$300-$400 CPU/Mobo upgrade

[MrFlyingbananas]

Approximate Purchase Date: Around December 12th

Budget Range: 350-400

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, Internet surfing (YouTube forums, ect.)

Are you buying a monitor: No

Parts to Upgrade: CPU, and Mobo.

Do you need to buy OS: No

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: microcenter.com for the CPU, (Very cheap there, and I live relatively close to one) and newegg, microcenter, or tigerdirect for Mobo.

Location: City, State/Region, Country: U.S.

Parts Preferences: Intel i5 3570K

Overclocking: Yes

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution: 1920 x 1080 (All games are played in 1600 x 900 windowed mode)

Additional Comments: I play a variety of physics oriented games such as Garry's Mod, and I play MMOs such as Planetside 2. I also want to use this computer as a hackintosh.

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: My AMD Athlon II X4 640 I believe is bottle necking my GPU, (GeForce GTX 560 Ti) and it doesn't handle physics well.

 

[ckholt83]

So... just motherboard and CPU? That's easy enough.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($169.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($114.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $309.97
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)


Threw in a 3rd party HSF since you specified you wanted the 3570k and I assume that means you intend to overclock.

I'd spend the extra $90 on a 120GB SSD if you don't already have one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147163&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

 

[MrFlyingbananas]

Best answer selected by MrFlyingbananas.