Need some advice on upgrading a decade old system (2008 LGA775 MoBo)

[komikozovich]

Updated March, 11 (See my latest message)

Update as of March 2018, I've decided to switch from LGA775 before making the upgrade changes from this thread, due to my job being rather fruitful, all the info is here. Nonetheless, I'm really grateful for all the replies I've received here. You've all helped me realize a thing or two about building a PC. Cheers!

Salutations from Russia, comrades.

I wasn't completely sure where to post this, but since everything revolves around the MoBo, I think this is the place.

I would like some consultation (and all the possible tips) concerning an upgrade of my very, very old system that, I have no idea how, has lived up to see this day. I'm a hardcore gamer myself and do still expect some juice from it. I also expect this thread to be active for quite a while as I make my mind up and I need as many ideas as possible.

I will begin with a little bit of introduction of what we're dealing with here.

Somewhere around 2010 my brother gifted this PC to a-very-young-me as he got a new one for himself. I was 14 at the time, and pretty much never cared about what I got as long as I was able to play CS 1.6, Half- Life, Heroes 3, Doom series and other good ol' games.

It has kind of stayed that way since then, even now, in 2017. I really don't play anything else aside from Battle Realms (2001), Left 4 Dead 2 (2012, low-med) and, now, Killing Floor 2 (2016, low tweaked, runs decently or I just have low standards).

So now, at 22 years of age, I surely am getting frustrated with the performance of my rig. Besides, I do want to play a number of titles that are just unplayable on this system.

But the thing is I'm really tight on the budget, mainly because the most part of my money income goes elsewhere and I don't want to spend a lot on the old LGA775 (I'm planning to build another PC in a couple of years or so). Thus I'm looking for the minimum expenses for the maximum profit. After thinking for a while, I can say that I don't exactly look for the cheapest stuff. So give me your best.

Well, finally, let's get down to business. The current rig is:

Case: MidTower
Display: NEC MultiSync 90GX2 (1280x1024, 19").
PSU: Chieftec GPS-350EB-101A 350w.
MoBo: ASUS P5Q SE PLUS (p45 chipset).
CPU: Intel Core2Duo E7300 2,67 GHz (Stock Intel cooler).
GPU: GeForce 9800 GT (512 MB).
RAM: Kingston KVR800D2N6/2G x2 (4GB in total).

Yep, that's quite a looker we got here. Note that I don't generally like the idea of "oh god, go buy a new MoBo you fool", because I'm on a really, REALLY tight budget (as of now at least, and my income is pretty unstable due to the nature of my job), but I would still listen to reasonable ideas.

I need as many advices as possible. All kinds of opinions. About all the upgrade parts. So don't hesitate to put your two cents in.

What do I need from that system after the upgrade?

Playing games like Left 4 Dead 2, Killing Floor 2, GTA V, Witcher 3, Shadow Warrior (modern ones, both of them) on high or above settings (most likely with a 1920x1080 display) with decent FPS (above 30). Also recording gameplay (thus videoediting) and, possibly, streaming.

What is my original upgrade idea?

I've been digging about it for quite some time now, collecting all the data and trying to understand what's best. So let's talk about what I came up with in the end:

MoBo, originally, remains unchanged.

PSU: A 650w PSU that I can get for almost free. It's soon going to be here. Maybe not. Give me your PSU ideas too.

CPU:[strike] It's a tough one. Q(X)9650 / 9770 are too expensive and hard to find hence why I've decided to not go for them. Really want to go for modded Xeons, so instead I'm getting a cheap (used, modded 771 to 775, Chinese) Xeon E5450 (E0 Costa Rica) that I'm planning to OC to 3,6 or 4 GHz.[/strike] Final idea: X5470. 771 to 775 and Bios modification will be in order, so don't worry about its compatibility with this MoBo. If you have any other CPU ideas- I'm all ears.

