Please help me spend my money!!!

[hoyaguru]

It's been 8 years since I've built myself a new computer, mine is literally falling apart, and it's so old I can't get replacement parts any more. Time for a new build, but I haven't kept up with the technology, so I have no idea what to get. I'm looking to spend around $1500, and I have some of the parts already, all I need is:

Motherboard
CPU
CPU Fan
Ram for the MB

and I guess that's about it. I have a 1TB drive and an 850MB drive, an ATI Radeon 5700 video card, and a Corsair 750 Watt power supply. The bad news, I'm running Windows XP, and can't stand the idea of upgrading to a different OS, but I know I'm going to have to sooner or later (plus living with 2GB max Ram really sucks), so advice on a new OS would be great too. I'll probably order overnight from NewEgg on Monday if I get some good responses, unless someone knows a better place to order from. Thanks in advance if anyone takes the time to help me out, I'm going to go do a little research on my own, but I'll check back here before ordering.

 

[mistersprinkles]

If you want to spend $1500 on only those parts I suggest an ASUS X99-A, a 5820K, an H100i or H110, and 4X4GB DDR4 2400.

If you want to save some coin,

ASRock Z97 Extreme 6, 4790K, NHD14, 4X4GB DDR3 2133.

If you want to cheap out even more

Gigabyte H97 G1 Sniper, 4460, stock cooler, 2X4GB DDR3 2133

Yet another step towards cheapness

Gigabyte GA970AUD3P, FX6300, Hyper 212 Evo, 2X4GB DDR3 1866

If you want a bargain-basement PC

Gigabyte H97 G1 Sniper, Pentium G3258, stock cooler, 2x4GB DDR3 2133

I wouldn't go any lower end than that. Hell, even the last two I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

Get yourself Win 8.1 64 bit. You would also benefit greatly from a 240-256GB SSD such as a Crucial MX100 or M550 or a Samsung 840EVO. Makes a BIG difference.
Also, being 8 years old, your power supply and case are likely garbage or poorly designed by today's standards. Your case for sure will need replacing. Look at a Corsair 200R or 300R if you're feeling frugal, or a Corsair Air 540 or 760T if you want to spend more. I really like Corsair cases. Check out Seasonic SSR and EVGA Supernova power supplies. Also good are Corsair RM and AX. If you want to be a cheapo on the PSU just grab a Corsair CX600. It's crap, but it works.

BTW are your drives even SATA? 8 years old would put them around 2006. SATA was out but a lot of people were still using IDE. I wouldn't trust 8 year old drives. I say throw them in the trash and pick up a new WD Caviar blue 1TB. It's only $70.

 

[hoyaguru]

mistersprinkles,

Thanks for the info. Yes, the drives are SATA, I got them a couple of years after getting the MB, and the 1TB is WD Caviar. Ditto the power supply, just got that last year when my old one burned out.

Looks like it's not going to be easy to research, did a search for best motherboards 2014, picked three sites at random. The number one board on the first site was listed near the bottom on the 2nd site, and wasn't listed at all on the third. So, I appreciate your info, will get a couple hours sleep and check your recommendations out, hopefully I can order them today and have them by Tuesday.

One other question: I currently have XP, which was an upgrade to Windows 2000, would it be a problem to upgrade once again to Win 8.1 64 bit, or should I start from scratch? I'd rather upgrade if it would be stable, I have programs going back almost 20 years, and it would be a hassle to try to find install disc for everything. Plus a lot of programs are from giveaway of the day sites, where you have to install that day or it won't install, so I'd lose about 40 - 50 programs right there.

 

[Blain]

"Upgrading from Windows XP" is a fresh install of 8.1 (you can't get there from here).
Your old time machine is done, the sooner you embrace that fact, the better off you'll be.
OEM PC's should have a place on your list.
Given the age of your current system, your concern about their hardware being "too proprietary" becomes less and less valid as time goes on. They use way more standard components than you think they do.

 

[hoyaguru]

Bummer, I'll e losing a lot of programs. Way way back in the Windows 95 era, I had a program called "Cleansweep", that would back up any program, including file locations, registry entries, everything, and make it into one file. Then you could put it on a different machine, run the same program, and it would install it perfectly. Made moving your stuff to a new machine very easy, but I guess a lot of people were abusing it and pirating software with it, I haven't seen anything like it since.

