Need advice with upgrading computer

[theshad]

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

Video games mostly, obviously browsing the internet also.


2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

Would prefer to be under 500 if possible, if I have to upgrade more than I currently believe I do I am capable of going higher than that.


3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

United States of America. Probably all online, no computer stores around me.


4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.

I prefer Intel.


5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

EVGA GeForce GTX 560, Cooler Master 690, Can't remember who made it but 640GB hard drive, PSU OCZ|OCZ700GXSSLI 700W RT, fans inside case, DVD drive, monitor, keyboard, and mouse will all remain same

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

Default speeds, don't know enough about overclocking to feel comfortable doing it.

8. What resolution will you be using?

1920 x 1080

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
Note that it is usually not cost or time effective to choose your build more than a month before you actually plan to be using it.

Would like to get started within the next few weeks.

X. Do you need to purchase any software to go with the system, such as Windows or Blu Ray playback software?

No, already own Windows and don't plan on changing hard drive anyway.


I have been getting BSOD's fairly often lately that I attribute to my memory (When I take them out leave them for a few hours and put them back in the problem goes away for a few days-weeks and then repeats), which I could just upgrade my memory but at this point it is an old motherboard so the memory is kind of a pain to find. So I figured if the price is right I would upgrade my motherboard/processor/memory. Unfortunately I have not followed hardware since I built this PC about 5 years ago or so (A few of the pieces have been upgraded since it was built like the graphics card) so if you guys have recommendations I would appreciate it. Thanks.

 

[Ken g6]

$500 should be plenty, unless I missed a part you need/want.

CPU: 3570K, $230
Mobo: ASRock Z77 Extreme4, $143 with shipping
RAM: Crucial 8GB, $43
Total for these: $416

You could pay more, but you wouldn't get any significant benefit. You could also pay less. A slightly cheaper mobo or less RAM wouldn't hurt you too much. A cheaper non-overclockable mobo and CPU would work fine too for most uses, and could save you up to $100, if you want to add an SSD to the mix, for instance.

 

[lehtv]

I concur with ken. You could add an aftermarket CPU cooler into that and still be well under $500. That'd allow you to OC right away. But it's not needed per se, the 3570K @ stock won't bottleneck a GTX560, not even close. Overclockability is nice to have for the future though. Buuut if you don't feel like OC'ing, here:

Asrock B75 Pro3 $80 (this will not support CF / SLI)
i5-3550 $210
Crucial 8GB, $43
= $333

Optionally add Samsung 830 128GB SSD $130. It'll remove the biggest bottleneck in your system (disk performance) and make everything super snappy and responsive.

X. Do you need to purchase any software to go with the system, such as Windows or Blu Ray playback software?

No, already own Windows and don't plan on changing hard drive anyway.

You'll need to reinstall Windows anyway when changing the motherboard. If you get the SSD, install Windows there. If your current copy is not retail but OEM, it is tied to your current motherboard and you will need a new copy unless you can sort activation with a phone call to m$.

 

[theshad]

Thanks for the input guys. I bought my copy of Windows during a student discount thing, so I would imagine I am able to transfer it if needed (Correct me if I am wrong, I don't remember how Windows limits their activations now.)

I must be a lot more behind on computers than I realized, as I have no idea how SSD works.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Thanks for the input guys. I bought my copy of Windows during a student discount thing, so I would imagine I am able to transfer it if needed (Correct me if I am wrong, I don't remember how Windows limits their activations now.)

I must be a lot more behind on computers than I realized, as I have no idea how SSD works.

Standard hard drives are platters that spin at X number of RPM, a head then runs in and out with a laser reading the data that's magnetically written to the platters. Due to how data is typically written and deleted, you can fragment where bits of of information are stored and have overall higher read times. That, and since the head has to mechanically move about to access the platters and is limited by the RPM of the drive, you have seek times as well.

What an SSD does is eliminate both of those issues, at the trade-off of having a finite life cycle and much less capacity for cost. Those points aside, an SSD is effectively like a gigantic array of the chips you see on your memory, organized by a controller (different drives have very different controllers and behavior). Thanks to having no moving parts, hence being called solid state as nothing is moving, it has virtually no seek times and incredibly high read/write speeds compared to mechanical drives (there are some exceptions for certain types of writing and reading).

