Upgrading my old P4 rig..

[Brav]

I am looking for the most cost-effective way to recycle what I have already:

What I have now (per sig)

P4 530 3.0 @ 3.6 ... Asus P5AD2-E Prem ... GeForce 9600
2x1Gb OCZ DDR2 667 Mhz ... Hitatchi 500GB HD ... Seasonic 600W PSU ... Lian Li 6077 Full Tower Case ... Samsung T260 Monitor 1950x1200

Want to keep existing video card for now (possible?) to save money, as I think the big bottleneck is CPU then RAM.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

Primarily gaming (mostly LoL, WoW, but havent played that in over a year), and also working from home (skype, quickbooks, outlook, and many apps open at once)

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

$350-400

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

Irvine, CA

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, HDD (prefer speed over capacity)

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

GeForce 9600, Seasonic 600W PSU, Lian Li 6077 Full Tower Case, Samsung T260 Monitor 1950x1200

6) Will you be overclocking?

No, not necessary

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?

1950x1200

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

In 1-4 weeks, no huge rush.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.

Crossfire/SLI support would be nice, but I doubt I would ever go down that road.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?


No, but should have Win 7 pro 64bit. Don't want to figure this into hardware cost yet.

 

[Brav]

I should mention I live close to a Micro Center.. it seems their prices for processors are great!

 

[Deleted member 88227]

Get the 2500k + motherboard combo at your local MC.(Get either a P67 or Z68 board) Shouldn't pay more than about ~$250 for a combo. Then pick up some DDR3 1333 RAM 2x4GB at Amazon for under $50 shipped, while you are there grab the Samsung F3 1TB hard drive. It's the best mechanical hard disk you can buy and it's only $60 shipped. (Ordering from Amazon means you don't have to pay taxes, since Amazon doesn't charge CA residents tax.)

Total should be around $330.

If you are buying W7, unless there are specific things you need out of W7 Pro, just spend the $100 on W7 Home. It'll do what you want.

 

[Dangman]

Since you live in California, I recommend buying as much parts as possible from Amazon.com as they do note charge CA residents tax like Newegg does.

In addition, after the parts you've listed are bought, you really should be thinking about a new case: That Lian Li case uses 80mm fans which means they're probably not providing enough cooling or air movement to cool that PC well.

Also, which Seasonic 600W PSU do you have?

Prelim build for now:
$180 - Core i5 2500K from Microcenter
$114 - Gigabyte GA-Z68-D3H-B3 Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard
$50 - Kingston Hyper KHX1333C9D3B1K2/8G 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333
$60 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
---
Total: $404 plus tax and shipping

 

[engiNURD]

Cheapest combo I could find at MC right now is: (tax included)
$285 - Combo: Core i5 2500K + ASUS P8Z68-V LX

I know you said you're not OC'ing, but the combos don't work with the i3-2100 and i5-2400 like they did in the past. Since you're not in a rush, you can wait for that deal to come back again, if it ever does.

 

[Brav]

Thanks a lot guys. I wouldnt mind doing a mild OC on the i5 if its stable enough with that Asus board. Also, MC has i7 for 199.. wortt the extra 20 bucks?

 

[E4g1e]

Thanks a lot guys. I wouldnt mind doing a mild OC on the i5 if its stable enough with that Asus board. Also, MC has i7 for 199.. wortt the extra 20 bucks?

Nope. That i7 is a Socket 1366 CPU, the i7-960, which is an older-generation CPU that's not compatible at all with LGA 1155 mobos. The only i7s that are compatible with your selected mobo are the i7-2600 and the i7-2600K, which cost $250 and $280, respectively, at MC.

 

[Deleted member 88227]

If all you doing is gaming then all you need is an i5 2500k, no need to spend more money when you wont notice a difference in gaming with anything higher than a 2500k. In fact, your gaming experience will be better in some instances as the i5 2500k performs better than most higher end CPUs when gaming.

 

[Brav]

Since you live in California, I recommend buying as much parts as possible from Amazon.com as they do note charge CA residents tax like Newegg does.

In addition, after the parts you've listed are bought, you really should be thinking about a new case: That Lian Li case uses 80mm fans which means they're probably not providing enough cooling or air movement to cool that PC well.

Also, which Seasonic 600W PSU do you have?

Prelim build for now:
$180 - Core i5 2500K from Microcenter
$114 - Gigabyte GA-Z68-D3H-B3 Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard
$50 - Kingston Hyper KHX1333C9D3B1K2/8G 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333
$60 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
---
Total: $404 plus tax and shipping

BTW - i have the wrong case in my sig, its an old one. Its like this one here, full tower, except I added an acrylic side window which has an additional side mounted 120mm fan just next to the vid card. I had purchased a ton of water cooling parts to do the conversion, but never did it

Thanks

 

[Dangman]

Then no need for a new case then.