Advice on PC hardware upgrade

[damienloh]

Hi guys, my PC has an Intel® Core™2 Duo 3GHz and Sapphire R7850 2GB OC. Is it worth to upgrade? Need a relatively silent PC for watching Netflix, DVD and Steam gaming (Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite).

CPU Cooler: should I use stock fan or liquid cooler?
GPU: have been using Radeon cards for a long time...Is it still good?
RAM: various 1600MHz to 2400MHz, how to choose?
Audio Card: MSI Z97 has on board Sound Blaster Cinema 2. Is this good enough?
HDD (OS & Game): should I use existing WD Raptor 10k rpm 150GB?

 

[wkweewee]

Hi guys, my PC has an Intel® Core™2 Duo 3GHz and Sapphire R7850 2GB OC. Is it worth to upgrade? Need a relatively silent PC for watching Netflix, DVD and Steam gaming (Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite).

CPU Cooler: should I use stock fan or liquid cooler?
GPU: have been using Radeon cards for a long time...Is it still good?
RAM: various 1600MHz to 2400MHz, how to choose?
Audio Card: MSI Z97 has on board Sound Blaster Cinema 2. Is this good enough?
HDD (OS & Game): should I use existing WD Raptor 10k rpm 150GB?

Hmm.. to answer your questions, first of all your chip chosen is a non-k (non-overclockable) chip, therefore you can choose a H mobo since a Z board is used for overclocking. Secondly because of that, you can safely go for air cooling. Ram speed wise, currently for haswell refresh chips, 1866 mHz is a sweet spot. Ram speed above 1600 would only mean that the rams are over-clockable and most of the time due to latency properties, we cannot really pick up any differences in real time apart from its benchmark numbers. But do note that the H boards only allow ram speed of up to 1600mHz, though there is no harm in purchasing the 1866mHz rams since the price saving is only a couple of bucks from its 1600 counterpart. Last but not least, an SSD is wayyy better than a raptor.

 

[Jian19]

$2k

MSI H97 Gaming 3 + i5-4460 ~ $397
Gskills Ripjaws 1866mhz 2x4gb kit Red ~ $117
WD Blue 1tb ~ $67
Crucial mx100 256gb ssd ~ $155
MSI GTX970 4gb Twin Frozr V Gaming ~ $575
Superflower Leadex 650w 80+ Gold Fully Modular PSU ~ $139
Nzxt H440 ~ $199
LG DVD Drive ~ $21
Dell u2414h ~ $335

Total ~ $2005 Buy at tradepac and DIY ask for discount. If not sure how to DIY can bring to gs shop ask him help u assemble @ a fee.

 

[damienloh]

...But do note that the H boards only allow ram speed of up to 1600mHz, though there is no harm in purchasing the 1866mHz rams since the price saving is only a couple of bucks from its 1600 counterpart

Will buying the H board limits the future upgrade for better RAM?

Gskills Ripjaws 1866mhz 2x4gb kit Red ~ $117
Crucial mx100 256gb ssd ~ $155

This Gskills Ripjaws seems to be popular?
How's Crucial compare to Samsung SSD?

 

[redchipsss]

Crucial is ok, but if you can the Samsung SSD then by all means go for the samsung one.

 

[MoneyFace =p]

Honestly speaking, though it may be justifiable for you to upgrade your aging Core 2 Duo system, you should hold out for 14nm Skylake platform if you can. Unless your system cannot make it for the things you are doing now...

 

[MoneyFace =p]

Will buying the H board limits the future upgrade for better RAM?


This Gskills Ripjaws seems to be popular?
How's Crucial compare to Samsung SSD?

Higher speed RAM ≠ better performance

Increment is just slight marginal while they cost exponentially higher. 1866 MHz is currently sweet spot for price/performance on performance segment. 1600 MHz still rulez on value series. B85 and H81 limited up to 1600 MHz.

 

[MoneyFace =p]

$2k

MSI H97 Gaming 3 + i5-4460 ~ $397
Gskills Ripjaws 1866mhz 2x4gb kit Red ~ $117
WD Blue 1tb ~ $67
Crucial mx100 256gb ssd ~ $155
MSI GTX970 4gb Twin Frozr V Gaming ~ $575
Superflower Leadex 650w 80+ Gold Fully Modular PSU ~ $139
Nzxt H440 ~ $199
LG DVD Drive ~ $21
Dell u2414h ~ $335

Total ~ $2005 Buy at tradepac and DIY ask for discount. If not sure how to DIY can bring to gs shop ask him help u assemble @ a fee.

And add a DAC such as AUDINST HUD-mx1 for best enjoyment!

 

[damienloh]

Higher speed RAM ≠ better performance

Increment is just slight marginal while they cost exponentially higher. 1866 MHz is currently sweet spot for price/performance on performance segment. 1600 MHz still rulez on value series. B85 and H81 limited up to 1600 MHz.

