Advice wanted on budget upgrade

[motownlucas]

Hello all. Long time no talk. Finally thinking about upgrading the system I built with the help of this forum back in 2011 and looking for some advice.

Current System:
([strike]Strike Through[/strike] = thinking of upgrading)

• 
  ■ Antec Illusion Case
  ■ Antec Earthwatts 500W PSU
  ■ [strike]ASRock P55 EXTREME4 LGA 1156 Intel P55 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard[/strike]
  ■ [strike]i5-750 processor[/strike]
  ■ [strike]G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)[/strike]
  ■ [strike]EVGA 01G-P3-1452-TR GeForce GTS 450 (Fermi) Superclocked 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video ...[/strike]
  ■ (4) (Raid 10) HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000.C HDS721010CLA332 (0F10383) 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s

I'd like to upgrade within a budget of $400 and this is what I'm thinking:

• 
  ■ GIGABYTE GA-Z270P-D3 LGA1151 Intel Z270 2-Way Crossfire ATX DDR4 Motherboard
  ■ Intel Core i3-7100 7th Gen Core Desktop Processor 3M Cache,3.90 GHz
  ■ Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 DRAM 3000MHz (PC4-24000)
  ■ Gigabyte Radeon RX 550 D5 2GB Graphic Cards GV-RX550D5-2GD

My only other thought was whether my HDD setup would be a better bang-for-the-buck upgrade? I suspect the 3.0 Gb/s spinners could be holding back the system performance a bit? For example, boot time is like a minute and a half I think. I know a lot goes into that, but I've already optimized the other factors.

I don't do any hardcore gaming. Probably the most demanding thing I do is dabble in Autodesk Inventor. The launch time on that seems a bit excessive. Oh, and I like to have lots of things open at once.

 

[silverfeather]

you want multitasking force...autodesk inventor requires alot of it( to not talk about ram), i think ryzen CPU are the best choice for you. since they have more cores/threads. way better for rendering/multitasking, and you can also play really nice as well.

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/WVpPwV
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/WVpPwV/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($194.29 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard ($73.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($85.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Video Card ($154.00 @ Amazon)
Total: $508.23
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-10-19 07:26 EDT-0400

i know its a littlebit more thant your budget but you will get waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better results with this build for your needs.

 

[FD2Raptor]

The most bang for your buck upgrade right now is not a Kabylake i3 with a Z270 MB, but a Cofflelake i3 with a low-end Z370 MB.

The Kabylake i3 gives you two cores plus Hyper Threading, the Coffelake i3 gives you 4 cores without the HT.

With the new MB that support SATA 3, you can then add an SSD, almost any SSD, if you're concerned about booting time. Any SSD would suffice for storing Windows to bring down that 90secs boot time. If you want faster loading time as well for apps and games, then I'd say look to avoid the cheap DRAMless drive; for their speed and reliability degrade rapidly as you fill that drive up.

In term of GPU, unless your local pricing differ, a GTX1030 would be the better pick than the RX550 at that price point; a 2nd hand GTX750Ti is also an option if you don't mind going the used parts route.