CPU & Motherboard Bundle - Present

[Rick Sanchez]

Hi Guys,

My brother wants to upgrade his PC so he can play better games and produce videos faster.

His current specs are:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 940
Motherboard: Gigabyte Tech GA-MA790GP-DS4H Socket M2
RAM: Awaiting reply
Graphics: 3072MB ATI AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series (I bought for his birthday)
HDD: 240GG Samsung SSD 840 Pro Series (I bought for his birthday)

What would you advise for a decent update in 3-5 years time?
CPU:
Motherboard :
RAM:

Thanks guys

[evilsatan]

Find out what software he uses and search that online to see what the recommended processor is. Personally I am Intel all the way and never even consider AMD for processors, but I do use AMD for some graphics cards.

Intel K series CPUs are unlocked so can be overclocked, it looks like the 1150 socket will be used for Broadwell too but I'm not sure if a different chipset is required. If you want to save a bit of money you may be able to find a Haswell K series for less now that the Haswell refresh series have been released.

[Rick Sanchez]

"It'll be used for work but mostly gaming; Battlefield, Arma, command and conquer, Civ 5 e.t.c"

He hasn't got back to me about anything else program wise

[evilsatan]

I'm not a gamer so I don't keep up with the best hardware for any games but when I am asked to build or upgrade a gaming machine I ask what games they play and would like to play in the near future, I then lookup the recommended spec and try to achieve that based on the budget. Sorry it's not specific advice but I'm not the best person to recommend going hardware so am just sharing my technique when faced with the same problem.

[wakadoo]

just purchased the Devils Canyon Core i7 4790K CPU
and a Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard
with 16 GB of ddr3 memory..

its about 5-10% faster than my i7 3770k / ASRock Extreme 6 / 16Gb of memory.

a mild overclock would have been faster and the old stuff is 2.5 years old so spend
your money on quality components and 4 years lifespan is easily obtainable.


waiting for next gen is a mugs game as you would never buy anything, but like evil says,
Broadwell is on the way and ddr4 is the new kid on the block if you have cash to spare.

[wakadoo]

also stay away from the top amd chips for now..

220w chips are a joke tbh and limited motherboards to take them.
there is a few lists of boards out there but when you check the specs
most are 140w and about 3 come out at 220w.

that's a lot of power and a lot of heat.

[Over Carl]

In the old days, each line of CPU's was normally a whole league above the previous in terms of performance. These days since AMD dropped out of the power race and many technologies are being pushed near their limits, the focus seems to be on lower power consumption with each generation with small performance increases. Just for instance, in the past I always needed the latest generation machines as I found anything else too slow. I've got a few C2D's and C2Q's that I see no need to replace yet.

I'm not into games, but the thing to me that screams it needs to be replaced is the CPU with something modern from Intel. then you will need a suitable mobo.

If you have any budget left, then check out the GPU benchmark sites to see what increases in GPU power you can get. If you have less than 4Gb, upgrade. These days I would want 8Gb+ in a new machine, although 4 is normally enough for most stuff.

SSD - if he needs more space consider whether this needs to be another SSD or whether to bring some rotating rust into the mix.

If there's any remaining budget, you could always look at things like sound cards, decent mice/keyboards, etc.

[Rick Sanchez]

So what would you specifically recommend?

[wakadoo]

1150 socket motherboard so it takes the future broadwell chips.

I got this ..





lots of features, dual bios, plenty of fan headers, post diagnostics etc etc.
drivers were in a single package for a one hit install.

then the i7.. 4790K




what can I say, its an i7 lol, unlocked so I can overclock it. 4.0ghz with a 4.4ghz boost.


now I got some ram already but I couldn't resist this.

Avexir Core Red Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16001104G-2IR) - Red Light






yeah its only 1600mhz but to be honest I will be fooked if I can see the diff with faster ram.


your gfx card and ssd will be fine for now though