• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Help with USD 500 Upgrade

T

twostarph

n00b
Joined
Jul 11, 2015
Messages
9
Hi everyone. I would appreciate any advice you can give me on an upcoming upgrade.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming. Mostly FPS single player campaigns.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Php 23000 which is roughly USD 508. Exchange rate is USD 1 = Php 45.19 as of this writing. The prices in the stores linked below are inclusive of tax.
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Metro Manila, Philippines
The following stores are close to where I live and have reasonable prices as far as I know:
1
2
3
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, motherboard, RAM, GPU, maybe PSU as well depending on the GPU recommendation
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Corsair CX430
Fractal Design Define Mini
Crucial MX100 120gb
Samsung 1TB HDD
Hitachi 2TB HDD
Samsung DVD Writer
6) Will you be overclocking?
No for the CPU. Maybe for the GPU.
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
1080p, 21.5 inches
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Aug 8, 2015
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
Just basic features will be fine. I'm thinking of getting an H81 board actually.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
I have a transferable Win 7 64-bit license.

If it helps, I'm coming from an Athlon II X3 440, 4GB RAM and a 650 ti.

I'm considering the following:
i3 4170 - Php 5050
Gigabyte H81M-DS2 - Php 2295
1 stick G.Skill Aegis red 8gb ddr3 1600 CL11 - Php 2440
Sapphire R9 380 Nitro OC Ed 4gb - Php 10600
Seasonic S12II 520watts - Php 2620

Please do bear with me the narrow choices in stores and the hassle of factoring in the exchange rate.
 
Gosh great spot there. Thanks.
Is a psu upgrade necessary with a 280x? Can I just use a molex to PCIE adapter? My CX430 is 4 years old.

If yes, where should the savings go? An i5 or a better motherboard or a 2nd stick of 8gb RAM?
 
twostarph said:
Gosh great spot there. Thanks.
Is a psu upgrade necessary with a 280x? Can I just use a molex to PCIE adapter? My CX430 is 4 years old.

If yes, where should the savings go? An i5 or a better motherboard or a 2nd stick of 8gb RAM?
Click to expand...

Yes a PSU upgrade is necessary. If your PSU was of higher quality and wattage, yes you could use a molex to PCI-E adapter. But because the CX430 is a budget PSU which means that after 4 years it's not exactly fully capable, you need to get a new PSU.
 
Right. Thanks.

With that 280x, I'll be saving Php 1600. Should I cough up a bit more cash to get a 2nd stick of 8GB RAM or step up to a B85 or H97 motherboard?
 
Guys just had a crazy idea. I have 2x2gb ddr3 in my current rig. Would you recommend holding off on the ram purchase so I can get an i5? The upgrade would then look like this:

i5 4460 - Php 8000
Gigabyte H81M-DS2 - Php 2295
Powercolor 280x - Php 9000
Seasonic S12II 520watts - Php 2620

I would still have Php 1000 if I go this route. Do I put that in the ram fund or get a faster i5 or the Asrock H97 motherboard?
 
twostarph said:
Guys just had a crazy idea. I have 2x2gb ddr3 in my current rig. Would you recommend holding off on the ram purchase so I can get an i5? The upgrade would then look like this:

i5 4460 - Php 8000
Gigabyte H81M-DS2 - Php 2295
Powercolor 280x - Php 9000
Seasonic S12II 520watts - Php 2620

I would still have Php 1000 if I go this route. Do I put that in the ram fund or get a faster i5 or the Asrock H97 motherboard?
Click to expand...

If the RAM upgrade is in the near future for you, that's reasonable.. I wouldn't want to run 4gb for much of anything these days.

If you had someone trustworthy willing to ship from the US, you could, unfortunately, do this a lot cheaper. If it were my $450 (assuming +$50 shipping to get parts shipped to you from the US, I'd do the following:

Open box Asus Z87-A (4 DIMM slots for easy upgrading, and I've had nothing but good luck with Newegg's open box motherboards)- $51

EVGA GTX 960 - $190

Core i5 4590 (Micro Center always has nice deals on CPUs) - $160

2x2gb G.SKILL Ripjaws X DDR3 1600- $33
_____________________________
Total: $434 (plus maybe buy a power supply locally if yours doesn't cut it, as they're heavy and expensive to ship)
 
Thanks Chris for taking the time to help out. I really envy the choices you have there and the prices. I have friends in Phoenix who can ship for me. I am worried however about undergoing an RMA long distance.

Hope you can indulge me with a few more questions:
1. Should I wait for Skylake i3's? I haven't heard news about them so they might be a few months away. And I think any gains in performance wouldnt't be worth the additional cost of DDR4 right?

2. I know I'm asking you to look into a crystal ball but do you think DDR3 prices are going up anytime soon? I'm thinking of getting 2x8gb around Christmas if I take the i5 route and I'm worried I would end up spending more if I wait that long.

3. Is the i5 4460 worth the price premium over an i3 4170? The i3 is clocked higher so anything using only 2 threads will be faster on the i3 right?
 
twostarph said:
Thanks Chris for taking the time to help out. I really envy the choices you have there and the prices. I have friends in Phoenix who can ship for me. I am worried however about undergoing an RMA long distance.

Hope you can indulge me with a few more questions:
1. Should I wait for Skylake i3's? I haven't heard news about them so they might be a few months away. And I think any gains in performance wouldnt't be worth the additional cost of DDR4 right?

2. I know I'm asking you to look into a crystal ball but do you think DDR3 prices are going up anytime soon? I'm thinking of getting 2x8gb around Christmas if I take the i5 route and I'm worried I would end up spending more if I wait that long.

3. Is the i5 4460 worth the price premium over an i3 4170? The i3 is clocked higher so anything using only 2 threads will be faster on the i3 right?
Click to expand...

No problem. In your case, with a relatively tight budget, Skylake doesn't seem like a great options. Even if you pick a CPU at the same cost, the price of the rest of the build will add up from the CPU and motherboard..

DDR3 prices have been relatively stable over the last year from what I've seen (I've been following server/registered DDR3 prices more closely, but still). While production will wind down in favor of DDR4, there's enough product in the channels at the end of this product generation that I don't foresee massive fluctuations.

I'd go with the i5, personally. Multithreading is increasingly important in gaming.
 
I would not have someone ship parts to you from the US. It will undoubtedly make warranties useless.

Using 2x2GB of DDR3 RAM is doable and since it's easily upgradable I would get an i5 if it frees up enough budget to get one.
 
Yeah, there's no benefit waiting for Skylake. Based on their last two core releases, you can expect:

1. The Core i3 processors typically get released 3 months after the quad cores.

2. The early processors are typically shipped at the same price and clock as the older cores, with maybe 100 MHz improvement. You don't typically see noticable speed improvements for the same price until product refresh.

This combined with the fact that DDR4 is more expensive says Skylake would be wasted on you.
 
Thanks for your inputs guys. I've slept on it and decided to stick to my USD 500 budget as much as possible. My shopping list now looks like this.
i3 4170 - Php 5050
Gigabyte H81M-DS2 - Php 2295
G.Skill Aegis (Dual) 2x8gb ddr3 1600 CL11 - 4870
Powercolor 280x - Php 9000
Seasonic S12II 520watts - Php 2620

I'll be nearly USD 20 over budget but no big deal. I also looked at the H97 option but saw no features I needed. The PCIE 3.0 was tempting but if ever I will upgrade the GPU to something that would be bottlenecked by the PCIE slot, I would be upgrading the entire rig anyway.

That Gigabyte board seems to have good reviews. Are there better choices at that price range?
 
Last edited:
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top