Updating my computer build
 

6 years ago I had a tremendous amount of help in completing my first computer build. Computer has ran mostly great for 6 years, but I wanted to see if it was worth upgrading my processor, motherboard and graphics card.

Below is what I purchased. I do light gaming, a lot of videos/photos, personal computing and lots of word processing.

Since I'm not real knowledgeable about what is compatible with what, I wanted to solicit the gurus on here for advice.

Here is a screen shot of what I currently have in the computer. I'm not looking to spend a ton to upgrade, but I'm sure a lot has changed in 6 years that I'm not aware of.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Paging hometeam.

Just upgrade your hard drive to a solid state drive and you should be fine still with that setup

One thing I'd make sure to get is an SSD. Put your OS and frequently used programs on your SSD. You can use a traditional HD for file storage or infrequently used programs. The loading speed difference with an SSD (both booting and just starting programs) is incredible.

Yeah, what I said

:D

I'm not the most computer savvy person, would transferring my files to this drive be easy? Is there a brand and size I should buy over another?

Do a clean install with your new OS, then just reinstall what you need, then manually move any files. It's almost always better to get a fresh start.

Intels are the best, but they are also the most expensive. I've enjoyed my SanDisks. I had a Corsair that died in about 3 years. I don't know if my experiences are typical.

You have to get a transfer cable/kit to clone your drive but that plugs in USB and software is easy.

Once cloned, simply replace the drive and you're up and running.

I've used all the band's and my favorites are Intel and Samsung. Intel though is currently behind in the ssd tech since they aren't using vnand chips (at least last I checked). Samsung EVO drives are affordable and very quick.

I've done many ssd conversions with the modern cloning software/cable kits. I don't think a fresh os install is needed anymore unless the os had gotten wonky

I guess it's my type of mindset. I LOVE a wipe and fresh OS install. It feels so....uncluttered.

I'd recommend a fresh install as well. Loading Windows on an SSD has taken me as little as 20 minutes. I have several Samsung EVO's in my studio computer and I've put them in other computers throughout the house and my experience has been great.

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-750-E...ds=samsung+evo

https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Inter...PWB762W2BGR8SW

Also, you might consider at least doubling your RAM. 6 GB is a little light, IMO. I'd go to 12, if possible.

I use Paragon 14 to clone my OS drive so that if something weird or wonky happens, I can just re-desktop in less than 30 minutes. I have so much software that it takes a full 24 hours to reload everything, even with an SSD.

But in simple cases, like the OS, MS Office, Photoshop and a few others, I always feel more comfortable loading wiping and loading fresh.

That motherboard and that RAM are incompatible.

Unsure based on your wording, but if you're planning on buying those in tandem, do not.

That motherboard supports dual channel RAM and the RAM you have selected is Triple Channel

EDIT: Now I see that that's what you have now....well don't make that mistake again.

I only do that when changing motherboard

What's your budget?

Yeah, I think that's what is inside. I don't remember changing that out in the last 6 years. Would that work if it wasn't compatible for that long?

Probably around 300-400.

Triple channel DDR3 is the same as Dual Channel DDR3.

Basically you had 3 sticks in there, but only two of them actually did anything. The other one was not doing anything.

Here's a link with a new MoBo, CPU, GPU, and RAM that would be a major upgrade to what you have (although, it's not the newest and best compared to whats out now). The price comes out to $367, but if you did some shopping around on these items, it could probably be lower.

This doesn't include an SSD like others have been talking about, and you'd need to make sure whatever you upgrade to will still fit within the restrictions of your power supply.

Don't just buy these based of what I think, let other people look at this too. I'm not a computer genius like hometeam, but I know a bit about building PCs.

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/2kVZ2R

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($94.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI 970 GAMING ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($84.78 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($40.56 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R7 370 2GB WINDFORCE 2X Video Card ($146.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $367.22
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-10-28 12:12 EDT-0400

Also...I agree. You absolutely 100% should buy an SSD to put your OS and other often used programs on.

Just don't buy a Samsung 850 EVO to do that with if you are using Windows 10. For some reason that drive and that OS are not compatible.

I have the EVO 840 as an OS drive running Windows 10, which works fine, but have no experience with the 850.

I put a Crucial BX100 in a Windows 10 box and it works fine.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This is the latest version:

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX300...dp_ob_title_ce

FWIW, I've also found Amazon to be extremely competitive with pricing and returns have been easy (I've received non-working motherboards and other items in the past and returns/replacements are a breeze, especially as a Prime member).