 

[nsafreak]

We could also be helped if you let us know what you intend to use this PC for before we make further recommendations. For example, if you're a gamer a Radeon 5700 series GPU isn't going to cut it anymore and with a $1500 budget there is no need for one. Likewise we might be shorting you on the CPU if you're into heavily threaded applications like heavy duty video editing (doubtful given your current rig, but who knows).

 

[hoyaguru]

Well, I'm a gamer but I haven't been gaming much for the past couple of years as my system was getting too slow, and I have an XBox 360 so I've been using that instead. I do photoshop, and would like to get into some video editing, but again, the current system is too slow.

I wouldn't mind some recommendations on a good video card, maybe it's time to upgrade that as well, I guess I could bump my budget up a couple of hundred more if needed.

 

[nsafreak]

Well it doesn't sound like you're into applications that will use a heavy load. So frankly I would recommend the current mid range system build put together by mfenn:

9/28/2014 update:
i5 4690K + MSI Z97-G55 SLI $349
Team DDR3 1600 8GB $70
ASUS GTX 780 3GB $294 AR AP
Crucial MX100 256GB $112
WD Blue 1TB $60
Lite-ON DVD Burner $13 AP
Rosewill Hive 850W $70 AR AP
Corsair 200R $50 AR
Total: $1018 AR AP

Feel free to switch out the 4690K for a 4790K if you really think that you'll make use of the extras such as hyperthreading. As it is I'd just build that (switch out the case if the Carbide 200R isn't to your taste), grab an OEM disc of Windows 8.1 and call it a day.

 

[Cerb]

Don't jump to spend $1500. X99 will not get you much, unless you're sure you can use it. Parts depreciate too fast. Instead, plan on changing parts every few years, and get a $800-1200 PC.

If you're still using an old monitor, now would be a good time to upgrade, too.

Do you live near a Microcenter?

 

[mfenn]

Bummer, I'll e losing a lot of programs. Way way back in the Windows 95 era, I had a program called "Cleansweep", that would back up any program, including file locations, registry entries, everything, and make it into one file. Then you could put it on a different machine, run the same program, and it would install it perfectly. Made moving your stuff to a new machine very easy, but I guess a lot of people were abusing it and pirating software with it, I haven't seen anything like it since.

Something you should look into is converting your old PC into a virtual machine image. Once converted to a VM, you'll still have access to all your old programs and Windows install within the virtual machine, but can start fresh with new Windows install on the bare metal. Then you can take your time migrating frequently-used programs over, eventually leaving yourself only having to occasionally fire up the VM to run a "I use this once a year" type of program.

http://www.vmware.com/products/converter
http://www.vmware.com/products/player

 

[mfenn]

Don't jump to spend $1500. X99 will not get you much, unless you're sure you can use it. Parts depreciate too fast. Instead, plan on changing parts every few years, and get a $800-1200 PC.

If you're still using an old monitor, now would be a good time to upgrade, too.

Do you live near a Microcenter?

Agree. If you're current getting along on an 8-year-old Windows XP PC and your main concern is migrating your applications, the chances are that you don't need a to drop $1500 on a machine.

Well it doesn't sound like you're into applications that will use a heavy load. So frankly I would recommend the current mid range system build put together by mfenn:

:thumbsup:

grab an OEM disc of Windows 8.1 and call it a day.

With Windows 8.1 full retail licenses being so close to OEM in terms of pricing ($20), I think it's worth spending the extra for the full license so that you can transfer it if need be.

 

[hoyaguru]

Well it doesn't sound like you're into applications that will use a heavy load. So frankly I would recommend the current mid range system build put together by mfenn:



Feel free to switch out the 4690K for a 4790K if you really think that you'll make use of the extras such as hyperthreading. As it is I'd just build that (switch out the case if the Carbide 200R isn't to your taste), grab an OEM disc of Windows 8.1 and call it a day.

Thanks!

 

[hoyaguru]

Don't jump to spend $1500. X99 will not get you much, unless you're sure you can use it. Parts depreciate too fast. Instead, plan on changing parts every few years, and get a $800-1200 PC.

If you're still using an old monitor, now would be a good time to upgrade, too.

Do you live near a Microcenter?

Not that I know of, I'm guessing that's a computer store? I'm in New Jersey, the closest thing we have to a computer store is Best Buy, and they have very little. Tried to get a CPU fan there the other day, no luck. I'll be ordering everything online, is Microcenter the place to order from? I had figured on comparing NewEgg to Amazon and going with whatever is cheaper.

