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Help with upgrade or complete system

U

ultra2

Junior Member
I5 750
P55a
9800gt
4x4gb patriot pc3-12800 ddr3 1600mhz
antec ea-5000
23' monitor


Video card died and now I am wondering if I should replace or just spend some more money on upgrades. It is gamed lightly (diablo3, and maybe a decent mmo if one comes out) and I recently started editing video of the kids in 1080/60 fps with adobe. I also use lightroom. In the future I would like to put a 50" plus tv on the wall next to it and be able play games or view the video on it. Resolution would be 1920x1080.

Budget is 100-150 for a card only upgrade or 500-700 to rebuild if I can use some of my old parts. Newegg would be the best but any usa vendor would do.

Would like to stick with a nvidia card to help with adobe cs6 if possible with in the budget.

I do not plan to overclock unless someone gives me a good reason to.

I have a samsung ssd830 laying around I planned on putting in a laptop but could throw that in the desktop no problem if I go the rebuild route.

So I guess my question is should I just I go the video card only and get a new build next year? Or can I upgrade to an i5 3750 with a new board, video card, put in the ssd and use my old power supply, case, and ram and get me through 2 to 3 years. And if I do upgrade will I really see any difference.

Thanks
Steve
 
Given your usage you could probably get away with just a GPU upgrade but you would get a great boost in speed going to the 3570k (as much as 50% depending on the application). Do you know what voltage your RAM is? For Ivy Bridge you want 1.5v.

Your PSU should be fine. Go with the parts you need out of mfenn's build here. Then just get a video card in your price range, although since you have a case, PSU, SSD, and HDD you can probably bump up the quality of the GPU.

Do you need a copy of Windows?
 
If you'd like faster rendering, then overclocking the CPU would give a bit of a boost, but upgrading to a Xeon E3-1230 V2 would reduce rendering time by about 30-40%. Another reason to upgrade: full bandwidth for a SATA 6gb/s SSD. If you don't have an SSD yet, definitely get one.

GPU MSI 650 Ti PE $125 AR
SSD Samsung 840 120GB $99

Mobo Asrock H77M $70
CPU Xeon E3-1230 V2 $240
RAM Reuse 4x4GB - if it's not rated for 1600MHz at 1.5V, downclock to 1333MHz CL9 at 1.5V

Total = $534 AR shipped
 
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lehtv said:
If you'd like faster rendering, then overclocking the CPU would give a bit of a boost, but upgrading to a Xeon E3-1230 V2 would reduce rendering time by about 30-40%. Another reason to upgrade: full bandwidth for a SATA 6gb/s SSD. If you don't have an SSD yet, definitely get one.

GPU MSI 650 Ti PE $125 AR
SSD Samsung 840 120GB $99

Mobo Asrock H77M $70
CPU Xeon E3-1230 V2 $240
RAM Reuse 4x4GB - if it's not rated for 1600MHz at 1.5V, downclock to 1333MHz CL9 at 1.5V

Total = $534 AR shipped
Click to expand...

The OP has an 830, so you can knock $100 off there. Otherwise, it looks good to me, and even a GTX 650 Ti would be huge boost over a 9800GT. Of course, that extra $100 would let the OP step up to a GTX 660.
 
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You have plenty of power, no issues there. The Xeon is definitely worth serious consideration, the hyperthreading on that CPU would be nice for any rendering you will be doing, and you do not need onbaoard graphics of the 3570k.
 
OK changing to

Mobo Asrock H77M $70
CPU Xeon E3-1230 V2 $240

Quite a few reviews saying they recieved dead boards on newegg any other options for a board with less problems. Also only has two ram slots if I read correctly. I have 4 x4 which isnt that big of a deal since I think 8 would be plenty
 
Having a few DOA reviews on newegg does not indicate the product has problems. Any PC component can be DOA, in fact it is inevitable and unavoidable. And the people who get DOA stuff are disproportionately represented in reviews. The expectation is that it works as advertised so if it doesn't work, they go and complain about it by posting a one egg review.

TL;DR if you got a bad board you just got unlucky. That could happen with any board you buy and there's no way to determine from newegg reviews which board is the least likely DOA candidate.

One thing I did overlook on that H77M, however, is that it has two DIMM slots and you have four DIMM modules. Get the Asrock Z77 Pro3 $90 @amazon. The H77 Pro4-M posted by RaistlinZ is also a good option if you want to be able to move to a microATX case later
 
Last edited:
lehtv said:
Having a few DOA reviews on newegg does not indicate the product has problems. Any PC component can be DOA, in fact it is inevitable and unavoidable. And the people who get DOA stuff are disproportionately represented in reviews. The expectation is that it works as advertised so if it doesn't work, they go and complain about it by posting a one egg review.

TL;DR if you got a bad board you just got unlucky. That could happen with any board you buy and there's no way to determine from newegg reviews which board is the least likely DOA candidate.
Click to expand...

:thumbsup: Agree 100%.

lehtv said:
One thing I did overlook on that H77M, however, is that it has two DIMM slots and you have four DIMM modules. Get the Asrock Z77 Pro3 $90 @amazon. The H77 Pro4-M posted by RaistlinZ is also a good option if you want to be able to move to a microATX case later
Click to expand...

The ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP at $80 is also worth considering when paired with the Xeon. You get 4 DIMM slots and an extra SATA 6 Gb/s controller.
 
RaistlinZ said:
Why not just get this mobo:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157301
Click to expand...

Seconded. If OP has 4x4GB DDR3 to re-use, no sense in getting a board with only two RAM slots.

(Incidentally, I've been contemplating how having four RAM slots rather than two, should help a rig last longer into the future, because eventually, newer OSes and apps, especially with the push to x64, will use more and more RAM. And eventually, you will reach physical RAM limitations. Having two more slots will allow your board to last nearly twice as long in the "RAM race".)
 
lehtv said:
The Xeon helps in Adobe video editing, encoding and Lightroom
Click to expand...

Yep, Ivy Bridge is really quite a lot faster than Lynnfield in processor-intensive tasks.

Is a Lynnfield "good enough" for many people? Certainly, I run one myself.
Does that mean there is no reason to upgrade if you have real computational needs? Certainly not.
 
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