Upgrade existing or build new? (AMD)

[SvenGolly]

I am thinking up doing an upgrade or complete rebuild of my system. Mostly I'd like to incorporate a 240GB SATA III SSD as a boot drive, get more speed on some games and Photoshop / Creative Suite 6, and add USB 3.0 and SATA III support.

My current computer is a 3 1/2 year-old ZT Systems pre-build from Costco. Specs are as follows:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 CPU (quad core)
VIDEO: GeForce GTX460 x2 <-- Added
RAM: 6GB (4 gb + 2 gb - no idea what speed without cracking the case)
MB: MSI GF615M-P33 (vanilla board, no extras, no overclock, no updating)
HD 1: Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 7200 32MB SATA II
HD 2: WDC Blue 500GB 7200 16 MB SATA II <-- Added
PS: OCZ 700W modular <-- Added
OD: LG DVD burner
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

Parts I have on-hand are:

SSD: PNY 240GB XLR8 (Sata III)
CASE: Cougar Spike MicroATX Mini Tower Gaming Case
(see http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811553011)

I like the size of uATX setups and I don't have a lot of extra room on my desk for a full tower. Plus I already have a uATX USB 3 case (see below).

As I see it, my options are:

1. Upgrade the current system by switching to a SATA III / USB 3.0 motherboard keeping the existing processor and video card. Maybe replace the 2GB stick with another 4GB. I'd make the SSD the boot drive and use the 1TB drive for everything else. Would keep the 500gb as backup.

The only AM3+ motherboard I could find that's uATX with USB 3.0 front panel support is this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130722

It gets mixed reviews on Newegg but then pretty much any mobo gets mixed reviews these days.

This is obviously the cheapest option -- $60 for the mobo, $40 for 4gb RAM.

2. Buy a new FM2+ uATX board, processor and RAM. (Yes, I'd like to stick with AMD.) There are more mobo options on the FM2+ side but they're all APUs. So I'm wondering if something like an A10 APU/GPU would be as fast as my existing GTX460 + Phenom or not. And there's like a million flavors of A10's. My guess is the Kaveri's are the fastest with graphics but not sure how they behave with Photoshop or how they compare to my GTX460.

Looks like a Kaveri is $150 or so, FM2+ board around $70 and 16gb of decent RAM is $130. I guess I'd keep the 1TB drive and sell the bones of the old system off. So maybe $350? Yikes!

I'd like to make this thing cost effective. I don't have tons of $$ to throw into a full-on gaming rig.

Any thoughts? Other ideas?

 

[mfenn]

No APU is as fast as a single GTX 460, much less GTX 460 SLI. However, your board doesn't support 2 GPUs, so I'm wondering what you're doing with that second GTX 460?

 

[SvenGolly]

No second GTX460 -- it's the x2 version. Sry for the confusion there.

So this kinda says just buy the new motherboard and xfer the existing components?

 

[escrow4]

I'd sell the CPU/MOBO/RAM/GPU and use that cash to buy an Haswell refresh i5 and H97 mobo. You don't really need to overclock and a decent H97 board will have all the modern add-ons. I have this H97 board in my gaming box, but its features can be well used in a non gaming setup:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty H97 Performance/

 

[frozentundra123456]

If you do a complete upgrade, why are you limiting yourself to amd? Never really understood posters who asked for advice but so limit the options. Fm2 apus are actually terrible options for most gaming boxes, especially since you already have a discrete card more powerful than the igp of any apu thus negating their best selling point.

As someone else suggested, the best upgrade would be a has well i5, or if you simply must stick with amd, an FX 6300 or 83xx along with a faster gpu.

 

[sm625]

Since you already have a case why not just sell that old PC as is? There isnt much point in upgrading the motherboard around that cpu since that cpu is slower than one you could buy for $100.

 

[SvenGolly]

OK thanks all. I'll look into pricing.

 

[toughtrasher]

OK thanks all. I'll look into pricing.

Do you mind letting us know what your plan is? Are you upgrading or buying a new one?

Also why are you just staying with AMD?

 

[Torn Mind]

SSDs basically cut down the time it takes to read and write files. SSDs improve load times for certain games but do not affect frame rates in any significant fashion; you will get to your chapter faster, but they will not fix symptoms related to frame rates. They will help Photoshop get things done more quickly by cutting down the time it takes to write the temp files Photoshop creates to disk. They will not help in speeding up the aspects of image processing that use the CPU or GPU.


For improving processing, "processing" in the sense of performing mathematical or logical operations on data, a CPU or GPU upgrade is in order, depending on the task.

USB 3 is good to have if you do tasks that involve sending a lot of data to USB devices and want to save time on these tasks. The key question is whether you do these tasks enough to justify a motherboard swap.

For SATA III, it is not strictly necessary since you still can benefit from the effects of an SSD attached to an SATA 3.0 Gbps port (or SATA II).

The jump from a Phenom II to Kaveri is modest at best; and not enough to justify the cost.

 

[SvenGolly]

Do you mind letting us know what your plan is? Are you upgrading or buying a new one? Also why are you just staying with AMD?

