[PC] Alright, I'm gonna upgrade on black friday, and I'm gonna need some help.

I'm gonna be redoing my PC soon, since everything but the GPU seems to be hitting the end of its life cycle. This is why I turn to you guys. I need a new case, mobo, processor, and power supply. I might also need new fans, since mine are ineffective at cooling this monstrosity. For the case and PSU, I'm looking at Cooler Master as my source, just unsure of the model. I like the look of their simple-black cases, that don't have any LEDs or flashy stuff on them. And I've heard that they make really solid PSUs. I'm not sure what I'll need probably an 850 would be sufficient.

As to mobo, I know I'll be looking at Asrock, but I know nothing about motherboards, so I'd appreciate some help there.

for processors, what would be better really? An i7? an i5? I was recommended an i7, but there are a lot of them, I'm not sure where to look.

Whats your budget?

Sym wrote:Whats your budget?

Unclear atm. I have about a grand tucked away, but I'd really not like to spend that much. 

How about 600$ to start with? Can anything be accomplished with that?

I actually heard most cooler master power supplies are crap by psu reviewers(use cheaper internal components), I heard corsair is better. Don't know how much that matters,but I wouldn't want to risk the PSU blowing out.


Do you really want Intel? For everything total...idk that would be cutting it close with intel..Lemme think offhand

~140 for z87 asrock mobo
~220 i5 haswell i5
or ~320 for haswell i7
~100-120 for PSU
~100 for case. Depends which one you want. The one with handle on it,Storm Scout 2 is nice,my bro got that one...he got tired of that nzxt one lol.
For CPU cooler/fan you just want a cheap hyper 212 evo or liquid cooler? Hyper 212 for being quiet during gaming is like ~35-40 these days it seems sadly, while h80i goes in sale alot for 75 and is liquid cooler


220 cpu,
140 mobo
Do you have ram already you could slap in?That would save ~70ish,ram shot up in price alot.
40 or 75 for cpu cooler
100 case
100-120 power supply
interested in ssd or do you have enough hdd space?

Gonna be tough for 600 if your gonna be replacing mobo and cpu

Seasonic PSUs are very reputable as are Corsair.

And for 600$ you won't be getting an i7. But you would only need that if you're doing editing of some kind (audio or video). Stick with an i5 for gaming.

As for Mobo. Just get one with the features/connections you want and make sure the socket fits the CPU you will get and you should be good.

600$ is going to be really tight if the only thing you're saving is the GPU.

What if you just upgraded gradually? Like replace the CPU and MOBO (and maybe the case too) but keep everything else. Then down the line a bit you can worry about PSU, RAM and HDDs, SSDs and fans and coolers.

As to RAM, I can save that, should have mentioned it.

The reason I wanna replace wholesale is because there are plentiful issues with my rig. The case has pretty shitty airflow, and the fans aren't that great. I'm 90% sure the processor is on its last legs too.

What would be the benefit of getting an i7 versus an i5? I've heard much about how the i7s are absolutely stunning, but that i5 is better for games. 


I'm open to getting a corsair power supply, that's perfectly fine. To be honest, I don't see much difference between brands other than rep, so anything stable and able to put out enough power should be fine. 


also, I'm fine with this going overbudget a bit. I've been saving for a great PC for a while, and I'm hoping that the sales on black friday will help me out.

well i7 vs i5 all comes down to how much multitasking and parallel computing are you going to be doing. an i7 is 4 physical cores just like an i5 but the i7 has 2 "threads" per core (hyperthreading) which essentially makes it a virtual 8 core CPU to software that can utilize hyperthreading.

Thing is games have just recently started to fully utilize more than 2 cores and no game out to my knowledge takes advantage of hyperthreading so your spiffy i7 is seen pretty much the same as an i5 by games so it really isn't worth the extra cash unless you do stuff that actually utilizes hyperthreading.

I got an i7 because I do the music editing thing and plugins I use can be pretty intensive and rendering down mixes goes faster with an i7 because hyperthreading is supported in my software.

yeah it really just depends what you're doing. Hell if you don't want to overclock you could save even more money and not even need an aftermarket heatsink unless the noise bothers you,which is why I got mine. You could get a cheaper non overclock cpu,and thus cheaper h87 or whatever is the non overclock haswell motherboard for ~75  I think they go for.


