need upgrade advice

G

gplracer

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
Messages
263
I have a q6600 overclocked to 3.2ghz with 4 gigs of ram. I have not played much in the way of games recently but will do more in the future. I use my computer for general purpose stuff. I also do photoshop and some video editing for my gopro. I would like to upgrade my computer as follows
Intel i5 processor
new motherboard
8gigs of ram
250gb Samsung Evo 840 drive

The issue is that I do not want to spend money on all of this at once. I can upgrade the cpu, motherboard, and ram or upgrade to a ssd. Then do the rest in a short amount of time. Which should I do first? I currently have a WD 300gb raptor drive.
 
are you heavy into the editing and such and what is your budget for the upgrade?
I would recommend 3570k/3770k personally unless you NEVER plan on overclocking or being able to, then I would opt for 4670/4770. 3570k is ever so slightly slower BUT uses less power, runs on average a bit cooler and does overclock easy enough to make up the small % performance difference even with a non K variety chip so you end up with better performance at "usually" less cost for 99% of everything, it literally takes all of a matter of a minute or 2 to gain back 5% performance advantage :)

I would say 8gb or more ram(depending on how much you need extra) I personally use and recommend Gskill ram, try for 1866 CL9 or 10 1.35-1.5v speed minimum as this does have a benefit for gaming(slight) and productivity(decent) vs slower speed.

depending on the cpu, this will tell which motherboard one needs to go for, 3xxx needs LGA1155 socket 4xxx needs LGA1150 socket. i7 definitely has the performance advantage for work and gaming purposes, more for work type stuff (depending on what programs/apps you use) vs i5, gaming, i7 has an advantage for sure, but it is not huge. Again depends on your budget.

I would also factor in an aftermarket cpu cooler personally its not 100% needed, but it will keep your cpu happier and case airflow better, Coolermaster Hyper 212 plus or 212 EVO is my personal "budget" recommendation and will work plenty great even for overclocking if you choose to do so, there of course is less costly coolers but very few that match the $/performance of these.

as far as upgrade to SSD first or last, your call, you could do the SSD route first and use the Raptor as a secondary drive then keep an eye on prices for the rest, or just get the rest now after you have looked at some game and work benchmarks and such, its up to you, no real right way to do this, its your $ and needs.
 
1) What PSU and case do you have?
2) How long will it take you to save money to get the rest of the other parts?
3) What's your max budget for the first upgrade?
4) What's the max resolution of your monitor?
5) What games are you planning on playing?
6) Will you be overclocking?
 
Dragon thanks for all of the advice. I have built over 180 computer but I have been out of the loop for over a year and things have changed.
1. PC Power can cooling (500 watt I think)
2. Not real long
3. $400
4. 1920x1200
5. Rfactor 2 and some others
6. YES! See my current rig in my signature.
 
Radeon 7850 or GTX 760/660 for gpu upgrade minimum if the games you plan on playing are "high spec"
Intel 4670 for cpu though again the 3770k would provide a gaming and work performance benefit as would the 6 core variants granted more cost.
8gb 1866/2000 class memory 1.35-1.5v CL9-10 timings (yes it does have a real world performance benefit with Haswell)
Hyper 212 EVO or better for cooler if you plan on overclocking.
I would highly suggest a modern power supply upgrade as well 550-750 watt is ample for single card use.

And you are welcome :)
 
gplracer said:
1. PC Power can cooling (500 watt I think)
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Can you please double check this? i.e the exact model number? Gotta make sure that your PSU is good enough to handle new upgrades. Some of PC Power & Cooling (hopefully that's what you meant) PSUs weren't that good.

dragonstongue said:
8gb 1866/2000 class memory 1.35-1.5v CL9-10 timings (yes it does have a real world performance benefit with Haswell)
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Proof?
 
gplracer said:
Intel i5 processor
new motherboard
8gigs of ram
250gb Samsung Evo 840 drive.
Click to expand...

All those parts besides the SSD depend on one another. Unless your c2q board uses ddr 3, but that's unlikely. You can get the SSD and enjoy the speed boost while saving for the rest.
 
