Hey Guys -
My primary system at home has been one that's evolved for a few years now to where I'm at the point where I'll soon need a CPU upgrade. Unfortunately, that means I'll need a new motherboard and new RAM and with all the things i do on it, having 32gb of RAM has been fantastic, but unfortunately it isn't compatible within newer systems so will have to replace it as well. I've already offloaded a few things to another PC, but most must stay. I've been out of the hardware game for a while so don't know what's the best right now or even if now's a good time to upgrade or if something new is on the horizon.
Below are the current specs of my system followed by what I use it for in order of importance. Assuming now is a good time to purchase new MB / CPU / RAM, what would you suggest? I am on a fairly tight budget and it seems like I'll need to replace all 3 at once so don't even know if possible.
Current System Specs
- Intel 3770k CPU 3.5Ghz (OC'd to 4.0Ghz (40 x 100.1Mhz) - have massive air CPU cooler)
- Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H
- 32 GB RAM (4 x 8gb - DDR3-1333 SDRAM)
- 14 drives total
- 44tb Drive Pool (9 platter disks and 1 dedicated SSD for offloading)
- 256gb Samsung 850 Pro SSD for OS & primary apps (not in pool)
- 1tb Hybrid drive for App Caches & VMs (not in pool)
- 256gb SSD for VR Gaming Installations (not in pool)
- RocketRAID 2720 SAS Controller (Allows me to attach up to 8 SATA disks)
- Nvidia GeForce 970 GTX
- Oculus Rift (3 sensors + 2 touch controllers)
- x3 monitors
- Huge tower with much cooling
- Windows 10 x64
- Many other devices & accessories
What I Use It For
- Hosting ~10 different Python-based web interfaces / scripts for media management
- File server (44tb of media in a disk pool (Stablebit Drivepool) accessed via SMB on local network by dedicated Kodi systems)
- Gaming
- Plex server (For streaming media & sometimes transcoding to local devices or occasionally mobile ones over internet)
- Work / VPN
- Virtual Reality (/w Oculus Rift)
- Minor video editing
- Virtual Machines (Mostly use a dedicated ESX server right now which is hosted on an old beefed up laptop. Initially, it's why i went from 16gb - 32gb RAM so might be able to get by with just 16gb on new build)
- Web Browsing / Downloads / Scripting / etc...
The motherboard would need to have at least 6 SATA ports (pref 6Gbps) as I have 15 total with the RocketRAID hosting 8. Also, the more USB3, the better. Oculus takes up 3-4 of mine currently and USB Hubs usually don't cut it for most of my devices. My tower has 2 USB 3.0 & 2 USB 2.0 ones up front so the others would need to be in the back via an empty slot or down on the MB, itself.
Any suggestions? Thanks!!
UPDATE
After posting, I went to NewEgg and looked up a few things. Unless I'm reading it incorrectly, it seems processors haven't improved much beyond power consumption & integrated graphics (which I don't even use) in the past couple of years. Turns out even one of the latest Intel CPUs (i7-7700K) seems similar to what mine is currently as it is a quad core 4.2Ghz. With mine OC'd to 4.0 Ghz, would there really be much of a difference between the two besides the extra 200Mhz per core? It seems the only real way I might get a noticable performance boost would be to get a CPU with more cores!?! If you think I should stick with what I've got, just let me know. Thanks
My primary system at home has been one that's evolved for a few years now to where I'm at the point where I'll soon need a CPU upgrade. Unfortunately, that means I'll need a new motherboard and new RAM and with all the things i do on it, having 32gb of RAM has been fantastic, but unfortunately it isn't compatible within newer systems so will have to replace it as well. I've already offloaded a few things to another PC, but most must stay. I've been out of the hardware game for a while so don't know what's the best right now or even if now's a good time to upgrade or if something new is on the horizon.
Below are the current specs of my system followed by what I use it for in order of importance. Assuming now is a good time to purchase new MB / CPU / RAM, what would you suggest? I am on a fairly tight budget and it seems like I'll need to replace all 3 at once so don't even know if possible.
Current System Specs
- Intel 3770k CPU 3.5Ghz (OC'd to 4.0Ghz (40 x 100.1Mhz) - have massive air CPU cooler)
- Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H
- 32 GB RAM (4 x 8gb - DDR3-1333 SDRAM)
- 14 drives total
- 44tb Drive Pool (9 platter disks and 1 dedicated SSD for offloading)
- 256gb Samsung 850 Pro SSD for OS & primary apps (not in pool)
- 1tb Hybrid drive for App Caches & VMs (not in pool)
- 256gb SSD for VR Gaming Installations (not in pool)
- RocketRAID 2720 SAS Controller (Allows me to attach up to 8 SATA disks)
- Nvidia GeForce 970 GTX
- Oculus Rift (3 sensors + 2 touch controllers)
- x3 monitors
- Huge tower with much cooling
- Windows 10 x64
- Many other devices & accessories
What I Use It For
- Hosting ~10 different Python-based web interfaces / scripts for media management
- File server (44tb of media in a disk pool (Stablebit Drivepool) accessed via SMB on local network by dedicated Kodi systems)
- Gaming
- Plex server (For streaming media & sometimes transcoding to local devices or occasionally mobile ones over internet)
- Work / VPN
- Virtual Reality (/w Oculus Rift)
- Minor video editing
- Virtual Machines (Mostly use a dedicated ESX server right now which is hosted on an old beefed up laptop. Initially, it's why i went from 16gb - 32gb RAM so might be able to get by with just 16gb on new build)
- Web Browsing / Downloads / Scripting / etc...
The motherboard would need to have at least 6 SATA ports (pref 6Gbps) as I have 15 total with the RocketRAID hosting 8. Also, the more USB3, the better. Oculus takes up 3-4 of mine currently and USB Hubs usually don't cut it for most of my devices. My tower has 2 USB 3.0 & 2 USB 2.0 ones up front so the others would need to be in the back via an empty slot or down on the MB, itself.
Any suggestions? Thanks!!
UPDATE
After posting, I went to NewEgg and looked up a few things. Unless I'm reading it incorrectly, it seems processors haven't improved much beyond power consumption & integrated graphics (which I don't even use) in the past couple of years. Turns out even one of the latest Intel CPUs (i7-7700K) seems similar to what mine is currently as it is a quad core 4.2Ghz. With mine OC'd to 4.0 Ghz, would there really be much of a difference between the two besides the extra 200Mhz per core? It seems the only real way I might get a noticable performance boost would be to get a CPU with more cores!?! If you think I should stick with what I've got, just let me know. Thanks
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