I really need suggestions about the coolers, because hell, it's gonna heat up like holy fire. Good coolers that are supposed to keep the OC'd Xeon alive at 4GHz or so. I'm not sure about the price range- 30-40$, need ideas, NOT Noctua NH-D14, I really dislike everything about it, mostly its size and price.

Current idea:. Deepcool Neptwin v2

[strike]Also, will Cooler Master Hyper Evo 212 be sufficient for such OC?[/strike] Answer: If you plan to overclock, it's not.

GPU:[strike] Originally, I have 3 second-hand GPUs that I can buy for a relatively cheap price. [/strike]

[strike]1. That's GTX 760, the cheapest, and, probably, already pretty dated by now. [/strike]
[strike]2. Would be GTX 960 2GB, the golden middle I suppose, costs a bit more than GTX760.[/strike]
[strike]3. GTX 1050 2GB, costs a bit more than GTX960 2GB.[/strike]

That'll be GTX1050ti.

RAM: Planning to make it 8GB+ in total. Finding DDR2 RAM with 800-1000MHz clocks is pain in the arse. I'm not sure what to do here. I ordered 4GB RAM from AliExpress a week ago, its parameters are the same as my current Kingston RAM.

But that's more of a temporary solution. I'm not sure about the difference between 800 and 1000. I will probably change it to something trustworthy in the future and up to 16GB.

I NEED YOUR HELP HERE. I can't find any good GAMING 8gb kits (or single 4gb sticks) of 800-100MHz. By "good" I mean known brands. I didn't think it would be this hard... but it is!

Display: Going for 1920x1080 is tough, even my 1280x1024 is pretty fine for me (Played on 4:3,5:4 my entire life [sad?]).

Additional: Talk about the cooling, the case doesn't have any additional coolers installed. Only two of them now: on the CPU and the GPU. I need some additional cooling for it, provided I plan to OC everything, any suggestions?

Here goes my wall of text. Throw in your ideas about everything, I'm really willing to go through them all. Don't worry about the budget, but keep in mind I don't plan to spend more than 200$ (GPU and DISPLAY are not included).

I will be able to reply tomorrow or the day after so I hope nothing happens to this topic meanwhile.

Thanks everyone in advance!

 

[Paul NZ]

That Xeon is socket 771 not 775. This mobo doesnt support that Xeon either. Well none of the BIOS updates support it

If you want a quad, you can get them on Alixpress if you're on it. I paid $20 for a used Q94000. Works fine.

 

[komikozovich]

That Xeon is socket 771 not 775. This mobo doesnt support that Xeon either. Well none of the BIOS updates support it

If you want a quad, you can get them on Alixpress if you're on it. I paid $20 for a used Q94000. Works fine.

I forgot to mention it's a modded Xeon (771 to 775 mod, as I've read, they're pretty easily modifiable for 775). So it should work fine after the installation and modding the BIOS. Thanks for reminding me about the need to mention it.

 

[william p]

I would go for X5470 Xeon. 3.33GHz. if that board supports 400fsb and Voltage settings then tape mod to 4GHz.
8GB DR2 1066 (not cheap) it may be a toss up here. 4x2GB DDR2 1066, or add 2x4GB DDR2 800 for 12GB if it's even possible. But 8GB DDR2 800 is OK
The GTX960 2GB looks good. 4GB card will use too much system RAM. Unless you can manage 12GB.
Not all ASUS boards can overclock. So I would research that first.
When you start overclocking you will need a good cooler. Hyper 212 evo is a good budget cooler.
Here are some builds with that board.
http://www.userbenchmark.com/System/Asus-P5Q-SE-PLUS/2571
Here is the resource for xeon swaps.
https://www.delidded.com/

 

[timmy721]

Hi,

Up until few month ago, I was in a very similar situation as you are in right now. Probably the worse. I had E4500 coupled with GT 9500. Yes, it was getting too old, so I decided to upgrade my system without changing the motherboard. After doing some extensive research, I ended up purchasing 8gb of ddr2 800 mhz for $30, Q9550 for $28 (managed to overclock it to 4.1Ghz) on eBay and GTX 1050 Ti. These parts have breathed new life into my old rig, so I think you are on the right track.

