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Upgrade motherboard and processor (Resolved)


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#1
DeZiekeNon

DeZiekeNon

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Hi Geeks!

 

In the near future I am looking to upgrade my PC. I want a new processor, but since I already have more or less the best processor that is supported by my motherboard, that will have to be upgraded as well. I would like an Intel i7 CPU, but the choice in motherboards is overwhelming. I would like a new motherboard that will allow me to continue to upgrade my PC for the next few years. What options do I need to consider? I am not interested in overclocking. Budgetwise, I want a significant upgrade without paying for extra features that I don't need. What would you guys recommend?

 

My current system:

 

Motherboard: Asus M4a79T Deluxe (AM3, 790FX)
Processor: AMD Phenom II x4 965 Black Edition (3,4Ghz) (quad-core)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8 GB 2 x 4 GB - DIMM 240-pins - DDR3 - 1600 MHz / PC3-12800 - CL9 - 1.5 V
Graphics Card: MSI Lightning Boost Radeon HD 7970 3GB
Harddisk: Western Digital Velociraptor 150Gb (10.000RPM SATAII) + Western Digital Raptor 150Gb (10.000RPM SATA) + Samsung 1TB 7200RPM
DVD Drive: Aopen DVD+RWDVD-RW
Power: Zalman ZM850-HP (850watt)
Casefans: 4x 14cm (sharkoon), 2x 12cm (coolermaster) en 1x 10cm (zalman) silent casefans
CPU fan: Cooler Master Hyper 212 PLus
Case: Coolermaster CM690

Edited by DeZiekeNon, 28 September 2014 - 01:26 PM.

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#2
iammykyl

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Gday DeZiekeNon.

There are pretty good specs so, can you give us a little more information please.

 

Is this mainly a gaming rig, or do you do video/photo/ editing or CAD type work?

Do you feel the CPU is bottlenecking performance?

 

Your MB, > http://www.asus.com/...specifications/

3 to make comparisons > http://www.newegg.co...132-117:$$$$$$$


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#3
DeZiekeNon

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Hi the iammykyl,

 

I use my desktop for almost everything. Word processing, internet, watching 1080p streams, some photo editing, simulation software, organizing a large music collection, DJ software ....

 

Concerning gaming I mostly play Starcraft 2, but occasionally I like to play a recent big studio game like COD4 to relax. When I do so I prefer to play on full graphics settings.

 

I don't necessarily feel the CPU is bottlenecking my system, but it's getting close I think. I upgraded my GPU twice from an HD 4890 to an HD6950 to an HD7970. I would like a new MB in order to make future upgrades possible.

 

My current MB also restricts my RAM to 1600 Mhz.

 

I hope this helps. Do you maybe feel like it's not yet necessary to upgrade for me?


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#4
iammykyl

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I hope this helps. Do you maybe feel like it's not yet necessary to upgrade for me?

Thanks for the info.   I would be inclined not to upgrade as the gain in performance increase would be very marginal.

You could move the rest of your hardware to a new board, but unless you have a full retail version of the OS, (OEM not transferable) you will need a new one.   for s single GPU, PCI-e 2.0 is still more than enough.   Use of the m.2 SSD tech is still expensive.   Faster RAM in the real world gets you virtually nothing, far better to have 16GB for transcoding.   As you have SATA 3gb/s, no real benefit going for SSD unless you could RAID the Raptors (if your software use a cache/scratch/ disc of some sort)

 

You could also persuade Santa to get you a GTX 980. :whistling:

 

http://www.pugetsyst...erformance-518/


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#5
DeZiekeNon

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Thanks for your response. Maybe waiting would be a wise decision in this case then. Maybe until those m.2 SSD's are affordable :P I do have multiple retail OS's, so no problems there :D

 

I think I'll look into a new GPU in the near future, that's always fun:D And probably a Nvidia card this time instead of an AMD.

 

Thanks for your help. This topic can me marked as resolved.


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#6
iammykyl

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Your welcome, come back soon.


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