 

[hoyaguru]

Something you should look into is converting your old PC into a virtual machine image. Once converted to a VM, you'll still have access to all your old programs and Windows install within the virtual machine, but can start fresh with new Windows install on the bare metal. Then you can take your time migrating frequently-used programs over, eventually leaving yourself only having to occasionally fire up the VM to run a "I use this once a year" type of program.

http://www.vmware.com/products/converter
http://www.vmware.com/products/player

Good idea, but my old computer gave up the ghost yesterday, which is why I'm in a hurry to get a new one built.

 

[Cerb]

Yes, a computer store that regularly has combo deals making higher-end parts cheaper than getting lower-end ones, but the deals are in-store only.

 

[hoyaguru]

Agree. If you're current getting along on an 8-year-old Windows XP PC and your main concern is migrating your applications, the chances are that you don't need a to drop $1500 on a machine.



:thumbsup:



With Windows 8.1 full retail licenses being so close to OEM in terms of pricing ($20), I think it's worth spending the extra for the full license so that you can transfer it if need be.

Thanks. I knew this day would come eventually. I hate the new Windows, I'm the computer guy in the family, and I can't stand working on the newer versions of Windows. XP is limited, but it's so easy. But, I have to do it sooner or later, might as well be now. I'll lose at least half of my programs, but I'll get by.

 

[hoyaguru]

Thank you everyone for all of your help, I really appreciate it. I have some more comparison shopping to do, I'll put my order in tomorrow and hopefully everything will get here Tuesday.

I used to build and fix computers for a living until around 2004, it's hard to keep up with the technology when you don't work with it every day, you guys saved me many hours of confused searching and comparing.

 

[Cerb]

Also, given how old your last one is. How does gaming, if at all, figure in?

 

[Carson Dyle]

I'll probably order overnight from NewEgg on Monday if I get some good responses, unless someone knows a better place to order from.

BAD move ... You need to spend more time than that to do any sort of meaningful research and get a good picture of the current technology. Otherwise, you're pretty much just having someone else recommend all the components.

You _will_ want an SSD for the OS and applications. Trust me. It's so much faster that it's well worth the relatively low cost. Figure on a 250/256GB capacity drive.

You won't need that big of a PSU. If you have the $ to spend, it may well be worth it to replace the Corsair with something smaller and quieter.

You might also want a new case. New cases, with 120mm and 140mm fans are so much nicer than the cases of 8 years ago, that they're hard to compare. You can easily build a computer that is completely silent from a couple of feet away. And it's a wonderful thing.

Reconsider buying from Newegg. Eight years ago they may have been the sh*t, but no longer. Amazon trounces them in terms of customer service and will beat them on most prices.

Lastly, you are going dislike Windows 7/8/8.1, unless some of the superficial eye-candy appeals to you. From your posts, I doubt that it will.

 

[Cerb]

Good idea, but my old computer gave up the ghost yesterday, which is why I'm in a hurry to get a new one built.

That's how I got to upgrading, late last year . I know the feeling, but take at least another day or two to finalize, if you can.

If a gaming PC, this is how I'd use up your budget. You have $1500, so while there may be no need to spend it all, you really should do a forklift upgrade, with no old parts, save for transferring the HDD. Take the good parts from your current PC, a bit of other salvage, and make a secondary or donor PC with it. 8 years is quite good. Let it go, entirely .

If you have an old monitor, get a new one, unless it was a high-end Dell, Apple, NEC, Eizo, etc.. Like an SSD, the benefit for the cost is good enough that you'll wonder how you managed this long, after you get used to them (unless you look at 2011-12 prices ).

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($239.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK2 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($165.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Mushkin Stealth 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($65.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($112.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card ($355.91 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT H230 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer ($17.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (32/64-bit) ($122.98 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Dell P2714H 60Hz 27.0" Monitor ($309.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1387.81
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-05 22:06 EDT-0400

Just get a start menu replacement and tweak settings for now, rather than buying Windows 7. If they don't screw up 10 between now and release, look for cheap upgrade offers when it comes out. It's looking good so far. I have to use 8.1 fairly regularly, am halfway decent with it, and still dislike it, but it just doesn't make sense to get an OS already past mainstream support (OK, technically it has a few more months, but it may as well be over).

