palmtreehugger :
Let me restate this. I currently am running a i7-2600 3.4ghz with 16gb of ddr3 ram and Windows 7 Ultimate. The hard drives are all SSD. What I would like to build is something that's faster and more powerful as far as running many open tabs at a time. I don't game. I do have many programs running at a time though. I want a full ATX platform. What would be a great combo of CPU and MB that would do it for me without spending a fortune? Will DDR4 be a help and how much of it?
- If you build a new system. You have to use DDR4. DDR3 is not compatible.
- You already have a good CPU. Since you want an appreciably faster CPU and will need to buy new RAM. There is no cheap option.
- If 16GB is enough for you then you need 16GB. Going by what you describe you will want 32GB. If not now soon. It is always a bit dicey upgrading RAM. It is better to get what you think you will need now.
- If you want a new computer. You need Windows 10 or Linux. There are no drivers for the last two generations of Intel CPU for Windows 7. Maybe you can find some work around or hack to get it to work. Otherwise you'll have to look at old Broadwell-E systems and the X99 chipset. Which will cost more than Coffee Lake and aren't as fast.
- If you can live with Windows 10 the build above will work.