can't guarantee that they are. I can guarantee a h97 will work with those CPUs.

Schweetness101 · Apr 21, 2015

Okay, so is the PSU good enough though for the 4590 and 970 without OC then? Is a new Corsair 750W TX different from the one made 7 years ago even if they have the same model number? It's rated for 100,000, which I've maybe used 15% of, so it's probably fine in terms of life expectancy, or no?

thanks again!

James Mason · Apr 21, 2015

Schweetness101 :

There's other things going on with PSUs that the label doesn't show.
A new TX won't be any better than an old TX.
See the thing is, Corsair doesn't actually make PSUs, they just buy them from various PSU makers and slap a sticker with their name on it.
And not all PSU makers are equal, and a lot of them make cheap crap. Some of Corsairs higher end models are made by good companies, most of the rest of their product line isn't very good though.
The TX is one of those not very good ones.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html

But as long as you don't OC is fine, though it's age is still scary.

Schweetness101 · Apr 21, 2015

In the link you provided there's another link to the old tier discussion from 2013 (http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-1804779/power-supply-unit-tier-list.html) in which the Corsair TX is listed as tier two, class A (second highest tier) and described as "Excellent quality units, if not, as good as the Tier one class of units." I'm not meaning to be difficult here, but it looks like the Corsair TX is good quality, regardless of the fact that some other Corsair lines may be of low quality. The only question is the age, but what really matters is hours used right? And it's good for 100,000 hours, and I haven't used anywhere near to even 1/4 of that.

I OC'ed with it pretty hard for my Q9450 from 2.66 to 3.4 GHz, and it went fine and stable, but maybe that's not relevant because the 4690k uses way more power? If anything though the Q9450 has slightly higher power consumption based on online charts. It seems like I should be able to hook the psu up to a 4690k and OC.

I'm persuaded from you and other research that I ought to get the 970, not the 960, along with the other parts listed. My only question now is whether to get the 4590 or 4690k.

questions:

Will I really notice the difference between the two cpus now in terms of in-game performance, given an OC on the 4690k?

Are games now/going to become more demanding cpu-wise in the future such that I will notice the difference?

Will the 4590 bottleneck the 970?

Will the difference in performance become much more noticeable in the years to come, such that the 4590 would have to be replaced 1-2 years earlier than the 4690k to stay relevant?

Will the cost difference ($40 on the CPU, plus ~$40 on the cooler, plus ~$30 on the z97 mobo, so probably about $100 difference all told) be worth it do you think?

thanks again!

James Mason · Apr 21, 2015

If you do OC, there will be a noticeable game performance difference.
Games are indeed becoming more CPU demanding, and they are now, Ex. GTAV.
A 4590 really wouldn't bottleneck a 970, they're pretty much equal in terms of power, and the 4590 should still have power to spare to do recordings/streaming ect.
Now here's the thing, it'll cost more in the long run to upgrade the CPU later than to just get the better CPU now, even with the part price difference. You can stick with Intel's stock heatsink and OC a little bit though, and then when you NEED to OC later on you can buy a cooler then, but that's because youre getting a stock heatsink for "free."

gonf · Apr 21, 2015

hey.
does your old computer still work? if it does why don't you just use that as a file server or video server?
since you are getting almost everything here. cpu,gpu,ram,mobo,ssd. the only thing you need is pus and a case? that will be like 20% of the cost of the total computer. if you think your old pus and case is good. you can always get a cheap pus and case to put your old computer in it.

James Mason · Apr 21, 2015

I would never recommend a "cheap" PSU, as it's basically the heart of the computer, and if it has problems it can damage the whole thing.

But yeah, you could turn your old system into a file server or a home theater pc with little effort.

Schweetness101 · Apr 21, 2015

Thanks for all the answers!

Okay, I think I'll go with 4690k and 970 then. I'll just get the better cpu cooler. I don't want to mess with peeling the old one off later. Any recommendations for cpu cooler?

I wanted to do this pretty cheaply while still getting a good rig, and reusing the case, fans, psu, optical drive, and HDD should save me a couple hundred bucks. I don't have any use for my own independent server computer and I already have a home theatre.

