Upgrading after 4 years, but little by little.

D

devil_trigger

Gawd
Joined
Jan 24, 2007
Messages
726
Ok guys, I've been lurking this forum for awhile and I know you guys tell alot of people to post back when they are going to purchase the computer. Well I'm going to be a little different because I've been out of the game for awhile and I usually build my PCs by gathering pieces little by little for a couple or few months. Now I know you are going to say thats a bad way to go about it because tech changes but I build a new PC about every 4-5 years so I'm not too worried about that. I just hope you guys will work with me this way since its the only way I can do this.

Now onto the details. Like I said I haven't built a PC in about 4 years with the system in my sig, C2D E6600, 8800GTX, 2 gigs RAM. I also want to get this stuff figured out ahead of time because I will be WCing this rig and I would like to have a GFX card and CPU picked out so I can pick waterblocks and stuff.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Moderate gaming, very light video editing, web surfing, DVD/CD burning
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
I don't really know what to set for a budget since this will be spread out like I said, so I can change pieces around if need be. I'm not looking for anything too crazy altogether, something moderate like a mid-range PC. I'll throw $1000 out there w/o shipping and tax.
3) Where do you live?
Mantua, NJ - Veeerrryyyy close to a newegg shipping location.
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU, GPU(1), RAM, Mobo, 2x DVD-RW drives and they dont need to be special
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Thermaltake Toughpower 850W modular https://thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?S=1207&ID=1503 1 Samsung spinpoint 500GB SATA HDD, monitor, Creative X-Fi Lian-Li G70 case
6) Will you be overclocking?
If its as easy as OCing with the Intel Bad Axe 2 and E6600 I would like to.
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
Dell 24" 1920x1200
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Will be buying piece by piece over a couple months(please work with me on this)
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc.
I dont use raid, I would like the option of Xfire/SLI with whichever GPU is chosen, USB 3.0 and SATA 6gb would be nice if thats what newer drives require
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit


Like I said I dont mind that tech will evolve every couple months or whatever I just want to build this piece by piece. I just want to get some ideas together about brands and chipsets and all that since I've been out of the game for awhile. I am curious if IDE optical drives are still the norm or did SATA finally take over? I know with my current rig I'm using IDE drives since SATA was tricky to use with the optical drives back then for some reason.

I would like to get to know the steps of video cards if someone would be so kind, since about the 8800gtx because I have no clue how the progression went since then. I have no idea how the newer cards rank.
 
How come you can't just save your money and buy everything in one go?

To answer your questions anyway:
- Yes SATA DVD burners are the norm. They're as cheap as $20 these days.
- There are a lot of $150 cards out there that will outperform you 8800GTX.
 
It's not a good idea to buy little by little. Save and get the best you can get when you feel you have enough.
 
What is your question?

Do you have an amount of money right now you are trying to buy some parts with? Or are you just wanting a $1k rig layout for the future?

It really won't be helpful to give a shopping cart now if you will be building in a month- prices and values change.

A great resource for getting up to speed on how things rank is the Anandtech bench-
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/2

I would recommend saving up to buy a motherboard/cpu/ram all at once. You can then reuse the other parts, and upgrade the graphics card, dvd drive, and harddrive when you have money. Do you have an Intel/AMD preference?
 
Like I said, this is how I've built my last 2 PCs so I don't mind the fluctuation in tech and prices, its just how I do things. I'll buy a piece here and there each paycheck until I have it all. I just want to know what todays good motherboards are and what kind of gfx card would be good for me. Like I said my PC is pretty old and I kinda figured a reasonably cheaper card would outperform mine nowadays.

Yes its basically a $1k rig to build up over a month or 2. Since the main 2 are CPU/RAM/MOBO I can probably buy all those at once since I've seen nice sets of 8GB ram for like $60.

With the way my money goes out for bills and all I could never keep $1k to the side for a PC lol, and so this is how I've built my PCs and its worked fine, like I said I dont mind the fluctuation of tech and prices. If I find a cpu/mobo that I like I'll stick with it. I am a little partial to Intel, and with that I'm guessing an nVidia card for SLI options.
 
In addition new egg offer some discount when buying parts in a combo deal. Check out slickdeals.net if you are okay with waiting often good dels on individual comoenents will pop up.
 
Thats cool I can do that, I just need to get up to speed with what chipsets are the norm nowadays, what are good/bad brands of mobos and so on. I've been hearing alot about the Intel 2500K chip and that looks pretty decent, and I think I've seen that its a good OCer. What is a good mobo to pretty easily OC that chip? If Intel still makes decent OCing boards I can go with them, I love my Bad Axe 2, very stable and reliable.
 
devil_trigger said:
Thats cool I can do that, I just need to get up to speed with what chipsets are the norm nowadays, what are good/bad brands of mobos and so on. I've been hearing alot about the Intel 2500K chip and that looks pretty decent, and I think I've seen that its a good OCer. What is a good mobo to pretty easily OC that chip? If Intel still makes decent OCing boards I can go with them, I love my Bad Axe 2, very stable and reliable.
Click to expand...

OCing a Sandybridge is only possible with a K series chip (2500K, 2600K), you must have a p67 or Z68 board, and you can only change the CPU multiplier and RAM speed, no more OCing with a bus or base clock.

So any quality P67 or Z68 board will get you a good OC. Faster RAM will allow faster settings for memory.
 
OK, how much money do you have right now for an upgrade?
When is the earliest that you can buy parts?

I agree with Mr34727 in that you should split the parts purchases in distinct ways, i.e the mobo/CPU/RAM first and then the rest of the parts later. So here's what I recommend:
- Buy the Mobo, CPU and RAM at the same time. Preferably within this month if possible due to low RAM prices and really good CPU + mobo combos this month.

- If you won't be able to get a new video card till next month, then actually come back when you have roughly $250 saved up. Then ask for GPU advice when you have that money. Video card prices as well as availability fluctuate quite often so a good GPU recommendation now won't be a good GPU recommendation next month simply due to price.

- When you have about $45 saved up, just grab two of the cheap DVD burners you see on newegg that has free shipping. That's pretty much all you need to know about how to buy a DVD burner. They're basically all the same these days.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top