Approximate Purchase Date: e.g.: next few days, weekend at the latest
Budget Range: I'm aiming to spend around $2,500 to $3,000, but that's not a hard limit. If there's a large improvement to be had, I'm willing to spend more.
System Usage from Most to Least Important: PC Gaming, General Entertainment, Electronic Hub (stores my books, various files, etc etc). Last function may be supplanted with an NAS.
Are you buying a monitor: No
Parts to Upgrade: Full build from the case inward: CPU, Mobo, Memory, drives, power supply, optical drive, full-tower case. I also want a KVM switch capable of handling at least 3 machines with 2 monitors, but this item is under a separate budget. If it matters, one of the machines in question is my work Macbook. KVM does not need to be able to carry sound.
Do you need to buy OS: Yes
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com
Location: Fresno, CA, USA
Parts Preferences: None
Overclocking: Maybe
SLI or Crossfire: Don't Care
Your Monitor Resolution: 1920 x 1080, two independent monitors in extended display mode
Additional Comments: As far as case goes, I'd prefer something fairly basic but durable -- I'm not interested in it looking good, just being able to protect the parts inside, survive being moved around, and not being too easy to break. I do specifically want frontboard USB ports, though though they don't have to be USB-3.0. Software wise, I run a variety of games: historical DOS games, low-resource modern games like Starcraft 2, more modern titles like Age of Empires IV, and even older 'system breakers' like Crysis or Supreme Commander. To provide a baseline, my current machine is an i5-3570K with 16GB of DDR3 1600 RAM and around 256GB of SSD plus significantly more on older HDDs (like the one I think may be failing). Only major upgrade since build has been additional SSD space via RAID and an R9 290 4GB at one point. I'd like a MOBO capable of native RAID, ideally setting up two sets of drives: a smaller, mirrored drive for my OS and files, and a larger striped drive for games. I'm willing to consider a RAID 5 array instead, and don't have a problem with purchasing a separate RAID controller if necessary.
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: While I've upgraded a few parts over the years, the basics of my current system were put together in April 2013, and since I've had a tight budget upgrades weren't an option until recently. Now that it is an option, I've begun researching new build options (was looking at an i9-12900KF), but wasn't intending to move until the chip shortage had a chance to resolve itself. Unfortunately, my PC has started making some scary sounds that make me think the disk drive is failing, so I want to move my timeline up -- I want to have the new machine up and running before the current one suffers a failure. I want to be able to copy data over in a leisurely fashion and be reasonably sure that if I missed anything, I still have a chance to get at it because the old machine still works.
Budget Range: I'm aiming to spend around $2,500 to $3,000, but that's not a hard limit. If there's a large improvement to be had, I'm willing to spend more.
System Usage from Most to Least Important: PC Gaming, General Entertainment, Electronic Hub (stores my books, various files, etc etc). Last function may be supplanted with an NAS.
Are you buying a monitor: No
Parts to Upgrade: Full build from the case inward: CPU, Mobo, Memory, drives, power supply, optical drive, full-tower case. I also want a KVM switch capable of handling at least 3 machines with 2 monitors, but this item is under a separate budget. If it matters, one of the machines in question is my work Macbook. KVM does not need to be able to carry sound.
Do you need to buy OS: Yes
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com
Location: Fresno, CA, USA
Parts Preferences: None
Overclocking: Maybe
SLI or Crossfire: Don't Care
Your Monitor Resolution: 1920 x 1080, two independent monitors in extended display mode
Additional Comments: As far as case goes, I'd prefer something fairly basic but durable -- I'm not interested in it looking good, just being able to protect the parts inside, survive being moved around, and not being too easy to break. I do specifically want frontboard USB ports, though though they don't have to be USB-3.0. Software wise, I run a variety of games: historical DOS games, low-resource modern games like Starcraft 2, more modern titles like Age of Empires IV, and even older 'system breakers' like Crysis or Supreme Commander. To provide a baseline, my current machine is an i5-3570K with 16GB of DDR3 1600 RAM and around 256GB of SSD plus significantly more on older HDDs (like the one I think may be failing). Only major upgrade since build has been additional SSD space via RAID and an R9 290 4GB at one point. I'd like a MOBO capable of native RAID, ideally setting up two sets of drives: a smaller, mirrored drive for my OS and files, and a larger striped drive for games. I'm willing to consider a RAID 5 array instead, and don't have a problem with purchasing a separate RAID controller if necessary.
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: While I've upgraded a few parts over the years, the basics of my current system were put together in April 2013, and since I've had a tight budget upgrades weren't an option until recently. Now that it is an option, I've begun researching new build options (was looking at an i9-12900KF), but wasn't intending to move until the chip shortage had a chance to resolve itself. Unfortunately, my PC has started making some scary sounds that make me think the disk drive is failing, so I want to move my timeline up -- I want to have the new machine up and running before the current one suffers a failure. I want to be able to copy data over in a leisurely fashion and be reasonably sure that if I missed anything, I still have a chance to get at it because the old machine still works.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram