If you had $500, what would you upgrade?

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NIZMOZ

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My current system specs are below. I have about $500 I can spend to upgrade my PC. I am pretty much out of space on my SSD in my machine now and was considering buying an 950 Pro to expand my system and put the games only on the 512gb EVO.

But I also was thinking maybe buy a regular HD, and upgrade the motherboard and processor to a i7 6700 series maybe and DDR4 memory.

Thoughts?


CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processo
CPU Cooler: Corsair h115i 280mm Extreme Performance Liquid Cooler
Thermal Compound: Arctic Cooling MX4 4g Thermal Paste
Motherboard: MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Tactical 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO Series 512GB 2.5" SSD
Storage: Synology 1515+ NAS, 2 3TB Western Digital REDs and 1 4TB Seagate Barracuda
Video Card: EVGA 1080 GTX FTW 8GB
Monitor: LG34UM95 34" ULTRAWIDE 21:9 LED IPS
Sound Card: Creative Labs ZXR 24-bit 192 Hz Sound Card
Case: Phantek's Enthoo Evolv ATX Tempered Glass Edition
Power Supply: SeaSonic Platinum 1000W 80 PLUS Platinum Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
Optical Drive External: Asus 12X Blu-ray burner 2.0/3.0 USB
 
SSD wise consider that 960 Pro's and EVO's are available for preorders.

CPU wise I'm not sure why you'd upgrade to Skylake from a Haswell unless you just really hate your money.

At the very least wait for Kaby Lake in January which should clock a bit higher and get a newer Z270 board.

Other than that you could wait for the 1080Ti to launch. Buy it and sell your 1080.
 
The 1080 I have now honestly is more than I need. I'm very tempted to get that SSD for the boot drive. But then I read from others it doesn't seem to be worth it over a 850 pro.
 
Are you running low on space anywhere? That's about the only "upgrade" I would be doing with that rig.

What kind of speakers do you have?
 
Yes, my C drive is low. I have to uninstall a game to install another because I have to keep my most played games installed.

I just have some Bose 2 channel speakers. I use headphones 95% of the time. Sennheisers.
 
SSD wise consider that 960 Pro's and EVO's are available for preorders.

CPU wise I'm not sure why you'd upgrade to Skylake from a Haswell unless you just really hate your money.

At the very least wait for Kaby Lake in January which should clock a bit higher and get a newer Z270 board.

Other than that you could wait for the 1080Ti to launch. Buy it and sell your 1080.

Where can you preorder it?
 
All SSD. Rest of rig is fine.

Cool, I have a GD65 series MSI board too ...X58A though
 
Spending just to spend is stupid.

Consider what you're not satisfied with in your rig and upgrade when you have enough money. You'll more often than not realize that the $500 may be too little for what your next step up is.

If you insist on being stupid and MUST spend the $500 immediately, you might as well spend another $100 and go 1080 SLI. It's the best upgrade I can see for your current rig, barring things unlisted (better desk, better office chair, better lighting in your room, better peripherals, etc.).
 
Spending just to spend is stupid.

Consider what you're not satisfied with in your rig and upgrade when you have enough money. You'll more often than not realize that the $500 may be too little for what your next step up is.

If you insist on being stupid and MUST spend the $500 immediately, you might as well spend another $100 and go 1080 SLI. It's the best upgrade I can see for your current rig, barring things unlisted (better desk, better office chair, better lighting in your room, better peripherals, etc.).

Maybe you didn;t read my post well. I am not spending it to be "stupid". I need more space, that is a given. My PC is 3 years old, so I just thought if an motherboard/cpu/ram upgrade would be worth it than getting a new SSD I would go that route. I have no reason to buy another video card and that is not what my question was in the first post.
 
Seems this post was a waste of time here for some not even helping with the question I had.
 
have you forgotten where you are, this is the internet, where people like to crap on others because they can. I'd say get another 850evo and stash n save for when Kaby Lake hits
 
850 EVO seems to have the best performance out of all SSDs per tests I see. I like the price of the Crucial MX300 per GB. $50 less than 1TB 850 EVO. I can sell my current 850 EVO 512gb and use that and be set for just $200 I bet. (sell $100 or so for my current one).
 