Yep. It's the mystery of the century. Nobody knows why. Win 10 just doesn't work on 850 EVO...believe me...I have spent hours upon hours trying to get it to work. There's a bunch of pissed off people on the internet who agree with me.

My friend has an 840 EVO working too.

That sucks. I'm at the point where if it doesn't immediately and automatically work without any tinkering, it's going back.

My problem was that I had the 850 EVO for months if not a year before I decided to put my OS on it. I put Win 7 on it, and then about 4 months later decided to do free upgrade, and that's when I found out about the compatibility issue.

It's okay. I like Win 7 fine.

When I decide to do a full upgrade, I'll just use one of my other 5 SSDs in my PC to put the OS on lol.

Wow, that totally sucks but thanks for the info!

Thanks guys- huge help. I have 4 memory slots in my current setup. Does this dual channel mother board mean that they can only use 2 slots at a time?

Is there any other reasonable ssd drives out there?

If you have 4 slots, you can use 2 sticks (they're generally colored, so two black or two blue slots and you'll want to make sure they're in the right slots) or 4 sticks. Personally, I wouldn't go with less than 16 gigs of Ram but 8 gigs is way better than 4 gigs.

As for SSD drives, you won't likely get a better quality drive for a better price than the Crucial 250 gig I linked earlier. Be sure to get the adapter.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Problem is - if I'm going to clone the drive, I have way more than 250 gigs taken up on my HD right now.

I think I purchased additional RAM (can't access the computer right now to check) but I'm pretty sure I have 4 in there.

I'm going to take apart the computer this weekend to make sure.

Thanks again!

You can use 1, 2, or 4.

3 won't work.

You need to make sure that each stick of RAM is the same.

On most motherboards, if you are using two, you would need to slot them in the 1st and 3rd or 2nd and 4th slots.

Your motherboard should come with instructions.

Thanks man. Great info. Didn't know any of that.

Must be sporadic. I have a Samsung 850 EVO 1TB that is working just fine with Windows 10.

So if I understand correctly, you only have one hard drive in this computer?

If so, I'd purchase the 250 gig SSD and use it solely for the OS and connect the old drive to Sata #2. That way, you can access your old data while having the primary drive dedicated to the OS.

Also, in doing so, your data is on a separate drive and would be unaffected by a virus or other cyber attack. Personally, my OS drive has the OS and programs only, with separate drives for data (and a USB3 2 TB drive as data backup).

Ditto

So weird. Maybe it isn't everyone, but here's a 750 post thread with a bunch of people complaining about it over the last few months.

http://www.tenforums.com/general-sup...ndomly-74.html

I got a text about this thread this afternoon, but I have taken on a new job and am swamped like you wouldnt believe. (Including setting up a finance office, and half of a BDC with PCs that I pieced together from a boneyard~)

Catch me up, did we complete a build?

What the problems is?

Ram doesnt technically have to be the same brand or anything.

Just same speed and timings.

find yourself some deals on www.reddit.com/r/hardwareswap

Correct. Just have the 1TB. I have a bunch of externals for backups, but only one dedicated. I'll have to find a time next weekend to set this all up. I'm assuming this is easy to do?

I'm trying to find out what is the max RAM I can have in this system. I'm thinking that's all I'm going to upgrade with the SSD.

Would this RAM work with my current MB?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J8E8Y5C...ing=UTF8&psc=1

It seems like it would, however, read this from your mobo mfg page.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=3320#ov


You have a pretty old set up, it's hard to find reliable info.

Congrats on the new job. Completed a build over 6 years ago and seeing what I should upgrade.

I'm definitely upgrading the RAM and to a ssd drive. I'm debating on motherboard, graphics card and processor.

Yeah that's way over my head. I definitely want to upgrade the ram I have at minimum.

This is an incorrect statement

About 5 months ago I bought the Samsung 850 EVO V-NAND SSD 250 GB and swapped it into my HP Pavillion g6 with Windows 10.

Transferring over all the files was easy with the Samsung online tool.

The difference in boot up from my old POS drive is about 15-20x faster, maybe more. I also doubled my RAM.

The only issue I have is that my computer runs a little hot now and I may need to upgrade the fan.

What RAM would you recommend, Buck if I keep my old MB?

Go to www.crucial.com. They have an app that will scan your computer and provide a list of compatible RAM.

