Help! Too many options, not enough knowledge

[Castiel]

I am considering upgrading my PC. Spec is currently i7 920 @3.2ghz, Gigabyte UD5, 24GB Corsair Vengence, 128GB SSD, 2TB HDD, GTX580 GPU.

I have a budget of around £1200 (I'm flexible, but no silly stuff, i would rather it lower than higher) and will use the PC predominantly for Gaming and Streaming Video, but I do also use it for work (mine current PC is more than enough for that though). The PC should also have a CPU & Mobo shelf life of 3 years minimum before I need to upgrade again.

I will be passing on my PC to my 13 year old so while I could reuse the DDR3 (I have some patriot stuff to replace it with and the HDD and SSD. I will need a new case (Corsair 600T in white) and PSU etc....I would prefer a liquid cooler similar to the Corsair H50 I have currently, rather than huge air coolers, but obviously an improved one.

So it's been a while since I have looked at PC stuff and I don't know my ivybridge from my sandybridges etc...so advice and specs are most welcome...

Thanks...Castiel.

 

[Castiel]

Tbh your system is still really good and you won't get that much better if your getting rid of your old rig and getting a totally new one. Maybe if you had £1200 of upgrades you could.

I can reuse the SSD, Memory and GPU (although I would rather give it my boy instead of the GTX286 he currently has). I am also flexible on my budget, I was going on a quick totting up of a i7 3820 system reusing the memory and HDDs which came out at around £1200 or so. What I don't want is excessive diminishing returns, where I am spending money for the sake of it.

My son needs a new PC as his Dell 710 is well past its sell by date tbh, so I will have to do this sooner rather than later anyway.

 

[Castiel]

That system is still good for gaming, so upgrading will not give a huge gaming performance increase.

Intel are releasing new CPUs with a new socket (1150) in Q2 of this year so it may be worth hanging on for that. Also AMD and Nvidia should be releasing new GPUs at around the same time.

I would look at OCing the CPU you have it should do around 4GHz with a decent cooler.

I used to have an OC of 4Ghz and I realise that the system is still good (hence why I want to give to my son), the issue is I need to buy something, it is better to build a new system (or upgrade the majority of it) for myself and then passing mine to my Son (who needs a PC because his is on its last legs) than buying one for him when his refuses to boot any more (which it is doing intermittently now) and then buying another one for myself later in the year or early next.

I just need advice on what is currently available and my best options without going overboard. I don't particularly want to wait until the next iteration comes out which might be any time between now and November and as I said I could hold off on a GPU etc as I have several others he could be going on with...but I need some advice on CPUs and Mobos at the least.

Simply out I am doing this now, so telling me to wait isn't really very helpful. I appreciate the advice nonetheless, but it doesn't help my situation.

 

[Castiel]

Would the better option not be build a mid range PC for your son at say 500-600 quid?

Your system's not going to struggle for a while.

Seems like a waste of 500 or 600 quid tbh, I could simply use that to buy a CPU and mobo.

I simply want advice on what to buy, not why I shouldn't buy anything. I'll just look around the review sites and other spec threads and see what I can find out and so on.

 

[Castiel]

I would say your current system is fairly impressive as it is and has a good few more years left in it, but if your going to generously give your a computer anyway, what i would do is take out the parts of your current system you want to keep and buy your son less expensive but still reliable replacement parts. This way you can make your £1200 stretch a bit further, I don't follow Intel prices that much but to me i don't think you can get a MUCH more impressive system for 1200 quid.

As an example, if i were you i would keep your graphics card, i think they are great cards and buying a new one right now will eat into your cash, leaving you less to spend on your system, you could alternatively get your boy a ATI 7850 which are great bang for buck. If you are fixed on getting a new card for your own system, ATI 7950's are very nice value, though compared to gtx580, i doubt you will notice any performance increase and a better card would cost you a much more precious chunk of cash which would be quite nice to spend elsewhere.

As for the CPU and MOBO, i don't know because i am at a loss for Intel (embarrassingly i had to Google your CPU to find out if 3.2ghz was an overclock). If you want to get a new close loop liquid cooling set i suppose you could get the Corsair H60 or H100 but to be honest the H60 is enough for most people, it depends on your CPU of choice and the clock your aiming at. You might even want to have a go at a custom loop, with a bit of thought and £1200 you can go a long way!

What i would do if i were you, is keep the ram and give your boy the Patriots you have lying around and keep the graphics card and buy your boy something no more expensive than a 7850 as a replacement (its still a great card, you wont be cheap for doing it!). If you have an interest in water cooling, you have a lovely side panel in the 600T i believe to admire any handy work you might want to do!

