So - I'll start off by saying a friend had an HP with a hardware failure (I believe it was the PSU) and he did not want to invest any money into fixing the thing (he says he sick of his PCs getting viruses so hes going to buy Apple from now - he also blames the nonexistent virus on the demise of the computer) so he gave it to me. I have now purchased a number of new components with really only the Motherboard and CPU to upgrade at this point. I used a couple of SSDs and Hdds I had laying around to cut down on expenditure.
Approximate Purchase Date: e.g.: Sooner or later depending on my upgrade path
Budget Range: $400-$700
System Usage from Most to Least Important: I am an IT professional and I would like to use the rig for a variety of things including (but not limited to); photoshop, sql server, Running Multiple VMs, Gaming at highest settings. I am currently able to max out Batman Arkham City, Crysis 2 and Witcher 2 (minus Ubersampling) with pretty good framerates.
Are you buying a monitor: In the future
Parts to Upgrade: CPU, mobo & probably RAM
Do you need to buy OS: No - Have windows 7 Ultimate
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: I buy most of my parts from Newegg or Amazon or wherever has the good deal
Location: Chicago
Parts Preferences: I prefer to stick with Intel motherboard/CPU
Overclocking: Yes
SLI or Crossfire: Yes but not right now
Your Monitor Resolution: 1920 x 1080 X2 at the moment but planning on a third soon
Rosewill THOR V2-White Edition
Pegatron IPISB-CU Motherboard HP Carmel2 1155 H61*
Pentium G620*
8 GB Crucial Ballistix 1333
GIGABYTE Geforce GTX 670 Windforce OC 2GB
Antec NEO ECO 620W
OCZ Agility 4 128GB
OCZ Agility 4 256GB
Seagate Momentus 500GB 2.5
(items marked with an asterix are original components from the HP desktop I was given)
Excluding the items I had laying around (2 SSDs, 1 Hdd, Mobo, CPU), I have a pretty decent build for a little less than $600.
At this point I am on fence of whether or not to upgrade the mobo and cpu to a Z77 & Ivybridge i5 or i7 K or wait until Haswell comes out next year. Additionally, I am considering purchasing a sandybridge i5 or i7 and keeping the motheboard until Haswell. Hoping to get some opinions on if it would be worthwhile to upgrade to a sandybridge core processor from the current Pentium G620 on the same (admittedly crappy) mobo. I don't really want to shell out the money to go with a 2011 socket so I have been primarily looking at the 1155 Z77 mobos.
Another option I am considering is getting just a mobo for now and transplanting the G620. I would upgrade the RAM (only paid like $35 for the 8GB of RAM I threw in so I'm not concerned). I would like to have a Mobo with dual x16/x16 pcie 3.0 for future sli of the 670's. Is the G620 going to be a bad bottleneck? Where should I go from here? Any mobo suggestions? The case can accommodate full size/extended ATX so if it gets me more ports and expandability, all the better.
1. Upgrade CPU to core i5 or i7 sandybridge only (keep crappy mobo)
2. Upgrade Motherboard and keep crappy Pentium G620
3. Do nothing and wait of Haswell
4. Any other ideas?
Approximate Purchase Date: e.g.: Sooner or later depending on my upgrade path
Budget Range: $400-$700
System Usage from Most to Least Important: I am an IT professional and I would like to use the rig for a variety of things including (but not limited to); photoshop, sql server, Running Multiple VMs, Gaming at highest settings. I am currently able to max out Batman Arkham City, Crysis 2 and Witcher 2 (minus Ubersampling) with pretty good framerates.
Are you buying a monitor: In the future
Parts to Upgrade: CPU, mobo & probably RAM
Do you need to buy OS: No - Have windows 7 Ultimate
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: I buy most of my parts from Newegg or Amazon or wherever has the good deal
Location: Chicago
Parts Preferences: I prefer to stick with Intel motherboard/CPU
Overclocking: Yes
SLI or Crossfire: Yes but not right now
Your Monitor Resolution: 1920 x 1080 X2 at the moment but planning on a third soon
Rosewill THOR V2-White Edition
Pegatron IPISB-CU Motherboard HP Carmel2 1155 H61*
Pentium G620*
8 GB Crucial Ballistix 1333
GIGABYTE Geforce GTX 670 Windforce OC 2GB
Antec NEO ECO 620W
OCZ Agility 4 128GB
OCZ Agility 4 256GB
Seagate Momentus 500GB 2.5
(items marked with an asterix are original components from the HP desktop I was given)
Excluding the items I had laying around (2 SSDs, 1 Hdd, Mobo, CPU), I have a pretty decent build for a little less than $600.
At this point I am on fence of whether or not to upgrade the mobo and cpu to a Z77 & Ivybridge i5 or i7 K or wait until Haswell comes out next year. Additionally, I am considering purchasing a sandybridge i5 or i7 and keeping the motheboard until Haswell. Hoping to get some opinions on if it would be worthwhile to upgrade to a sandybridge core processor from the current Pentium G620 on the same (admittedly crappy) mobo. I don't really want to shell out the money to go with a 2011 socket so I have been primarily looking at the 1155 Z77 mobos.
Another option I am considering is getting just a mobo for now and transplanting the G620. I would upgrade the RAM (only paid like $35 for the 8GB of RAM I threw in so I'm not concerned). I would like to have a Mobo with dual x16/x16 pcie 3.0 for future sli of the 670's. Is the G620 going to be a bad bottleneck? Where should I go from here? Any mobo suggestions? The case can accommodate full size/extended ATX so if it gets me more ports and expandability, all the better.
1. Upgrade CPU to core i5 or i7 sandybridge only (keep crappy mobo)
2. Upgrade Motherboard and keep crappy Pentium G620
3. Do nothing and wait of Haswell
4. Any other ideas?