I wouldn't go with a cheaper mobo and CPU, at the moment, simply because the savings aren't much, unless you go to an i3 (with $1500 max, that doesn't make sense even for a non-gaming, non-productivity desktop) (with an i5-4460 and ASRock H97M Anniversary, I only got ~$35 less, on a $1000+ total).

SSD+HDD is pretty normal, now. You can just plug in your current 1TB after installing the new copy of Windows, and use it for a data drive, if you don't need more space. Also, if you might want more than 256GB, but still not a lot, a 512GB SSD would not be a bad buy. The way it works is totally different, but like HDDs, SSDs need some free space to stay really fast, so getting one and using up 90% of the space for static data is a bad idea.

If not gaming, Haswell's IGP is likely to be good enough (so, -$350), or a much cheaper video card than specified. The GTX 970 is the clear bang/buck king for gaming, ATM. If in your perusals, you find a GTX 760-770 performance level to be good (IE, want to play new games), and the cost is good, note that the their replacement, the 960, should be out within weeks (the 970 are OOS everywhere, FI, because they just came out).

600W PSU just because the cost is right, and it will be quieter due to the overhead. The 500W model is $5 less, and still plenty of power (both are overkill without a video card, which you should only need if gaming--at least a high-power one). With a GTX 970, you'd be looking at around 250-300W peak draw, and more like 100-125W without the video card.

Case choice is flexible, that just happens to be a nice case at a nice price right now. Cases have, on average, improved, too, and a new case can get you front/top USB 3.0, which is becoming common for storage. For quieter cases with door, the Fractal.Design Define R4, Antec P280, and Corsair 330R are good alternatives. With no quieting in mind, and/or no door, the Corsair 300R, Fractal.Design Arc Midi R2, NZXT Phantom 410 and 530 series, and Phanteks Enthoo Pro are all hard to go wrong with for the money, having drive rails, good build quality, cable management provisions built in, and good cooling.

I'm sure there's better bang/buck monitors. That's not my forte. I just know that's a good one for general use, with low enough input lag for gaming, as well.

 

[hoyaguru]

I got a fairly good monitor, Vizio HD, it will do fine until later on.

The power supply was just purchased within the last year when my old one burned out, it's a Corsair CX750M, I would hope it has more than enough power to run just about anything I get. I might be wrong, but going with a smaller power supply doesn't seem like a good idea, or am I looking at this the wrong way? Regardless, a new power supply can wait.

The hard drives are also fairly new (at least the WD 1TB is), so I think I'm good there. SSD - I didn't even know what that was until I looked it up, wow, had no idea these things existed. I can imagine they must blow away a "traditional" hard drive. I am definitely going to be looking into replacing my WD 1TB drive with one of these, but that can wait.

Carson Dyle, I know getting recommendations from strangers isn't the best way to go about this, but at least I'm hoping people are sending me in the right direction. I would hope that if someone was giving me bad advice, other more knowledgeable Anandtechies would let me know. I'll be checking everything out before I buy. If not for the folks out here on Anandtech, I'd be going in blind. As I stated earlier, I tried to search for the best MB around on three different sites, they all told me completely different things. I was in the business long enough to know there are a lot of websites out there taking a kickback to tell everyone what to buy, so it's hard to find a site I can trust.

The more I think about it, the less I am planning on doing any kind of gaming with this new PC. I'll just stick to the XBox, that's been keeping me busy. They've been having some really good sales lately on games, got Red Dead Redemption, Portal 2, Halo, and a bunch of other games in the last month for next to nothing, they should keep me busy for the next year or so. So the most this new PC will be used for will be photo manipulation and video editing.

Also, I think I might hold off on Windows 8.1 (thanks for the suggestion Cerb), I should be able to get my Windows XP working, even though it will only see 2GB of however much memory I put in. I really REALLY hate the last couple of OS's, working on family member's computers puts me in a rage after a while. I'm used to having more control (started out back in DOS days, editing autoexec.bat and config.sys to stretch that memory, lol), the OS's after XP seem to be made in a way that really makes everything so hard to do. Though, I'm guessing if I got it and used it all the time, and learned all the tricks, it wouldn't be that bad.

So, I'm going with a new MB, CPU, CPU Fan, memory, and probably a new case (thanks for the info on cases Carson Dyle, I didn't even think about that).