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7364/memory-scaling-on-haswell
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-scaling-gaming-haswell-richland,3593.html
http://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1q1vam/with_haswells_memory_scaling_is_it_really_worth/

proof enough. Haswell was built to take advantage of higher speeds not 100% sure if it is based on finer dividers or whatever but it can, period. Now is it worth it to go 2400 or better, that I am pretty sure is a resounding no. 1600 is base minimum for performance reasons, 1866 and 2000 is better yet, 2133 seems to be the absolute sweet spot of course if the timings are tight enough, wicked speed but extremely loose timings do not help.

If his system did use DDR3 it would likely only be 1066 at best 1333 for C2 and this would really hamper performance though should still be able to be used (provided it doesn't require a lot of voltage as this may hurt the new chip?)
 
dragonstongue said:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7364/memory-scaling-on-haswell
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Looking at the CPU Real World, the Single DGPU, and Tri-Crossfire parts of the article (the only ones that actually matter), the majority of the performance differences between the different speed RAM and timings was rather nil at around 1 to 2FPS on average. Yes there were cases where that difference was greater than 2 but it appears from the article that was a relatively minor occurence.
dragonstongue said:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-scaling-gaming-haswell-richland,3593.html
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WE're not talking about IGP performance though. Since there is a good possibility that the OP will end up buying a dedicated card, spending extra money on higher-speed RAM for better IGP performance is not worthwhile.
dragonstongue said:
http://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1q1vam/with_haswells_memory_scaling_is_it_really_worth/
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Come on man, you're better than this: Two of the links in that Reddit article are from Corsair, a RAM manufacturer. Not an unbiased source.
dragonstongue said:
proof enough.
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Not really. The one solid link you had only showed rather minor performance differences. One was about IGP performance which is more than likely not applicable here. Finally the rest of the links were from a more than likely biased source AND a bunch of unsubstantiated user posts.
 
gplracer said:
The issue is that I do not want to spend money on all of this at once. I can upgrade the cpu, motherboard, and ram or upgrade to a ssd. Then do the rest in a short amount of time. Which should I do first? I currently have a WD 300gb raptor drive.
Click to expand...

Which task is most important to you: gaming, photoshop, or video editing? (For video editing, are you using consumer-level or professional-level software)?

Depending your overall funds, I'd split up your upgrades into three parts:

1) Processor, motherboard, RAM
2) SSD (plus additional storage, if necessary)
3) Video card

How old is your power supply? I recommend replacing it (along with your first set of upgrades) if it's over four years old. I personally find it worthwhile to pair a new power supply with an entirely new system.
 
"come on man your better then this" I was not using the corsair links they provided for ANY proof, I was using for their opinion that's all, is it 100% right no, but it helps to round out the concept, and it does not matter where opinion comes from, it is not 100% grounded fact, its OPINION lol.

Anyways, notice the resolution they were testing at a very cpu biased one. Thing is like they stated and you as an editor should be pointing out, it all depends on what you are using and for what purpose, some games are extremely sensitive to memory speeds and capacities and can have a gain of 10-15% just by changing to faster or more memory(system or gpu though there is a limit) other games/apps really don't care do to the way they are built.

I know for me, as a user, 1333-1600-1866 is a quite noticeable performance bump in nearly everything I do, though am I a professional user, not by a long shot, but when something is snappier/smoother I can tell. I am using an AMD cpu which by all rights does not have nor need near as much bandwidth as modern Intel cpu's do.

From the AandA article, cpu real world for the most part did not show a massive performance improvement but there was on average 5-10% overall scaling for the tests they ran, dgpu single ~4% at best, multi-gpu depending on tested game 5%+ anyways like I stated, 1600 minimum 1866-2133 with decent timings has benefit(and what I recommend) the article in question does show this(you all want to be finicky maybe you should have article dedicated to memory scaling)

Clocking the cpu up(haswell in this case) will take even more advantage of the higher memory speeds, anyways point is get good memory with nice timings it DOES have a performance advantage. Did I once say 1000+% no, I certainly wouldn`t be paying mucho $ for ddr3 3000 kits but the cost increase from 1600-2133 does not seem to be massive compared to above this speed grade.