Well my original original plan before I even thought about asking the question here was to just swap out for a new mobo, put in the SSD, maybe go to 16gb of RAM and transfer all the usuable parts over to the new case that's been sitting in my garage for 6 months lol.

But then as I started digging deeper into it (thanks to ppl here and additional research), the process got more complicated-er-istic. So now I'm finding out about single threaded games vs. multi-threaded, Photoshop performance, etc. etc.

The SSD is SATA III so I figured a SATA III mobo was in order. I have a USB 3.0 backup drive and it takes quite awhile to get everything backed up via USB 2.0.

I use Adobe CS 5 a lot (mostly Photoshop, Illustrator, some InDesign, some Audition, and a little Premiere). I'm not a big gamer but then I read everything from some games really benefitting from lots of cores (and Photoshop) to others that say even a double core that's really fast is better (ie. Intel). In looking at the few I play, one is mostly single-threaded with some bleed to 2nd and 3rd threads (WoW) while others appreciate the extra cores. I noted that for several games, the FX6300/6350 were considered "value" winners with decent performance for games but very good performance for desktop apps. Heck one of the games I play is OpenGL only which probably says a lot.

I've never looked into Intel stuff from a build standpoint so I'm really not familiar with all the choices.

I have an open mind.

I'm willing to put money into 16gb of RAM. Lots of benefits there regardless. My current board only allows 8gb.

I haven't seen much in the way of vid cards that does better than my GTX 460 until you get to like $150 or so especially since the desktop side of things won't improve that much. So I'm not sure I'm willing to fork out more for a new graphics card. Maybe I should?

My Phenom II X4 955 is clearly dated and the current mobo is only PCI-E 16 v1 so doesn't even take advantage of the PCI-E v2 that the graphics card supports. That was another reason for thinking about the simple mobo change.

Anyway, it does help me to type all this crap out to think about it. Yes I'm on a budget so I want to put the funds I can scrape up into the right things.

P.S. The other thing I have to worry about is that it's probable I won't be able to transfer Windows 7 HP from the OEM ZT Systems computer to a new build. Thus, I'll have to get W7 again.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Just thought I'd chime in with a few ideas...

I use Adobe CS 5 a lot (mostly Photoshop, Illustrator, some InDesign, some Audition, and a little Premiere). I'm not a big gamer but then I read everything from some games really benefitting from lots of cores (and Photoshop) to others that say even a double core that's really fast is better (ie. Intel). In looking at the few I play, one is mostly single-threaded with some bleed to 2nd and 3rd threads (WoW) while others appreciate the extra cores. I noted that for several games, the FX6300/6350 were considered "value" winners with decent performance for games but very good performance for desktop apps. Heck one of the games I play is OpenGL only which probably says a lot.

This might be slightly controversial, but have you considered a Haswell i3? Especially the top-of-the-line i3-4360 has beastly single-thread performance (its actually higher then many of the i5's), and Haswell hyperthreading is pretty effective. Not that expensive too, and from the sound of it you'll mostly need good single-thread performance.

Very power-efficient too (54W TDP). The FX-6300/6350 will use a lot more power.

I haven't seen much in the way of vid cards that does better than my GTX 460 until you get to like $150 or so especially since the desktop side of things won't improve that much. So I'm not sure I'm willing to fork out more for a new graphics card. Maybe I should?

No need, unless you care about power-consumption. In that case a GTX750TI is a good option.

My Phenom II X4 955 is clearly dated and the current mobo is only PCI-E 16 v1 so doesn't even take advantage of the PCI-E v2 that the graphics card supports. That was another reason for thinking about the simple mobo change.

From what you've posted, you're using a board based on the ancient Geforce 6150/nForce430 . That thing is beyond obsolete, it really belongs in a museum. Definitely do a mainboard upgrade to -anything- newer.

P.S. The other thing I have to worry about is that it's probable I won't be able to transfer Windows 7 HP from the OEM ZT Systems computer to a new build. Thus, I'll have to get W7 again.

That's right, you'll need a new windows licence.

 

[mfenn]

You'd need a GPU in the realm of the R9 270X or GTX 760 to match your GTX 460 X2 (basically GTX 460 SLI on a single board). I'd certainly much faster than any APU. Given that your budget is tight, I'd stick with the GTX 460 X2 for now.

As for the rest, given that you want 16GB of RAM and need a new OS license:

Core i3 4130 $120
Biostar Hi-Fi B85S3+ $64
Crucial DDR3 1600 16GB $130
Windows 8.1 Full Retail $120
Total: $434

You can knock off $120 by sticking with your current DDR3 RAM.

 

[SvenGolly]

Windows 8.1 Full Retail $120

Nooooo!!! Anything but Windows 8.1. Worst. Interface. Ever. ;-)

 

[mfenn]

Nooooo!!! Anything but Windows 8.1. Worst. Interface. Ever. ;-)

With 8.1 you can boot into the desktop, so you don't have to look at the Metro interface if you don't want to. The most important reason to get 8(.1) instead of 7 is that the full retail license is actually reasonably-priced, meaning that you won't get stuck buying the OS again if you change motherboards.

 

[SvenGolly]

I have a spare license for Win 7 Home Premium.