Upgrade time again. Advice needed.

db73 · 14 Dec 2017 at 03:55

It's that time again. Last swapped out the guts of my machine about 4 years ago! Currently have a middle of the road Gigabyte mobo, an i5 CPU, 8GB of DDR3 RAM & what was, at the time, the best fanless GFX card I could get. The reason is I went fanless if because my main aim was to keep the machine as quiet as possible. It's main use if for music production & I game on it less & less - last game I bought was Valve's Orange box!

So, I'm not really much of a gamer. But I always come on here for advice as people have been very helpful in the past & know their stuff. I'm looking to up the ante with a more up to date, middle of the road (doesn't need to be all bells & whistles) mobo, 16GB of decent RAM to go with it, if budget can stretch an i7 & possibly a new GFX card to improve performance (in case I do fancy a game, albeit at reduced quality) over the card I have.

Thanks, people ;-)

wez130 · 14 Dec 2017 at 07:21

The all important question, budget?

orbitalwalsh · 14 Dec 2017 at 09:49

if your able to list your current spec in more detail as well

db73 · 15 Dec 2017 at 00:19

wez130 said:
The all important question, budget?

I wasn't sure what would be realistic when I posted, being so out of touch since my last upgrade. But I've done a little research. I guess around 300-500 for mobo, RAM, gfx card or the same for mobo, ram, CPU. But as I said, this is a pretty wild guess based on previous upgrades & less about being informed by actual costs.

orbitalwalsh said:
if your able to list your current spec in more detail as well

Good idea. I'll do this when I get home form work ;-)

db73 · 15 Dec 2017 at 06:44

Current Spec (main components looking to replace);

CPU: Intel i5-4460, Haswell, Socket 1150 LGA
MOB: Gigabyte H81M-S2PH, H81
RAM: Kingston, 8GB, 1600MHz, DDR3
GPU: AMD Radeon HD6670

geordiejc · 15 Dec 2017 at 09:47

Hi,

Compared to todays standards all of the components of your PC are middle range with the exception of your Graphics card. The 4 core i5 haswell is still a good gaming CPU and DDR3 is common place.

Does the application you use for music production utilise threads ? if so an i7 would be a nice sneaky upgrade if you can pick up a used one. e.g. i7 4770.

Do you have an SSD? - if your using HDD's your PC will feel slow, an SSD will give it a new lease of life!

GPU wise buying a GTX 1050 / 1050 Ti will handle games at 1080p.

db73 · 15 Dec 2017 at 10:23

geordiejc said:
Hi,

Compared to todays standards all of the components of your PC are middle range with the exception of your Graphics card. The 4 core i5 haswell is still a good gaming CPU and DDR3 is common place.

Does the application you use for music production utilise threads ? if so an i7 would be a nice sneaky upgrade if you can pick up a used one. e.g. i7 4770.

Do you have an SSD? - if your using HDD's your PC will feel slow, an SSD will give it a new lease of life!

GPU wise buying a GTX 1050 / 1050 Ti will handle games at 1080p.

Thanks for the reply.

Yes I use an SSD. One of the best upgrades ever! Made an amazing difference to Windows start-up times. Faster launching programs as well.

I mainly use Propellerhead Reason, which uses hyper threading. So maybe it would be worth an upgrade to an i7. But it's a pricey upgrade over the i5 unless I can get a good deal / used one. Maybe I should put it on the back burner for now.

I'm thinking doubling the RAM to 16GB might be a nice upgrade. Any thoughts on this? I'll check the Gigabyte website to see what speed DDR3 my mobo can handle.

pastymuncher · 15 Dec 2017 at 10:52

The fastest memory for the H81 chipset is 1600mhz. You could install faster memory but it would only run at 1600mhz although you could most likely tighten the timings up.

A i7 4790 or even a 4790k (if you can get one for a good price) would be a significant upgrade from your 4460. Before anybody says it I know he can't overclock a 4790k but it is the fastest cpu for socket 1150 and is 400mhz faster than the non-k 4790 in both base and turbo clocks. The standard 4790 would give you a extra 400mhz base clock, 600mhz boost clock (3.6Ghz/4Ghz) while the 4790k would give you a boost of 800mhz base clock, 1Ghz boost clock plus of course the extra 4 threads from the i7's hyperthreading. Either of those plus a 16 gb memory kit would be a nice boost for your music production.

Probably a better option though would be a AMD Ryzen 1600, B350 motherboard and 16Gb of 3000mhz DDR4. It probably wouldn't work out that much more expensive than a i7 and would give you 6 cores/12 threads and bring you up to date.

geordiejc · 15 Dec 2017 at 14:33

db73 said:
Thanks for the reply.

Yes I use an SSD. One of the best upgrades ever! Made an amazing difference to Windows start-up times. Faster launching programs as well.

I mainly use Propellerhead Reason, which uses hyper threading. So maybe it would be worth an upgrade to an i7. But it's a pricey upgrade over the i5 unless I can get a good deal / used one. Maybe I should put it on the back burner for now.

I'm thinking doubling the RAM to 16GB might be a nice upgrade. Any thoughts on this? I'll check the Gigabyte website to see what speed DDR3 my mobo can handle.

Before you buy more Ram, do some heavy music 'work' and monitor your ram usage via task manager and see if you go near 8GB, if you don't go near 8GB adding more ram wouldn't speed up the process - but check the pagefile on the SSD/HDD - if that significantly increases then the upgrade could benefit. DDR3 is cheap as chips anyway on the used market.