I suppose to top it off, if you are building a machine from the ground up, wouldn`t you be wanting the most from it? and in this regard there is a benefit up to 2133 beyond this there really is not, SO if it is within budget, why the hell not?
 
dragonstongue said:
I suppose to top it off, if you are building a machine from the ground up, wouldn`t you be wanting the most from it? and in this regard there is a benefit up to 2133 beyond this there really is not, SO if it is within budget, why the hell not?
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Why not? Because the actual benefits are so small and relatively conditional that it's not worth spending the extra money on. Looking on Newegg, the price difference between the DDR3 1600 and DDR3 1866 RAM is roughly $9 to $15 give or take. An extra 1 to 2FPS for the majority of games out there is not worth that extra $9 to $15. Especially for someone with a tight budget of $400.
 
Prices are coming down over the next little while.
Again, look at the resolution they are using, the average user is using 1680x1050 or more so it takes the bias away from the cpu which means games/apps that are not constrained by memory are even less so, but the ones that are this becomes even more important.

Newegg is only one place, how many others are there. Amazon, NCIX, memory express yada yada yada.

anyways.

I agree on a new PSU for new build, OCZ(PCpNC) never had very high quality power supplies to begin with, and if they did were very few and far in between.

SSD would probably be the first upgrade I would do.
then the gpu
then the rest.

the Q6600 can still feed current gpu, but a current setup will not use an 8800gt very well :p
 
dragonstongue said:
Prices are coming down over the next little while.
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Not from what I've been seeing. Many of the RAM I've recommended in the past are now well over $75 rather than their normal $65 to $70 price tag.
dragonstongue said:
Again, look at the resolution they are using, the average user is using 1680x1050 or more so it takes the bias away from the cpu which means games/apps that are not constrained by memory are even less so, but the ones that are this becomes even more important.
Click to expand...
Yes but the only clear example (even then it was relatively minor) of a game being sensitive to RAM speeds was DIRT 3 in the AT article. Not exactly a widely played game compared to Tomb Raider or Bioshock Infinite.
dragonstongue said:
Newegg is only one place, how many others are there. Amazon, NCIX, memory express yada yada yada.
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Yes but Newegg had the smallest deviation between RAM speed and pricing compared to Amazon and other online stores from what I can tell.
dragonstongue said:
I agree on a new PSU for new build, OCZ(PCpNC) never had very high quality power supplies to begin with, and if they did were very few and far in between.
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Hence why I want to make sure which PSU model he has as there were still some good PC P&C PSUs out there, especially in the last few years.
 
in the next little while I can source quite a few articles but
http://www.kitguru.net/components/m...prices-declined-in-the-first-half-of-january/
the fire at Hynix(which cause the prices to soar initially) has been taken care of and production is ramping back to levels before fire, so prices are gong to adjust downwards in the next little while before DDR4 production starts to hit the scene, in fairness, it is unlikely to get prices like I had for my 1866 kit ($45 if I recall for my 2x4gb kit) but $60-$68 would still be a lot better then $75-90 :)

Resolution impacts everything, not sure how I can say this more clearly, if you take the games they mentioned and lower them as low as they can or up them as high as they can to see the AVG% of gain or loss it would paint a better picture, he did state productivity AND gaming, not just 1 or the other so for him more then for most gamers it would have a benefit to pay a small price increase for faster stuff, but I suppose he can decide that for himself if he just does this for "fun" or if time matters.

Agreed on the psu, really depends on the model specifically, though I would think to get a decent cost/performance gpu and a more modern kit don't you think 500w would be cutting it close (that depends of course on how old the psu is and such)

Little sticker on the side of psu will give the model number, 12v ratings etc.
 
dragonstongue said:
in the next little while I can source quite a few articles but
http://www.kitguru.net/components/m...prices-declined-in-the-first-half-of-january/
the fire at Hynix(which cause the prices to soar initially) has been taken care of and production is ramping back to levels before fire, so prices are gong to adjust downwards in the next little while before DDR4 production starts to hit the scene, in fairness, it is unlikely to get prices like I had for my 1866 kit ($45 if I recall for my 2x4gb kit) but $60-$68 would still be a lot better then $75-90 :)
Click to expand...