As for the rest, I can wait a little while. The video card will do the job until I can get time to study up more on them, it's SLI, and was a replacement for the original I got when I built this PC, I'm guessing it's 5 years old or so.

I do wish there was a way to get my programs from XP to whatever new OS I decide on, I have so many programs that I'm going to lose. Can't understand why MS doesn't offer an upgrade version of their OS's any more. But, I'll have to change over sooner or later. I might try to hold out until the new OS comes out, like Cerb suggested.

Anyway, thanks again for all the help, I need a little shuteye, then a couple of hours of studying this new technology, and hopefully I can get my order in on time so it ships out today (Monday). I've been without my computer for a couple of days now, which normally wouldn't be a big deal, but I am putting my house up for sale, and all my information is on the dead PC, along with a project that is due this Friday. Just a case of bad timing, and as the song goes, "Ain't nobody got time for that".

 

[hoyaguru]

Something just occurred to me, and I'm hoping it won't be a problem. It's been actually 12 years now since I was in the business, building and fixing PC's, but I seem to remember that there was a problem with Windows XP where you couldn't change too many parts in the computer at one time without Microsoft thinking you were using your OS in a completely different PC, and they would make it so you couldn't use the OS without jumping through some hoops. As Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft, will this be a problem for me? I may be completely remembering the details wrong, I think there were a certain number of hardware changes you could make, but I'm guessing changing the MB, CPU, and Ram would make it look like a completely different PC to the OS. I'm hoping I'm not setting myself up for a big hassle, has anyone run into this problem before?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Also, I think I might hold off on Windows 8.1 (thanks for the suggestion Cerb), I should be able to get my Windows XP working, even though it will only see 2GB of however much memory I put in.

If you dislike 8/8.1, then get 7 (64-bit), it's still available, and it has extended support until 2020. Don't put XP back on, that's just a waste and a nightmare. In fact, I'm not even sure that the current Haswell platform supports XP at all, so you might be scrambling for mobo drivers to make it all work.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I didn't say that getting advice from strangers was a bad idea. Just that buying a system - something that you only do once every so many years - based on only a day's worth of research, is a bit foolish.

The idea behind not wanting a PSU that is too large is that power supplies work much more efficiently nearer their capacity. A 750W PSU on a system that requires only 350W will use more energy and will probably be louder than an efficient 450W PSU.

Don't count on getting XP working on new hardware. Many manufacturers haven't come out with XP drivers in years and most new hardware has no drivers for XP. You could end up just making things really difficult for yourself. Also consider the 64-bit vs. 32-bit question. If you install Windows 8.1, it will be 64-bit and capable of using all 8GB of the recommended memory. Your XP is most likely 32-bit and will be able to use less that 4GB.

To tell the truth, if I was really dead set on running XP, I'd buy a five or six year old used system for $100-200.

IMO, if you think an SSD is a good idea, do it now. It will be much easier than transferring the OS or reinstalling it at a later date. Keep your new 1TB drive. As someone else said, a very common setup today is to use an SSD for the operating system and applications, plus your most-used data, and a hard drive for your larger storage needs such as media files or data for applications with large storage needs.

Next thing to consider:

If you won't be doing any gaming or multi-media video work on the computer, you may want to just use built-in GPU present on most Intel CPUs these days. If you haven't seen integrated video in 8 years, you'll be in for a surprise.

After that decision, you might want to consider a microATX or even a mini-ITX sized motherboard and system. Once you've assembled a full-size ATX system with no peripheral cards and just one or two hard drives, you'll ask yourself why you have such a gigantic, empty case and a motherboard with all these empty slots.

And: You may or may not need/want an optical drive (DVD reader/burner).

 

[hoyaguru]

Thanks VirtualLarry & Carson Dyle. So, it looks like I will have to go with the new OS then. Bummer. Might as well go large and get Win 8.1 64bit like mistersprinkles recommended. Quick question on that, mistersprinkles recommended 4X4GB DDR3 2133, but Win 8.1 64 bit can handle 32GB of Ram (I think). Wouldn't I be better off with 2X8GB Ram on a MB with four slots, then I can upgrade another 2X8GB later if I need it. If I go with 4X4GB and I want to upgrade, I have to take out all four and replace them. 4X4GB and 2X8GB sell for just about the same amount, seems logical to go with the two eights to start out. Am I wrong?

Also, I already have a DVD burner, all set in that department.