I would max out your synology with 8tb or 10 tb drives ;), but seriously are you overclocking at all on your rig? You could probably get a little more out of it if you de-lid your 4770k and ramp up the clocks :). You might set a little more out of DDR4 as they are about clock for clock equal to ddr3, so maybe with some 3000 MHz stuff, but the platform cost to just is pretty ineffective for the $/performance gains. There are always the rare broadwell 1150 chips to the 5775c's but they are not cheap.
 
I would max out your synology with 8tb or 10 tb drives ;), but seriously are you overclocking at all on your rig? You could probably get a little more out of it if you de-lid your 4770k and ramp up the clocks :). You might set a little more out of DDR4 as they are about clock for clock equal to ddr3, so maybe with some 3000 MHz stuff, but the platform cost to just is pretty ineffective for the $/performance gains. There are always the rare broadwell 1150 chips to the 5775c's but they are not cheap.

I actually haven't overclocked it yet. It's been fast enough for me so far. I may attempt it after I put in the new 1tb ssd I ordered.
 
Yes, I actually use too. 2007 NISMO 350Z,#0044. :) First in Texas.

Oh sweet! I remember seeing that one at Gunn Nissan I think. I have #0262 also silver and in San Antonio! Are you on the Facebook Nismo Z page?
 
Seems this post was a waste of time here for some not even helping with the question I had.
Don't be salty! Maybe I'm just the old frugal guy, but if I had the system you have and $500, I'd consider holding on to it. If you have to ask others how to spend money, you have to at least be open-minded enough to consider it may not be worth spending...*now. Money saved may give you a better bang for your buck even three months down the road.

But if you're convinced it's time to spewnd, that's OK too! If it were me, I'd consider a new set of speakers, then the bigger SSD. Do you rotate games frequently enough that it's a huge inconvenience to uninstall one for another?
 
Oh sweet! I remember seeing that one at Gunn Nissan I think. I have #0262 also silver and in San Antonio! Are you on the Facebook Nismo Z page?

Haha, yep, that was my baby at Gunn Nissan. Bought it off Big Al.

No, since I don't have it any more, I am no longer any part of any Z groups.

i-MVPh3L6-XL.jpg


i-ccWgFQZ-X2.jpg
 
My current system specs are below. I have about $500 I can spend to upgrade my PC. I am pretty much out of space on my SSD in my machine now and was considering buying an 950 Pro to expand my system and put the games only on the 512gb EVO.

But I also was thinking maybe buy a regular HD, and upgrade the motherboard and processor to a i7 6700 series maybe and DDR4 memory.

Thoughts?


CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processo
CPU Cooler: Corsair h115i 280mm Extreme Performance Liquid Cooler
Thermal Compound: Arctic Cooling MX4 4g Thermal Paste
Motherboard: MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Tactical 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO Series 512GB 2.5" SSD
Storage: Synology 1515+ NAS, 2 3TB Western Digital REDs and 1 4TB Seagate Barracuda
Video Card: EVGA 1080 GTX FTW 8GB
Monitor: LG34UM95 34" ULTRAWIDE 21:9 LED IPS
Sound Card: Creative Labs ZXR 24-bit 192 Hz Sound Card
Case: Phantek's Enthoo Evolv ATX Tempered Glass Edition
Power Supply: SeaSonic Platinum 1000W 80 PLUS Platinum Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
Optical Drive External: Asus 12X Blu-ray burner 2.0/3.0 USB
With your current system, that 950 PRO is practically out of the question. The Z87 chipset has absolutely no native m.2 support at all - and your motherboard has absolutely no m.2 slots at all (it has an mSATA connector, but it will not work with or fit any m.2 drives at all). This means that you will need to purchase an m.2 to PCI-e adapter card for that 950 PRO. And then, you will risk having the PCI-e bandwidth on the primary PCI-e slot drop from x16 to x8 if you install the adapter card.

As such, outside of simply adding additional SATA SSDs and/or SATA HDDs to your current system, there is absolutely no cost-effective upgrade to what you currently have. And upgrading to a newer platform will simply cost you a lot more money than what you'd gain in performance.
 
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