If you decide to keep some parts and replace your old system with cheaper parts, your budget could be further increased depending on what your son wants to do with the computer. Though i cant be of much help in suggesting what exactly, im sure if you write what sort of stuff your son will be doing with your old system, the guys on here can make your £1200 stretch a little further, you might even have some left over!

Thanks it is for my Son, not my sister...am I have a GTX285 and an ATi 4890 floating about as well as 6GB of Patriot DDR3 and plenty of HDDs I could use.

My son uses the PC for gaming, so my system will be ideal for him for quite a while.

 

[Castiel]

As opposed to spending 1,200 on an upgrade that isn't going to give any tangible gains isn't a waste?

Spending £600 on something far worse than what I would give him and then spending £1200-1400 later on in the year or early next seems far more wasteful.

You could mix it up a little, build a system for him but at the same time upgrade sections of yours.
Say, give him the GTX580, but keep your CPU/Board/RAM, buy yourself a new GPU, and him a Board/CPU/RAM.

I need to buy a PSU and Case whatever happens.....as the Dell is BTX. Although I do not see the logic in buying myself a new GPU and him a new CPU...why not just buy myself a new GPU and CPU etc and give him mine.

If I need to spend more money then I need to spend more money, if none of the current CPU/mobo combinations are an improvement on mine then I don't know why others are upgrading from them either?

I wish I hadn't bothered asking tbh....I simply want to know what the best options are for me to buy now, is it worth buying ivybridge or sandybrige E, is the i5 a better option than the i7, should I buy nvidia or ati and so on...not whether I shouldnt buy at all or whether I should build a totally different PC for someone else.

EDIT : Although, unless I'm mistaken, what I did was give you advice, you'd then ask for a spec at 500-600 with your criteria if you did go to mix things up.

You gave me advice on a question I didn't ask, I don't want a spec on a £500 PC....I am building a new PC with a flexible budget and some flexibility in what I can reuse....I am not building a cheap PC for my son, I will give him the one I have using the components left over and the ones I have sitting in my office.

 

[Castiel]

I never told you not to buy at all.

And I wasn't saying only buy a CPU/Board/RAM/GPU either.

In your OP you've mentioned less is best, to get a worth while upgrade over your system you need to pretty much spend your 1200 budget.

Your proper upgrade path would be socket 2011, core for core performance however is less than that of Ivybridge 1155 CPU's, and Ivybridge E isn't coming out for quite some time.

An overclocked 3820 would be a decent upgrade over your current CPU, but do you really want to upgrade from a quad with HT for yet another quad with HT?

And 600 quid spend wouldn't give something far worse, you can get an i5, 16GB RAM, 128GB SSD with 7870/660 for that, which is pretty much your end gaming performance with your current set up.

I'd be wanting a 3930k from a socket 1366 Quad.
Then a 680 over a 580 and you're at over 800 quid already, do you get what I'm saying now?

You could go 3820 and a 680, and you're at about 600 quid of your budget down, and not much gain in gaming over your current set up, and that 600 could go into a full system which almost matches your own.

If you went for a 3570k over your i7, in some situations it would be a downgrade due to the lack of HT, though the core for core performance is higher than your i7.
So you'd want at least an i7 3770k if you went socket 1155, and there's 250 quid down in a CPU.

You could go 3770k and 7970, and there's 550 gone.

That is more like it. Although, Like I said the budget is flexible to some degree if it is worth it and I chose £1200 because that is what I costed up a i7 3820, Asus P9X79pro, Corsair 600T, Seasonic 1050 Mod PSU, 4GB EVGA GTX680 and a Corsair H70 cooler at......I already have Memory (although I could buy different if it is beneficial as mine is in 6x4GB sticks not 8GB sticks) or I could get two 7950s for the same cost as the Evga card for example. I simply want to know what my options are in this regard and which are the better options as some are saying the 3770 is better than the 3820, that the 3570 is as good as the 3770 in the real world and so on....cost effectiveness is what I am after. I don't think buying a 3930k on a 1366 platform meets the cost effective part of the process.

Treat it as if I am upgrading my PC, not necessarily building another one as the only things I cannot reuse besides the obvious are the Case and PSU as I need those to build my sons out of what I have left and what I have floating about.

Don't get arsey when people are trying to help you.

You didn't answer the question I asked, you simply told me to buy and build something else entirely.

 

[Castiel]

Something like this?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £259.99
2 x HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H795QC3G2M) with FREE FARCRY3, Hitman Absolution, Sleeping Dogs & 20% off MOH Warfighter PC Games £249.95 (£499.90)
1 x Asus Z77 Sabertooth Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £181.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H80i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1155 / LGA1156 / LGA1366 / LGA2011/ AM2 / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £76.98
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 750w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020061-UK) £69.98
Total : £1,100.84 (includes shipping : £10.00).



£100 left to play with for case ( these are totally upto personal preference) You could get one card for now and get another when you feel like it.

