Looking to upgrade CPU, SSD & HDD.

[Jaakey]

My current build

Hello,

I suppose, for context, I'll say the main thing I use my computer for is gaming, just in the case that that influences the components.

Title, basically. My drives both keep making weird noises but no software picks up anything wrong with them so I'm just assuming that it's almost their 'time'. The CPU just isn't cutting games like Arma 3 which are CPU intensive so I'm looking to upgrade that as well. The problem is that I'm not very good at detecting incompatibilities, and I'm also not that great at researching parts as a whole so I'm looking for some nice upgrades since I've got some extra money.

As a baseline I'm looking for the below. The more speed/size the better, however the better the price efficiency the better. In other words, I want these upgrades to be as good as possible however I don't have that big a budget (£300 roughly, though I don't necessarily want to spend it all).

SSD with 100GB+
HDD with 1TB+
CPU just needs to be as good as possible, I was looking at i7-4790k, this looks nice but I'm not sure if compatible or whether there are better options.

 

[utroz]

So you have a H97 so no overclocking for you besides playing with turbo boost... http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=4962 is the list of supported cpu's, you can use Hasewell, Hasewell Refresh, Devils Canyon, and Broadwell cpus, so you have a few options.. Since you can't overclock I would get the best cpu you can afford like the high clock speed i7-4790K and it will last you a few years no problem..

 

[johnnyb105]

Well your SSD will not make any noise the mechanical drive will make noise but how to tell which noise is bad because if its a click click or klunk noise it may be going out.. Now the cpu side of things you could a few things add a I 7 look at gigabytes web site and see if it will take one the board or a i5 as well 4690 .Or you could buy a z97 board get a I 5 4690k and then you have options to overclock later but seeing you have a 970 gpu you should be able to play games just fine unless your mechanical hard drive is going out. 3 go with a new sky lake build and ddr 4 mem as well.

 

[Jaakey]

No, I've avoided overclocking because I didn't want to mess up.

Thanks for the list! It says that the i7-4790K with Haswell Refresh is compatible however the one on Newegg is listed as Haswell and the core name is Devil's Canyon, does that mean it isn't compatible?

 

[Jaakey]

Well your SSD will not make any noise the mechanical drive will make noise but how to tell which noise is bad because if its a click click or klunk noise it may be going out.. Now the cpu side of things you could a few things add a I 7 look at gigabytes web site and see if it will take one the board or a i5 as well 4690 .Or you could buy a z97 board get a I 5 4690k and then you have options to overclock later but seeing you have a 970 gpu you should be able to play games just fine unless your mechanical driver is going out. 3 go with a new sky lake build and ddr 4 mem as well.

I'm not looking to make a huge investment, just an upgrade so I'd rather just do a direct upgrade with the cpu rather than the mobo and cpu. Playing games is fine, I get the upside of 250 FPS on most games but some games rely more on the CPU for running, which doesn't run as good.

 

[johnnyb105]

yes its a refresh of the haswell cpu use to be example 4770 is the older haswell the new devils canyon is 4790k and it should go into your system.

 

[johnnyb105]

My drives both keep making weird noises you mention so I told you what I thought but a lot of folks will tell you that I 5 4690k is whats best for gaming because not a lot of games are using 8 threads yet example I5 4690 4 CORES 4 THREADS I7 4790K 4 CORES 8 THREADS...If you go I7 are you doing vids or rendering or something that's going to demand all those extra threads??? because the cost is 100 more for I7 over the I 5 4690k..

 

[Jaakey]

I'm not sure what I'll be doing in the future so I thought it'd be better to just get something that could cover anything I'll do. I'll take a look at the 4690k when I'm free in a little while and see what I think.

As for the drives it's hard to explain what sound they make, it's somewhat like a camera shutter and I'm not sure which of the drives it is, even if it's not a health issue I'd rather just replace them due to annoyance.

 

[johnnyb105]

Well keep in mind the SSD has no moving parts so I would Isolate the sound to the other drive or something else in your system try opening the case and hear where its coming from to get a better Ideal.

 

[Jaakey]

Is there a way to disconnect the HDD in order to isolate the SSD without affecting the computer?

 

[johnnyb105]

Yes as long as you have the os installed the SSD you can unhook the sata cable and sata power cable and run the system and see if that's the issue where the noise is coming from.

 

[Jaakey]

I'll give it a go tomorrow to see which it is, only problem is that the noise is random and doesn't happen very often but I can just set a recorder and leave it an hour or something. Thanks for the information and advice.

 

[Jaakey]

Decided to just go with the i7-4790K just in case I do anything demanding in the future I won't have to replace it again. After reading through reviews I decided to purchase a cooler as well because the vast majority of people are complaining about the stock cooler being awful. I was thinking of going with a
Phanteks PH-TC12DX: do you think there's anything better or will that be sufficient? (I'd rather not go with Hyper 212evo).

edit: turns out that the website I was looking at wasn't incorrect and the price of the 4790K isn't £200, but £250 so I'll actually go with the 4690K. The question still stands for the cooler