Approximate Purchase Date: Not sure if some day soon or in three years (See "Why Upgrading" below).
Budget Range: $250
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Video Conferencing, file managing, emails, Arduino and similar projects, web browsing
Are you buying a monitor: No
Parts to Upgrade: Mobo, CPU, RAM, PSU
Do you need to buy OS: I don't think I do. (Personal Windows 7 Key)
Please note that if you're using an OEM license of Windows, you will need a new one when buying a new motherboard.
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg
Location: Colorado Rocky mountains, 4-5 hours from Denver or Grand Junction in middle of nowhere.
Parts Preferences: Prefer Intel
Overclocking: No
SLI or Crossfire: No
Your Monitor Resolution: Dual 1600x1200 monitors (HDMI, DVI or VGA)
Additional Comments: I use a lot of drives (6 SATA), use an old PS2 keyboard with integrated PS2 trackpad and have 4 USB 2 ports and two USB 3 ports on the front. Ethernet is fine, I don't need Wi-Fi.
The current comptuer is a Origin case with 4 x 3.5" removeable hard drive bays and two 2.5" drive bays and a DVD drive I still use on occasion. I only use one of the 2.5" bays for a Sata SSD. The rest I do use quite regularly. There are a couple USB 3 ports and three USB 2 ports with a card reader that goes to the forth USB2 port on the MOBO. I do use the SD card reader often.
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: The current setup (ASUS ROG Maximus IV Extreme with Core i7-2600K, 16G RAM and dual GeForceGTX 590's) keeps crashing every once in a while. That and USB devices stop being recognized properly randomly until I not only restart the computer but unplug it for a while before plugging it back in. If not, it may crash once or sometimes twice a day if I don't restart it for USB problems first. It seems to be much less of a problem if I hibernate the computer and leave it unplugged all night. It's just enough to make me feel like maybe I should upgrade, but then I get into the habit of unplugging it every night and feel maybe it'll be fine until Microsoft retires Windows 10.
I was thinking of doing a cheap upgrade of the latest Intel MOBO and CPU. I thought this might work:
Budget Range: $250
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Video Conferencing, file managing, emails, Arduino and similar projects, web browsing
Are you buying a monitor: No
Parts to Upgrade: Mobo, CPU, RAM, PSU
Do you need to buy OS: I don't think I do. (Personal Windows 7 Key)
Please note that if you're using an OEM license of Windows, you will need a new one when buying a new motherboard.
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg
Location: Colorado Rocky mountains, 4-5 hours from Denver or Grand Junction in middle of nowhere.
Parts Preferences: Prefer Intel
Overclocking: No
SLI or Crossfire: No
Your Monitor Resolution: Dual 1600x1200 monitors (HDMI, DVI or VGA)
Additional Comments: I use a lot of drives (6 SATA), use an old PS2 keyboard with integrated PS2 trackpad and have 4 USB 2 ports and two USB 3 ports on the front. Ethernet is fine, I don't need Wi-Fi.
The current comptuer is a Origin case with 4 x 3.5" removeable hard drive bays and two 2.5" drive bays and a DVD drive I still use on occasion. I only use one of the 2.5" bays for a Sata SSD. The rest I do use quite regularly. There are a couple USB 3 ports and three USB 2 ports with a card reader that goes to the forth USB2 port on the MOBO. I do use the SD card reader often.
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: The current setup (ASUS ROG Maximus IV Extreme with Core i7-2600K, 16G RAM and dual GeForceGTX 590's) keeps crashing every once in a while. That and USB devices stop being recognized properly randomly until I not only restart the computer but unplug it for a while before plugging it back in. If not, it may crash once or sometimes twice a day if I don't restart it for USB problems first. It seems to be much less of a problem if I hibernate the computer and leave it unplugged all night. It's just enough to make me feel like maybe I should upgrade, but then I get into the habit of unplugging it every night and feel maybe it'll be fine until Microsoft retires Windows 10.
I was thinking of doing a cheap upgrade of the latest Intel MOBO and CPU. I thought this might work:
- $115 Open box ASUS PRIME B660M-A AC D4 board would work (can fit an extra large extended ATX board if I wanted in this case).
- $40 Celeron g6900
- $55 Samsung Memory M378A2K43BB1-CPB 16GB DDR4 2133MHz Unbuffered Bare
- $35 EVGA W3 450W 80+ for good measure.