I see. Thought overclock mean faster.

Honestly speaking, though it may be justifiable for you to upgrade your aging Core 2 Duo system, you should hold out for 14nm Skylake platform if you can. Unless your system cannot make it for the things you are doing now...

The next gen platform after Haswell? My system is still quite decent generally although showing some sign of ageing, especially H.264 videos and FPS game. Should I get another Sapphire R7850 2GB OC to cross fire or get a new card?

 

[wkweewee]

I see. Thought overclock mean faster.


The next gen platform after Haswell? My system is still quite decent generally although showing some sign of ageing, especially H.264 videos and FPS game. Should I get another Sapphire R7850 2GB OC to cross fire or get a new card?

Just get a new card. No point doing a crossfire with an older card on an older platform since you have the budget. 1866 rams will do fine on a H board running at 1600.. ram is not the deciding factor to make your com 'feel fast' to you. Crucial ssds are fine as well if you are tight on budget. Overclocking on most components will not let you have the 'fast sensation' as well in real time, though theoretical numbers would prove otherwise. Jian's recommendation is good enough.

 

[MoneyFace =p]

Just et a new card. No point doing a crossfire with an older card on an older platform since you have the budget. 1866 rams will do fine on a H board running at 1600.. ram is not a deciding factor to make your com 'feel fast' to you. Crucial ssds are fine as well if you are tight on budget. Overclocking on most components will not let you have the 'fast sensation' as well in real time, though theoretical numbers would prove otherwise.

Getting a new graphics card here wont solve the issue. R9-280 (aka overclocked HD 7950) is just 2 tiers above on the same gen architecture. And doesn't proves to be a huge jump for him. Consider a GTX 970 at the very least.

 

[Providence]

Does the current LED monitors provide 4K resolution? Or needs to depend on the graphics card as well? Just curious. Thanks in advance.

 

[wkweewee]

Getting a new graphics card here wont solve the issue. R9-280 (aka overclocked HD 7950) is just 2 tiers above on the same gen architecture. And doesn't proves to be a huge jump for him. Consider a GTX 970 at the very least.

Haha it's not really about solving any issue ba. It depends on whether or not if ts wants to spend 300+, 400+, or 500+ on a gpu. On a side note yes, a gtx 970 is a solid card for performance if you can afford to spend more on a gpu.

 

[wkweewee]

Does the current LED monitors provide 4K resolution? Or needs to depend on the graphics card as well? Just curious. Thanks in advance.

The monitor needs to be in 4k, and the gpu needs to be able to support and drive 4k as well, if that is your qns.

 

[MoneyFace =p]

Haha it's not really about solving any issue ba. It depends on whether or not if ts wants to spend 300+, 400+, or 500+ on a gpu. On a side note yes, a gtx 970 is a solid card for performance if you can afford to spend more on a gpu.

Core 2 Duo can bottleneck ever more powerful graphics card.

 

[MoneyFace =p]

The monitor needs to be in 4k, and the gpu needs to be able to support and drive 4k as well, if that is your qns.

Nvidia Kepler can support 4K @ 60 fps over HDMI 1.4a, at the expense of lower quality PQ...

 

[damienloh]

Core 2 Duo can bottleneck ever more powerful graphics card.

This is my concern too. Intend to upgrade from Samsung 19" LCD (1280x1024) to Dell U2414H (1920x1080).

 

[wkweewee]

This is my concern too. Intend to upgrade from Samsung 19" LCD (1280x1024) to Dell U2414H (1920x1080).

Lol you started off the thread with a whole rig cfg and that's why I recommend you Jian's whole sys cfg. No pt pumping a new and solid gpu into the old system. My posts previously are for a brand new rig, not parts upgrade. If you purchase everything as a whole, there will be no bottleneck. Anyway not many consumers would even bother themselves with the microprocessor architecture.. they just wanna know if the card is good for its price or nt. If you go shopping for gpu in sls, you will know le.. alot of cards can run games on a 1080p monitor with high/max settings with no issues.

Like what I have mentioned earlier, it depends on how much $ you want to allocate for the gpu for the whole system.

 

[damienloh]

Lol you started off the thread with a whole rig cfg and that's why I recommend you Jian's whole sys cfg. No pt pumping a new and solid gpu into the old system. My posts previously are for a brand new rig, not parts upgrade. If you purchase everything as a whole, there will be no bottleneck. Anyways not many consumers would even bother themselves with architecture.. they just wanna know if the card is good for its price or nt. If you go shopping for gpu in sls, you will know le.. alot of cards can run games on a 1080p monitor with high/max settings with no issues.

Like what I have mentioned earlier, it depends on how much $ you want to allocate for the gpu for the whole system.

I initially wanted to just upgrade graphic card, but with concern of old hardware bottleneck, so getting a new set.

 

[damienloh]

By the way, what hardware (cpu or graphic card) is important to play H.264 video smoothly?