Frankenbuild worth updating again?

[ccondardo]

In 2013 I put in some news parts into this machine I have now which I originally build in 2008. The investment in 2013 was probably not the best one, but it got me to where I am now so I can't really complain.

I'm wondering what the most budget friendly way to allow me to casually play games such as Planetside 2, Starcraft II (currently can't play 4v4, and can't play planetside at ALL (<20 FPS consistently)), and other generic steam games that come around. I want a good machine, but I don't need something that can be fully maxing out graphics for 4 years (this is probably a $1500 level machine in my mind).

I'm not sure what the budget would be, but if someone says "you can do x for $300, x for $500, etc that'd be most useful for me as I think this over.

Here is the build I have now:

• 
  GPU: GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB GDDR5: bit.ly/12FKs24
  Motherbaord: Asrock: bit.ly/14fjyRR
  CPU: Phenom II 965 Black Edition 3.4 ghz (OC to 3.6): http://bit.ly/2Azbt6
  RAM: 4GB DDR2 800: bit.ly/16rKX7g
  PSU: Corsair CX600: http://bit.ly/rsqzJm
  Windows 7 Pro 64 bit

One idea I had was to replace the mobo / ram / CPU, but I'd love to hear what you all think!

 

[jty0yt]

Gpu is low end but isnt that bad. I cant believe you only have 4gb of ddr2 ram. And that cpu..... Get a z97 mobo, a new cpu and 8gb of ddr3 ram.

 

[Entomber]

your cheapest option would be to simply replace mobo/ram/CPU as you said, since that it going to be the most restrictive part of your system. If you can afford it (well within a $1500 system budget) you should go for an Intel processor.

i7-4790K - more processing power, more longevity, $300+
i5-4690K - less processing power, may become a bottleneck sooner than the latest i7, but in terms of gaming it shouldn't be too restrictive, $220 or so
motherboard: Z97, find one with features that fit your needs (around $100)

That leaves you almost $1000 to play around with other components you may want.

GTX 970: $330-$350 - the best bang-for-your-buck GPU on the market today. Powerful, and very good pricing for the money.
SSD: approx. $1 for every 2GB, depending on quality - you will experience blazing fast load times for your OS and programs that you can squeeze on it
RAM: DDR3 2x4GB at least 1600MHz dual channel kit, approx. $80 - fairly standard. You can get 16GB for double the price, which will allow you more multitasking.
PSU: I recommend you upgrade your PSU. The CX series is known to have quality problems.

 

[IInuyasha74]

Well your PSU and GPU aren't so bad. The issue is going to be between your RAM and CPU which honestly now that it is 2015, you've had a good 7 years of use of that system I'd think it time to move that system down to a non-gaming service and do a good upgrade.

This is what I would recommend:
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80646e31231v3
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-motherboard-z97u3plus
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f31600c9d8gab

That costs about $400 (adding in my head) and gets you a lot of performance and you shouldn't need to worry about an upgrade for the next 4 or 5 years outside of your GPU probably.

 

[ccondardo]

I should have clarified that I'd like to avoid the $1500 build - if I was to do that I'd throw out many of the parts I have now basically starting new. The question is what is the least I spend (by replacing parts of this build) to get decent modern performance. Thanks so much for the answers so far!

 

[ccondardo]

Well your PSU and GPU aren't so bad. The issue is going to be between your RAM and CPU which honestly now that it is 2015, you've had a good 7 years of use of that system I'd think it time to move that system down to a non-gaming service and do a good upgrade.

This is what I would recommend:
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80646e31231v3
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-motherboard-z97u3plus
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f31600c9d8gab

That costs about $400 (adding in my head) and gets you a lot of performance and you shouldn't need to worry about an upgrade for the next 4 or 5 years outside of your GPU probably.

Thanks for the response. What is the advantage of a xeon? I was under the impression that was not ideal for gaming. Reading the reviews it does seem like this is a great option for saving a few bucks: "But for the gamer who doesn't care about overclocking this is a great value."

I really don't care about over clocking, and I don't care about a lack of on-board graphics. Any other tradeoffs with going for a xeon?

 

[IInuyasha74]

Well the Xeon and the other Core i7 and Core i5 CPUs are really similar in many ways but have you heard about Hyper-threading? It basically gives a CPU 30% more performance. This is the biggest feature separating the Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs.

The advantage of getting the Xeon, is that it costs about as much as an i5 but has i7 performance. It has 4-cores and 8-threads.

The idea they are not good for gaming, is really not true. In terms of the CPU core itself, the physical piece with all the transistors, it is 100% identical to an i7 without any difference. The only thing is that it cannot overclock like an i7-4770k for example and you cannot push it trying for more speed as much. I say as much because in fact you can do this on them, but you are limited to I think a max increase of 400Mhz, then you can sometimes get a little from increasing the FSB. A lot of people look at CPUs and say clock speed is all that is important cause games don't use 8-threads normally. They use typically 4 now days, however this is a very short sited point of view as for games only using 4-cores background tasks can be handled easier while playing a game without as much of a performance hit, and the new game systems have 8-cores and will cause games to be optimized for 8-cores more and more.

Long story short, outside of the on-board graphics, which is something I personally like but is a pretty weak issue, there isn't anything you lose by going with the Xeon in terms of performance, FPS, and how long it will work as a good CPU.

 

[ccondardo]

Well the Xeon and the other Core i7 and Core i5 CPUs are really similar in many ways but have you heard about Hyper-threading? It basically gives a CPU 30% more performance. This is the biggest feature separating the Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs.

The advantage of getting the Xeon, is that it costs about as much as an i5 but has i7 performance. It has 4-cores and 8-threads.

The idea they are not good for gaming, is really not true. In terms of the CPU core itself, the physical piece with all the transistors, it is 100% identical to an i7 without any difference. The only thing is that it cannot overclock like an i7-4770k for example and you cannot push it trying for more speed as much. I say as much because in fact you can do this on them, but you are limited to I think a max increase of 400Mhz, then you can sometimes get a little from increasing the FSB. A lot of people look at CPUs and say clock speed is all that is important cause games don't use 8-threads normally. They use typically 4 now days, however this is a very short sited point of view as for games only using 4-cores background tasks can be handled easier while playing a game without as much of a performance hit, and the new game systems have 8-cores and will cause games to be optimized for 8-cores more and more.

Long story short, outside of the on-board graphics, which is something I personally like but is a pretty weak issue, there isn't anything you lose by going with the Xeon in terms of performance, FPS, and how long it will work as a good CPU.

It looks like that mobo is out of stock (guessing it's got a new version). I'd be willing to spend up to $500 - any suggestions on a mobo that's in stock / maybe more ram? The CPU I'm sold on .