Get an i3 to later upgrade to 2500k or not?

[8bitloser]

My birthday is the 26th and i plan on upgrading a bit. Now my family is not rich and im 15 so no job. So i do have a serious budget. As of now im only upgrading my cpu and motherboard right away, My HD6770 will suffice for now.

Basically im kinda thinking of going with an i3 2100 for now so i can upgrade to a 2500k later this year since im already looking for a job and since as of late im finishing school online so i figure thats a + when applying (fingers crossed). Im just wondering if there's a better way to go with all this (like if bulldozer is ever going to dig itself out of the whole they dug themselves into)

I really, REALLY want a 2500k, I just cant afford it 🙁 Also does anyone have a good suggestion for a decent motherboard under 100$ (cheaper if you could) that would go with the i3, if thats my best option. Basically i plan on only being able to get the processor possibly a little after my birthday, considering ill most likely need to save a little after to get the 130$, then buying the mobo after some saving again (no allowance either so itll be tuff), then just get some 20$ 4gb ram. Ah, another thing, if you suggest a motherboard it MUST be ddr3 if they even make ddr2 for sandy bridge, considering ddr2 will only going to go up in price. I know i cant oc the i3 but i would want the option in a mobo for the 2500k or ivy-bridge equivalent when i can come into the cash.

And dont bother on suggestions for money considering i only have a few neighbors that arent 80 and hate people so simple area jobs are kinda out of the question. Also I live in Arizona :/ literally not a "real" grass yard within 25mi

 

[8bitloser]

To be clear, since you are keeping your graphics card then upgrading the CPU to an i5-2100 won't make a huge difference.

A new motherboard+2100+DDR3 RAM will be at least $250 which might give you 20% improvement in game with the same card.

Nor can you legally transfer Windows to a new motherboard unless it's the expensive FULL version.

*So what I'm saying is IMO you should wait and put your money aside, then get the i5-2500K or similar unlocked CPU (depending on how long you wait), motherboard and RAM etc.

Now you'll have a strong system capable of supporting a much better graphics card than the when you can support it. If I had to guess, and it's just an educated guess, some games might perform 20% with the i5-2100 and 40% better with the i5-2500K with the same HD6770.

SUMMARY:
My advice is choose one of the following:
1) wait and just buy the i5-2500K (or similar) + motherboard + DDR3 RAM, or
2) wait and buy the above + a better graphics card

Im confused your os/games can extremely easily be transferred in fact not even transferred, when i did my last upgrade to a new mobo and cpu (what i have now). My games arent stored on my boot drive which for now is only 80GB cause its my fastest drive, My games are stored on my 2 150GB HDD thats running in raid 0. So i dont even need to reinstall games, I just have it linked to my steam folder. And its not illegal to put a old hdd in a new system

 

[13thmonkey]

but oem windows (most common as its cheapest) is nominally locked to a mobo. You may have to call intel on a number that will appear on screen to re-authorise the windows key. I've done it several times on XP and vista, but thats not to say that they will always do it.

 

[8bitloser]

To be clear, since you are keeping your graphics card then upgrading the CPU to an i5-2100 won't make a huge difference.

A new motherboard+2100+DDR3 RAM will be at least $250 which might give you 20% improvement in game with the same card.

Nor can you legally transfer Windows to a new motherboard unless it's the expensive FULL version.

*So what I'm saying is IMO you should wait and put your money aside, then get the i5-2500K or similar unlocked CPU (depending on how long you wait), motherboard and RAM etc.

Now you'll have a strong system capable of supporting a much better graphics card than the when you can support it. If I had to guess, and it's just an educated guess, some games might perform 20% with the i5-2100 and 40% better with the i5-2500K with the same HD6770.

SUMMARY:
My advice is choose one of the following:
1) wait and just buy the i5-2500K (or similar) + motherboard + DDR3 RAM, or
2) wait and buy the above + a better graphics card

Well my friend has the same gpu and the 2120 and in bfbc2 he gets around 45-50FPS maxed out as to where i get 30-40 Lowest so it will make a decent impact on cpu intensive games as my cpu just cant handle them. Plus its hyperthreaded so if i ever need that its there, my current isnt.

 

[8bitloser]

but oem windows (most common as its cheapest) is nominally locked to a mobo. You may have to call intel on a number that will appear on screen to re-authorise the windows key. I've done it several times on XP and vista, but thats not to say that they will always do it.

Well when your budget has been as low as mine is you cant afford to spend 100$ on os sooooooooo yeah, Wink wink nudge nudge

 

[13thmonkey]

when I was on the budget builds i refreshed maybe 2-3 times on xp and once on vista. but the win7 offer in the EU was for full for the same price haven't had to update though.