That said, I wouldn't recommend purchasing RAM for a 6 year old motherboard. That thing might blow at any second, leaving you with RAM that isn't compatible with the latest generation of boards.

As much as you probably don't want to do it, I'd suggest biting the bullet and purchasing a new board, processor, RAM and SSD. I see no reason why you can't use your current graphics card.

Good advice.

I saw Buck's recommendation for a mother board. Since I'm not doing much gaming at all on my PC, is there any other recommendations?

I'll be making this purchase probably around Black Friday, so I have some time to get what I need.

Damn dude, do you have enough CP tabs open? Wtf?

I wish I could be of further assistance but I've never owned or built an AMD rig - Intel only.

That said, Gigabyte produces the most reliable boards out there these days (IME, anyway) so I'd stick with them, if possible.

As I mentioned earlier, Amazon has amazing deals with free shipping and even moreso on Black Friday. Good luck! :)

Yep - that's where I plan on buying from.

Very strange. I did a clean install, and it didn't work. I was using an 850 EVO that was 480 or 500 GB though. Maybe it was that one specifically.

TBG, what kind of gaming do you want to be doing on this? Your video card is super low end, but if you're playing games that don't tax your system, then you can do better with the other components to make your PC better.

You gotta get off the RAM train.

Its not going to make any discernible difference really.

SSD, CPU will be your biggest upgrades

Next to no gaming. Did some about 5 years ago, but nothing major.

I do a ton of paperwork on this PC and need it to load fast, access fast, and transfer fast.

I only currently have 4GB installed Ram. I'd like to get to 16 if I'm replacing the CPU and MB.

I was thinking you where keeping those.

That being said then, the RAM upgrade is fine, but most people dont need more than 8. I mean if you are going bigger budget and are going to do RAM heavy stuff like video editing or live encoding then maybe.

8 should be fine and save you a couple bucks. If you are dead set on it, it wont hurt.

This would be my recommendation for your needs, for what it's worth.

AMD A10-7890K APU (Quad-Core 4.1 GHz FM2+ 95W Radeon R7 Graphics) $148.99
MSI Radeon R7 250 GPU (2GB 128-Bit PCI Express 3.0x16 w/CrossFireX Support) $62.99
ASUS A88XM-A (FM2+ Bolton D4 MicroATX Motherboard) $74.99
G.Skill Sniper 8GB (2x4GB DDR3 2400 SDRAM) $54.99
PNY CS1311 240GB SATAIII SSD $73.34
Total $415.30 all through Newegg
Here's PCPartspicker: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/yqCVBP

Set up Radeon Dual-Graphics, which uses the APU integrated R7 chip and the dedicated R7 card in a Crossfire setup to increase graphics performance.

I'll never purchase ASUS again.

Their failure rate is like 40%. It's a waste of time.

Interesting. I've never had one DOA and never had one last less than 7 years. Their failure rate is among the lowest in the industry, and usually is the lowest. Spouting off with 40% is ridiculous when a good portion of their boards are under 3%. If you were talking ASRock, I'd be more inclined to believe you. When I checked rates a year ago or so, they were over 10% while ASUS was under 2%. Appears they must have had some problems as they have always been solid.

Edit: Any board between MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte, and ASRock should be pretty good (with all routinely having sub 3% failure rates), unless you're building a server then you might want to look at Intel or SuperMicro...

Thanks for this. I'm probably going to stick with Gigabyte for my MB since I had success with this one, but everything else looks good.

I'll leave it to others to recommend mobos and other internal components. I want to recommend a mechanical keyboard with brown switches. If you type a lot, it really makes a difference, IMO. I love the way it feels.

I have this one, but there are lots of different brands at different price points. If you live near Micro Center in Overland Park, you can go in the store and feel the different types of mechanical switches in case Brown isn't the one for you.

http://d2fu7qgd3tdbcc.cloudfront.net...g?t=1448959437

From 2012 to 2014, I went through FOUR Asus boards, two of which were DOA.

I have rackmounted server cases for my studio builds. Do you have any idea how much of a PITA putting together a PC in those constraints (let alone, installing six hard drives) it is, only to find out the board doesn't work?

I'm not the only one, either. All of the PC companies that were building high end music and video editing workstations stopped using Asus as well.

I'm glad you've had good luck but there's no way I'm recommending an Asus board to anyone.