Thanks, this is the sort of thing I am after. I have a Coolermaster Modular 850w PSU in my current system, would the 750w be enough, I could get one for my son instead and use mine perhaps?

 

[Castiel]

3770k is better than the 3820.
3570k will pretty much mirror the 3770k in gaming (Obviously there's some situations where this isn't the case)

But a 3570k in some cases would be less than your current i7 in heavily threaded situations.

3770k isn't cost effective for gaming over a 3570k though.

Kitkat's parts are fine, not sure on the coolers however, I have a 7950 Crossfire myself, end performance is stupidly good.

What would be the end PC your son got if you bought Kitkats parts?

He would have the i7 920 on the UD5...6GB patriot 1600 DDR3, Seagate 2TB 7200 rpm HDD, GTX580 (GTX285 if I kept the 580) HAF932 case, DVDRW.

 

[Castiel]

Complete new PC, allowing you to pass the one you have onto your Son.

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H795QC3G2M) with FREE FARCRY3, Hitman Absolution, Sleeping Dogs & 20% off MOH Warfighter PC Games £249.95
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £179.99
1 x Seasonic X-Series 850w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £149.99
1 x Corsair Graphite 600T Midi Tower Case - Limited Edition White £139.98
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £129.98
1 x Corsair Hydro H100i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £99.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £89.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £78.98
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD316GB1600C11DC) **OcUK Exclusive** £49.99
1 x Samsung SH-224BB/BEBE 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
Total : £1,203.32 (includes shipping : £13.75).



Do you need any other bits, OS ect?

Edit: What games are you playing and across how many screens?

I don't need OS, I have W7 and W8....also I play on a single (sometimes two) monitors @2560x1440.. Mainly shooters and the like, Farcry3 currently.

 

[Castiel]

I don't see how that's much better than buying a mid range i5 system with a 128GB SSD and 16GB RAM with a 7870 LE.

In gaming the i5 with the IPC advantage is going to give your i7 920 a run for its money at its current clock, the 7870 LE would best your GTX580 too.

It's not like you're giving him something inferior, the opposite actually.

But I will still want to upgrade at some point myself. It would cost more in the long run.

 

[Castiel]

But the upgrade bar the GPU's is giving you nothing, that is wasted money for the sake of calling it an upgrade (And the GPU's you can upgrade at any time, but your son's already get the superior set up than he would have had)
Socket 1155 is also dead, due to be replaced Q2 2013 with Haswell, which again won't have any mainstream hexcores.

So you are saying that the i7 920 is as good as all the current CPUs out there, that haswell will be pointless as well..that USB3, SATA3, and whatever other improvements over my old x58 are also not worth it and I should buy a £600 midrange PC for my boy and £500 on GPUs for myself...so effectively spending £1100 anyway?

 

[Castiel]

Are you purposely misinterpreting what I'm saying?

No, because that is what you said, buy a midrange PC for my son, and upgrade my GPUs...and also add a s/h processor into that now as well....which is what is confusing, it will cost more, but leave me with an ageing system.

If a 6 core processor is a better choice and more cost effective in the longterm then I'll buy a new one, I don't want to buy s/h.

 

[Castiel]

So should I up my budget by a few hundred and go X79 and 3930k?

 

[Castiel]

Audigex understands.

 

[Castiel]

Ok, bought a couple of 7950s, the Corsair 600T, Corsair 750w PSU and a H80i Cooler.....so all I need now are a CPU, Mobo and the odd and sods. (SSD/HDD/DDR/sound card are all being reused) so that leaves around £500 in my provisional budget.

 

[Castiel]

I guess it's all about which platform, CPU and motherboard now, and that's where I am stuck tbh.

 

[Castiel]

Do you do much video encoding type work Castiel? Or would gaming be the main use?

I don't do any video encoding, mainly gaming and general stuff. The work I do is more monitor centric than reliant on CPU speed.

 

[Castiel]

Id be inclined to go with a Z77 board and an i5 3570k. Primarily a gamer myself and i recently switched out one of my X58 systems, (4.2ghz i7 920) for the cpu and motherboard in sig. Gaming performance is virtually the same.

Ive thought about going for an i7 3770k, but tbh it would only be beneficial in multi gpu situations at resolutions above 1080 res.

I game at 1440p, occasionally across multiple monitors.

 

[Castiel]

I see that youve already opted for x2 7950's. Will theese be used in xfire on one system, (as you already have a gtx 580). Due to it's onboard 3gb ram count, the 7950 copes better at high res than the nvidia equivalents such as the 670. A single 7950 with a bit of an overclock will handle 1440 fine, the gains with a cpu such as the 3770k really tend to show up with multiple gpu's in triple screen monitor setups.

They are for xfire in my new system. I have three 27" Dell monitors.