An i7 would be over half your budget just for it lol. An i5,motherboard,cooler master hyper 212 evo, $100 case and $100 power supply would be just about what your budget is of 600. Do you really need 850 watts?That's really overkill,I have 750 and it's overkill. I hear of people having overclocked i7 and high end gpu on a cheap corsair builder 430w which is supposed the best of the best cheapo units. If you get an intel cpu you don't even need to overclock,they already chump the amd chips at stock clocks tbh,better architecture

Case - $60
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119233
CPU - $230
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116899
Mobo - $88
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157384
PSU - $60 (Rosewill makes solid PSUs. I've used them in all my client's builds.)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182278

Ante wrote:Case - $60
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119233
CPU - $230
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116899
Mobo - $88
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157384
PSU - $60 (Rosewill makes solid PSUs. I've used them in all my client's builds.)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182278

If I could, I'd hug you. This is pretty much perfect. I'm gonna do more reading up on CPUs, since my knowledge there is very lacking, but I probably will end up going with this setup. You're the best Ante.



Jr, I was way off in my estimation. I have a 450w atm (I think, might be 650) and my GPU sucks out the majority of that. 700-750 is gonna be fine for my build. And no, I don't plan to overclock. I'm already battling heat as-is. However, I want to make sure that my processor is good for quite a while, that's a big priority for me.

How would this work for a case?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147153

I'm not too enthused about the bright-as-fuck LEDs, but dem fans...

I'm pretty sure that's the same exact case I used to build my dad's PC. It's decent. Pretty lightweight and portable, but a bit flimsy.

you'd be good with ante's build for pretty much the whole console cycle at least,as long as you have 8gb of ram, the speed really doesn't matter unless you have an amd apu which uses fast ram for it's built in graphics.

I thought about getting that rosewill case when I built mine for having all those fans built in,and it's black and cheap haha

I haven't even had a need to overclock yet either,maybe toward the end of the console life cycle or something, but it would certainly at least play stuff well,for example the system requirements for bf4 are very low >_>

HydrasBreath wrote:

I got an i7 because I do the music editing thing and plugins I use can be pretty intensive and rendering down mixes goes faster with an i7 because hyperthreading is supported in my software.

You should only really mixdown/render finished mixes at real time anyway, unless it's just a quick test mix for some other use.

Shotgun Dismemberment wrote:

HydrasBreath wrote:

I got an i7 because I do the music editing thing and plugins I use can be pretty intensive and rendering down mixes goes faster with an i7 because hyperthreading is supported in my software.

You should only really mixdown/render finished mixes at real time anyway, unless it's just a quick test mix for some other use.

But yeah I know. I'm just doing demo-y type stuff right now. If I was to put together something more legit I'd follow "the rules"

I wish I could record sadface

I have the PC to do it, but not the necessary recording equipment.

HydrasBreath wrote:

Shotgun Dismemberment wrote:

HydrasBreath wrote:

I got an i7 because I do the music editing thing and plugins I use can be pretty intensive and rendering down mixes goes faster with an i7 because hyperthreading is supported in my software.

You should only really mixdown/render finished mixes at real time anyway, unless it's just a quick test mix for some other use.

But yeah I know. I'm just doing demo-y type stuff right now. If I was to put together something more legit I'd follow "the rules"

Don't give me the "I ain't got time for dat" bs. I've done easily around a hundred (at least) real time mixdowns of my band's 50 minute project over the last six months.

And "the rules" aside, however rare it may be, I have had a fast mixdown with errors, not something I would be happy to discover after circulation of the material.

I would say go real time, even for demos. If you're putting in the time and effort to sculpt it sonically, you can definitely spare the extra time to make sure you minimize errors.

WTF is a fast mixdown?

Sym wrote:WTF is a fast mixdown?

It renders the audio at an accelerated speed then spits it out. You don't get to hear the song as it's doing this.

The other option is a real time mixdown where you render the song as you're actually listening to it so you can catch any errors/pops/clicks/other anomalies.

Ah ok thanks

Thats what I thought but wasnt positive.