As a side note, does SSD brand matter much? There are so many I'm not sure what the differences are.

James Mason · Apr 21, 2015

Schweetness101 :

Ehh, it matters a little bit, but basically the Samsung Evo 840/850 are the best bets for the money.

CPU Cooler wise a Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo is only about $25 and has pretty amazing cooling performance, it's rather big though so you'd have to double check your case width and RAM height clearance/distance from the CPU.

You can also get a 120mm water cooler all-in-one setup as well for about $60-70, they generally run a few C/F cooler and quite a bit quieter than air coolers.

Schweetness101 · Apr 21, 2015

Okay, thanks.

And, last, but not least, I'm looking at, for MoBos:

ASRock Z97 Anniversary (your choice in the pcpartpicker) $90
GIGABYTE GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5 $124
ASUS Z97-A $140
Something Else?

The asrock is obviously the cheapest. Is that the only reason why you picked it? Will it have sufficient features, ports, capabilities etc...for a stable overclocked 4690k? Or am I better off with the more expensive Asus or Gigabyte boards? Both of those more expensive boards have reviews on Newegg of people successfully OC'ing 4690k's with them, but no such example for the asrock. I really don't want to put the thing together and then have to pull it all back apart again because the 90 dollar board crapped out where the 125 dollar didn't.

Thanks again.

James Mason · Apr 21, 2015

The inital reason i chose it was because it was the cheapest, budgets and all.
But the z97 boards are all roughly the same, the differences between them are just like, how many SATA ports they have or how many USB ports they have or whether they have WiFi built in.
Just pick the one you want from this: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-intel-amd-motherboard,3902.html

Schweetness101 · Apr 21, 2015

All of those boards are way more expensive though. I'm only looking to have 1xSSD, 1xHDD, 1xOptical Drive, 1xGPU, 2xRAM Sticks, etc...so I don't want to waste money buying a board with a bunch of extra slots that will sit empty. I just want one with all of the slots I need, and of sufficient quality to significantly overclock a 4690k with 970. These look like the potential options:

GIGABYTE GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5 $124
GIGABYTE GA-Z97X $130
GIGABYTE GA-Z97-HD3 $100

ASUS Z97-A $140
ASUS Z97-E $130

ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer $130
ASRock Z97 Extreme3 $116
ASRock Z97 Anniversary $90

They of course all have their unique specifications, but I have really no idea which, if any, will actually perform better, and which are more expensive because they have ports that I won't end up using.

Thanks again for all of the help.

James Mason · Apr 21, 2015

By it being a z97 board, it's already going to have lots of slots you don't need.
You can read the specs and reviews to see which they have, they're all fairly obvious.
Tom's HAS reviews for a lot of the boards as well you can go through.
If you want to OC you have to spend the money to do it.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/mainstream-gaming-z97-motherboard,3824.html

If you REALLY don't want empty slots, than you'd have to go for MITX system though, which will cost a little extra money, but everything will take up a smaller footprint. But this also means you can never SLI and you can't really do air cooling, as you won't have the space for a fan heatsink, and will have to either use the stock fan (which is fine for a bit) or get a watercooler (which run about $70-100)

Schweetness101 · Apr 21, 2015

Alright, here's my pcpartpicker rig with a case, psu, network card, hdd, and optical drive thrown in for good measure to see how much the thing would cost were I to make a whole new rig (plus I'm reconsidering whether I should recycle the parts from the old one):

[PCPartPicker part list](http://pcpartpicker.com/p/fyvCVn) / [Price breakdown by merchant](http://pcpartpicker.com/p/fyvCVn/by_merchant/)

Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
**CPU** | [Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80646i54690k) | $226.99 @ SuperBiiz
**CPU Cooler** | [Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/cooler-master-cpu-cooler-rr212e20pkr2) | $28.89 @ OutletPC
**Motherboard** | [Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-z97a) | $139.99 @ Amazon
**Memory** | [G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f31600c9d8gab) | $59.98 @ OutletPC
**Storage** | [Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-internal-hard-drive-mz75e250bam) | $97.99 @ Amazon
**Storage** | [Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd10ezex) | $52.49 @ OutletPC
**Video Card** | [Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB STRIX Video Card](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-video-card-strixgtx970dc2oc4gd5) | $329.00 @ NCIX US
**Case** | [Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-case-300r) | $63.00 @ Newegg
**Power Supply** | [EVGA 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-power-supply-110b20750vr) | $79.99 @ NCIX US
**Optical Drive** | [Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-optical-drive-drw24b1stblkbas) | $18.95 @ OutletPC
**Operating System** | [Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit)](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/microsoft-os-gfc02050) | $86.89 @ OutletPC
**Wireless Network Adapter** | [Gigabyte GC-WB867D-I 802.11a/b/g/n/ac PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-wireless-network-card-gcwb867di) | $29.98 @ OutletPC
| *Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts* |
| **Total** | **$1214.14**
| Generated by [PCPartPicker](http://pcpartpicker.com) 2015-04-21 19:46 EDT-0400 |

So things add up fast when you throw that all in. It comes out to $1214.14 with all the parts I wanted. Plus with shipping, it should be more like $1,300.

Incidentally (or not, I'm sure they did all their research more thoroughly than me), the digital storm pc in the same price range, the Vanquish 3 Ultimate has effectively exactly the same parts (and they seem to be of comparable quality. I don't see that they cheaped out on the RAM or PSU or the other usual suspects in any obvious or noticeable way, do you?):

https://www.digitalstormonline.com/configurator.asp?id=1165729

and it costs 1389+65 shipping = 1,454

So, I save like 150 bucks doing it myself, but it would be a pretty big pain in the ass (I'm not really into building PCs as a hobby, but I understand the unquantifiable benefits of building and understanding your own pc), plus I don't get the whole-system 3 year warranty and customer service if I DIY (just for parts). I don't mean to turn this into a build it vs buy it thread (I know there are a million of them, and generally if you're on Tom's you're gonna build it), but if I decide to do this whole new system would it really be worth it to build?

You might recommend searching around for deals on slightly inferior versions of various parts, but if I'm gonna build it I'm gonna use these parts in the pcpartpicker, or parts of equivalent value, anyway, so the savings seems fixed at around $150 (that is, unless I decide on the upgrade instead of the new build, in which case the savings is more like $350, but thats with a 7 year old PSU and an old HDD, so I dunno...).

What do you think?

James Mason · Apr 22, 2015

So, your PC part picker build looks pretty fantastic.

The Digital storm actually does cheap out on quite a few parts.
The mobo could be a very cheap z97.
The ram is also not specific, there aren't really "bad" ram makers, but it's unlikely they'll be "quality."
The PSU they use is fairly well known for being low quality.
The HDD is also cheaper and has a higher failure rate.
The GPU is probably also gonna be the cheapest they can get.
They get a naturally cheaper OS cost than we do though.
Probably this, though they also likely get a bit better prices than we do at retail, and they get some cashback for including things like McAfee (which you shouldn't use anyways, it's not very good) and there's probably gonna be other stuff installed on their as well.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($231.99 @ NCIX US)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper T4 70.0 CFM Rifle Bearing CPU Cooler ($24.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($113.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($54.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($106.31 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card ($311.99 @ Best Buy)
Case: Thermaltake Versa H23 ATX Mid Tower Case ($40.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($89.98 @ OutletPC)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-14 DVD/CD Writer ($14.09 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($87.79 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1127.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-22 19:48 EDT-0400

Building a PC only takes maybe 2-3 hours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIF43-0mDk4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zAdwedmj1M

Schweetness101 · Apr 22, 2015

Okay thanks.

would I notice a difference in quality between the psu you've selected and the one I've got in my partpicker? Your's is $10.00 more and I was wondering if you thought the difference between them was significant.

Thanks so much again for the help! It looks like this thread can finally wrap up

James Mason · Apr 23, 2015

That last build is what you'd likely get from digital storm.

Considering how much you're spending I'd actually prefer to see an XFX or Seasonic PSU in there though. Seasonic is basically the highest quality PSU maker, and XFX basically only makes rebranded Seasonic PSUs. You don't need more than 500Ws for the system as it stands currently, but if you were to SLI down the line (not that I recommend it) you would need closer to 750.

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