All righty then.

dragonstongue said:
Resolution impacts everything, not sure how I can say this more clearly, if you take the games they mentioned and lower them as low as they can or up them as high as they can to see the AVG% of gain or loss it would paint a better picture, he did state productivity AND gaming, not just 1 or the other so for him more then for most gamers it would have a benefit to pay a small price increase for faster stuff, but I suppose he can decide that for himself if he just does this for "fun" or if time matters.
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I understand what you're saying but I'm asking for additional proof backing up your statement. Please show me a solid article showing for a fact that certain resolutions with certain games will actually show a noticeable performance difference/increase that'll justify the costs with a HASWELL setup.

dragonstongue said:
Agreed on the psu, really depends on the model specifically, though I would think to get a decent cost/performance gpu and a more modern kit don't you think 500w would be cutting it close (that depends of course on how old the psu is and such)
Click to expand...
A good quality 500W PSU would be more than enough power for an average budget gaming system.
 
I am not going to spend the next 20 hours pulling articles for anyones enjoyment. The benefit is there, its up the user to decide if it is good for them. Haswell was designed and can take advantage up to ~2133 memory speeds, anything more then this is luck or extreme overclocking world records. ddr3 1600 vs 1866 what is the price increase vs the average performance increase, same with ddr3 2000 or 2133 if the cost outweighs the average % of gain then no of course its not worth it, but if the cost is slight say 2% but the average gain in everything the user in question does is say 3% then yes technically it is worth it.

2133-2400 or higher is such a small % gain for a huge increase in cost.

Also just asking, what do you mean by "budget" gaming system, this is another of those sweet spot arguments, if he is already going to spend x on a graphics card as an example and the next one up is only another $20 but can afford that much better an experience it can turn from a "budget" performer to a low cost gaming system not sure if I am wording this the way I want to, but am sure you get what I mean.

500w provided it has enough amps and the proper cables for everything should be enough for almost any system using a performance gpu (i.e 7870/R9 270-270x levelof performance) which is 1920x1200 in this case which definitely will need a decent gpu to get the most out of the $ spent for performance expected.

anyways, am done here will follow to see suggested parts take care.
 
dragonstongue said:
I am not going to spend the next 20 hours pulling articles for anyones enjoyment. The benefit is there, its up the user to decide if it is good for them. Haswell was designed and can take advantage up to ~2133 memory speeds, anything more then this is luck or extreme overclocking world records. ddr3 1600 vs 1866 what is the price increase vs the average performance increase, same with ddr3 2000 or 2133 if the cost outweighs the average % of gain then no of course its not worth it, but if the cost is slight say 2% but the average gain in everything the user in question does is say 3% then yes technically it is worth it.
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That I shall agree with. However, using current pricing, using the cheapest 8GB DDR3 1866 RAM available from Newegg at $79 and comparing that to $70 for a 8GB DDR3 1600 set, that's a price difference of 11% for a 3% performance increase. Using your own argument, that's not worth it.
dragonstongue said:
Also just asking, what do you mean by "budget" gaming system, this is another of those sweet spot arguments, if he is already going to spend x on a graphics card as an example and the next one up is only another $20 but can afford that much better an experience it can turn from a "budget" performer to a low cost gaming system not sure if I am wording this the way I want to, but am sure you get what I mean.
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By budget I mean, under $800 to $900. I'm just talking about actual monetary costs, not the sweet spot or best bang for the buck value.
 
"By budget I mean, under $800 to $900. I'm just talking about actual monetary costs, not the sweet spot or best bang for the buck value."

Got ya

and with the ram, I 100% agree on that note, my math is terrible always has been so going on that sentiment I agree with you though I believe going by what OP stated he uses system for everything so I would peg actual gain ~5% or better in most cases. but again going by the math directly, ~11% for a 5% increase is not worth it unless the below holds true in any way?

Now then just as a question, does the faster memory help in any way with overclocking Haswell based chips as in providing better multipliers/dividers which could help with the performance side of the equation?

and to the OP any news on the power supply specs in question like model and such
and is the $400 for the initial budget for part 1 or all told?
 
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