There are so many ways this could be gone about, but I will tell you im still not a fan of APUs, especially when you can crank out more raw power for the money.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($149.98 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock 970 Pro3 R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($49.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($35.00 @ B&H)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow UV400 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($40.99 @ B&H)
Total: $275.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-10-30 12:22 EDT-0400

Add a used GPU from r/hardwareswap, around 80-100 and your in for pretty damn cheap and have something with about 60% more processing power (will end up with more GPU power too) and way more value. SSD you can play with too but this asrock board is also full size ATX and is superior in every way to that ASUS board

While your at it, unload your old stuff on r/hardwareswap as well, might get a little bit of money back for it.

Absolutely agree there are many ways to go about it. I'm not sure he's gaining much by going with an FX 8xxx processor over a quad core FX 4xxx. He could save $70-80 there and go with a much better dedicated graphics card for when he does game. It doesn't take much computing power to do word processing, which is his primary activity. Want to give him enough graphics to stream/play some games.

I'm kinda thinking a FX-4350 (On sale for $79.99 right now) with a better GPU would be better. Add in a MSI Radeon RX470 4GBx256-bit ($169.99) and he'd have a decent machine. With your listed board, ram, and SSD, he'd come in at $375.95.

If he goes with these 125 W processors, he should be sure his case has good air flow. AMD CPU's in general run hot.

Ultimately his decision and he has to decide what's best for him.

I know from experience even a fx-6300 has some hitches running regular day to day shit.

Didnt he say he doesnt game? Used GPU from hardwareswap you can get something like a 960/r9 270 for around 100 bucks.

I'm not sure what to recommend him for a processor... every single one has its hitches w/ AMD but his budget doesn't fit well with Intel. However, Intel integrated graphics are pretty damn good these days.

A good question for him would be how much multi-tasking does he tend to do.

well even html-5 video acceleration takes advantage of multiple cores. More cores = more legs on the system = more usefulness

IIRC the HTML5 video acceleration utilizes far superior GPU computing power over the CPU when available. Thus my thoughts on lesser CPU but greater GPU. What's your thoughts on that?

Well, without him gaming much, and with the budget, the CPU is going to be the greater upgrade. I think there is a happy medium there. I still am a fan of buying GPUs used. They rarely fail, and the secondary market on them right now is tilted towards buyers with all the new stuff coming in the last couple of years.

If he wont go used GPU, then both, less processor and less GPU than what I proposed is likely what we are looking at.

One more question for you home team. Processors with the same scores on single-core tests will perform similarly in the same tasks. Most applications aren't written to take advantage of more than 4 cores at this time (Some new games like Battlefield 1 will). So if you can get a higher clock with the same, or better, performance on single-core activites, then why would it be advantageous to buy more? Thoughts?

I kind of tried to look into this a bit and came across this...
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/...6350-8350.html
... but there are just as many people wondering there.

I know I've seen identical single-core performance scores for the FX-8350 and FX-4350.

Also read that the Athlon X4 has identical core architecture to the FX processors, but supports a faster memory standard so you end up with a slightly better performing quad core.

The FX-8xxx series usually have more L2 cache, which could be an advantage. Intel gets by with alot less cache so I always question its overall impact.

A good way to compare CPUs with real world benchmarks.

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare...350/1489vs2880

Single core power is the same, however, I think you are still saying the same thing people where 2 years ago. That multi-threaded use is the exception and not the norm, and thats just changed so much, and will continue to go down multi core path. Again, its legs we are talking about by going higher cores.

You also have to think about how AMD claims multiple cores is not like Intels. Its also not comparable because it doesnt use hyperthreading. An AMD is always half of its claimed cores as physical cores, with each core running two emulated cores.

So your 4350 is truly a 2 core, and your 8350 is really a quad core, if you where to think of them in the same way in which Intel determines how many cores a CPU has.

Thanks for the update. I haven't been into it much the past three years or so. Used to build, but I don't keep up with the changes behind the scenes on programming as much. Now I just passively follow and do my own and close family. I always recommend Intel and if they can't afford dedicated graphics right away, save for it later.

Hoping my cousin, that is going to school for programming, will get me back up to speed in a few years haha.

I know gaming is really going towards maximizing hardware capabilities, but that's about all I've followed.

Bumping this to see if anyone saw any good BF deals toward getting a new MB (I'd like to stay with Gigabyte), processor (intel), SSD and Ram (would like at least 8 gigs).

Have about 350-400 to spend.

Thanks everyone for all your input.

I posted in your other thread, 430 bucks for everything you need