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Least-cost Upgrade

D

djstarfox

Gawd
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Joined
Sep 20, 2010
Messages
575
I'd like advise on what to get for a swap-out upgrade. We're talking motherboard, CPU, RAM combo. It's been a long time since I knew all the different chipsets out there. Oh, and I'm completely terrified of Intel's Management Engine on-chip. I'd like to kill that thing.

Just for a point of reference, I am upgrading from an old Xeon 5660 series CPU with EVGA X58 chipset.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Primarily photo editing with GIMP/Rawtherapee, web browsing, and running virtual machines for various learning projects.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
I'd like to keep this under $300 out the door.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
USA, Florida

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, RAM, motherboard [must be size micro-ATX, as this is a small Lian-li case]

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Power Supply is currently Seasonic 560W;
I will be reusing the case, 1 video card (Nvidia 750Ti), RAID controller, DVD drive, and 6 hard drives.

6) Will you be overclocking?
Slight overclock. Stability and long-lasting are my primary concerns.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
It's a 24" Dell at 1920x1080; it's fairly new.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Near the end of this year.

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.
I'd like USB 3.0 for sure.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
I will be using Centos 7 linux (64-bit).
 
$300 is really hard, mostly because of memory. RAM prices are *absurd* right now. Your CPU may be old, but it is 6-core. There is absolutely no way you'll get a better system for virtualization for only $300.
 
I agree, to even get 16gb of ddr4 ram it'll cost at least $150 and current gen i5 (6 core) another $200.
 
It's situational.

You said you had an X5660. That CPU is relatively slow per-core, but there *are* 6 of them. In order to match the raw core count - which matters a *lot* for virtualization - you've got to go 8th gen i5 or Ryzen 5 1600.

However, you didn't list virtualization as your *primary* usage point. Additionally, virtualization is highly dependent on memory capacity as well; you didn't state how much memory you have, but I'l take an educated guess at 12 GB.

You could try and find a used i7-4XXX series CPU and motherboard. That CPU would be fewer cores (4 instead of 6) but it would at least maintain the hyperthreading, and the individual cores would be significantly faster than your existing X5660. And being a 4th gen i7, you would naturally pair it with DDR3 (which presumably you would also find used) which would be cheaper memory than current-gen DDR4. You would at least stand a chance of finding a setup like that at around $300.

If you want to buy current-gen stuff, memory is just too expensive to operate on a $300 budget. I bought 32 GB of DDR4 today and it was $400 alone.
 
Thanks for the info. I find that this Xeon & slow memory that I have is sluggish and jittery. Somehow, this 7 year old mobo is still working, but I feel like I'm on borrowed time....

I priced an AMD Ryzen CPU with mobo for under $200 that appears to be usable. I haven't looked into AMD since I owned an Opteron years ago... That said, yeah, the memory was more than the chip & mobo combined for only 16GB. Total cost was $370.

I will checkout a used i7-4000 series and see what's for sale. Eight cores and 16G ram would be enough for what I do.
 
Well keep in mind the i7-4XXX series will only be 4 cores, but will show up as 8 thanks to hyperthreading. Those cores will be faster than what you have now individually by quite a bit though.
 
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