I finally grabbed an SSD when the price and capacity seemed reasonable without any major flaws/defects in the drive, and I refuse to ever go back to booting off a mechanical drive ever again 😛

 

[theshad]

Standard hard drives are platters that spin at X number of RPM, a head then runs in and out with a laser reading the data that's magnetically written to the platters. Due to how data is typically written and deleted, you can fragment where bits of of information are stored and have overall higher read times. That, and since the head has to mechanically move about to access the platters and is limited by the RPM of the drive, you have seek times as well.

What an SSD does is eliminate both of those issues, at the trade-off of having a finite life cycle and much less capacity for cost. Those points aside, an SSD is effectively like a gigantic array of the chips you see on your memory, organized by a controller (different drives have very different controllers and behavior). Thanks to having no moving parts, hence being called solid state as nothing is moving, it has virtually no seek times and incredibly high read/write speeds compared to mechanical drives (there are some exceptions for certain types of writing and reading).

I finally grabbed an SSD when the price and capacity seemed reasonable without any major flaws/defects in the drive, and I refuse to ever go back to booting off a mechanical drive ever again 😛

The installation works the same as a normal hard drive? Would I be able to retain the data on my current hard drive if I switched over to a SSD for booting? I would rather not have to backup my entire computer if possible. I have always just used a single hard drive so not particularly familiar with the process of having multiple ones set up.

 

[krnmastersgt]

The installation works the same as a normal hard drive? Would I be able to retain the data on my current hard drive if I switched over to a SSD for booting? I would rather not have to backup my entire computer if possible. I have always just used a single hard drive so not particularly familiar with the process of having multiple ones set up.

Yes, it has the same basic SATA power and data connections, the drive itself is however quite a bit smaller in size - you may need a drive converter to mount it to your hard drive bay/cage.

You could attempt to clone the data from your current hard drive to the SSD, bear in mind though that the SSD will likely have quite a bit less capacity than a standard mechanical drive. Whenever I'm going between systems though I always do a clean install, I've found I can part with/re-download or re-obtain the vast majority of the data I keep on a primary drive anyways.

As for having multiple drives at once, as long as you access your BIOS and set the SSD to the boot priority drive, doesn't really matter how many more drives are in the system as they'll just act as separate storage drives essentially.

 

[lehtv]

Is your current hard disk partitioned into a small C:Windows partition and a larger data partition? If so, you only need to reformat C:.
If not... well, then you should take backups of everything you need from the hard drive.

 

[mfenn]

What an SSD does is eliminate both of those issues, at the trade-off of having a finite life cycle

It should be emphasized though that normal desktop usage won't approach the limits of an SSD's write endurance until the drive is 7-10 years old.

The installation works the same as a normal hard drive? Would I be able to retain the data on my current hard drive if I switched over to a SSD for booting? I would rather not have to backup my entire computer if possible. I have always just used a single hard drive so not particularly familiar with the process of having multiple ones set up.

Yes, the drive pretty much appears to be the same as a normal hard drive, just very fast. If you don't want to back up your old stuff, what you can do is initially reinstall Windows with ONLY the SSD plugged in. After you get Windows up and running, then reconnect your HDD, making sure that the SSD is first in the boot order. Once you get back into Windows, you'll see your old drive as a new drive letter with all your files there.

 

[theshad]

It should be emphasized though that normal desktop usage won't approach the limits of an SSD's write endurance until the drive is 7-10 years old.



Yes, the drive pretty much appears to be the same as a normal hard drive, just very fast. If you don't want to back up your old stuff, what you can do is initially reinstall Windows with ONLY the SSD plugged in. After you get Windows up and running, then reconnect your HDD, making sure that the SSD is first in the boot order. Once you get back into Windows, you'll see your old drive as a new drive letter with all your files there.

That is what I shall do in that case. 700W should be sufficient for these upgrades right? I shall start the purchasing next week of some products. Thanks for the input everyone.

 

[krnmastersgt]

That is what I shall do in that case. 700W should be sufficient for these upgrades right? I shall start the purchasing next week of some products. Thanks for the input everyone.

700W is overkill for the build, but since you have it already I guess it doesn't really matter. 700W should be enough for the system + quite a bit of extras later on down the line. And the second part of mfenn's post is a good way of going about it, I'm currently running my system like that due to being unable to find some of my externals 😛