1. GPU: is the first thing you want to upgrade. I would pick the one with at least 4GB memory (GTX 1050 ti)
2. CPU cooler: Initially I had purchased hyper 212 Evo and no doubt it is a good budget cooler but it was not sufficient enough for me to overclock my CPU beyond 3.6 ghz as it was hitting above 71c on prime test. But after installing Deepcool Netwin white, so far I have not yet seen the temps going higher than 61c.
3. RAM: 8GB of ddr2 800 mhz was enough for me. You won't benefit much from 1066 mhz other than overclocking your cpu.
4. Case Fans: If you plan on overclocking your CPU, I strongly recommend getting more fans for your case, at least 1 intake and 1 exhaust since overclocked CPU do generate a lot of heat.

Lastly, these are the FPS I get for playing games at 1080p in ultra settings under stock cpu clock speed.
The witcher 3: 35~43 fps
Battlefield 4: 50~70 fps (Campaign Mode)

 

[william p]

The Hyper 212 is cheap, anything better will cost more, but still cost less than buying the 212, and then also buying a more expensive one later.
Some things can move forward to your next computer. PSU, Coolers, GPUs. So spending money there makes sense. Old RAM and CPUs you're not going to get it back.
The 4GB GPU/8GB RAM issue is kind of a new question because 4GB GPUs didn't exist in the market where MB with 8GB RAM limits existed (DDR2).
I'm getting good FPS in the Valley and Heaven benchmarks but the minimum FPS drops to 10 or lower every now and then when there isn't enough RAM for the system. The 960, and 1050 are at the same level on the Hierarchy Chart. 2GB is the safer bet. With 12GB RAM then the 1050Ti looks good.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html
It's very common for old MB to accept more RAM than when new. The 4GB DDR2 modules didn't exist back then (except ECC server RAM) so with a new BIOS and 4GB modules sometimes it works. With a ASUS board someone is sure to have tried it. My Optiplex 380 came with 4GB max. due to 2 RAM slots. Now it has 8GB anyway. It also has a GTX1050Ti 4GB GPU. Windows performance page shows 7.9GB available for the GPU. 3.9 'shared" system memory.

 

[komikozovich]

Info #1

Info #2

Mentlegen, thank you a lot for your inputs (and links). I should probably mention that I'm not a complete cheapskate, I'm more of the type that would rather wait a month or two until he gets money to buy something more trustworthy instead of spending everything on the cheapest stuff. I do look for cheap stuff, but you know. I also want my rig to last quite a while (perhaps another decade and whatnot ), but that's with a possibility to move it to another rig.

@William

You think going for X5470 is better? It's a tough one. On AliExpress it costs 2 times more than E5450 (50$ vs 22$). I've also heard Xs heat up really bad. That means I will have to go for a cooler like NOCTUA (..nooooooo..). and more coolers.

It's hard to decide, depends on my budget too. X5470 seems better because of the base frequency and 1 additional multiplier, which means it'll be easier to OC. Its power consumption is 40w more than E5450 though... Also getting concerned about the PSU here.

I'll just let you have a look yourself, P5Q SE PLUS is a very good LGA775. The RAM can be plugged all the way to 16GB, which is pretty incredible. Turns out it's quite an overclocker as well

@Timmy

Damn, you two do make me want to jump over my head now. Perhaps it won't be a cheap upgrade... that is if I get enough money of course.

It's really nice to hear from someone with a similar situation/upgrade. I really want to get down and dirty with modded Xeons and BIOS modifications, so I don't think I'll get Q9550, but thanks for the suggestion.

1. As I've originally stated, I don't plan to play on really high settings. But now I want to, damn it. If I get 1050Ti 4GB for this, then it's surely for the future transportation to another, newer rig. It really depends on my job here.

2. That's exactly why I asked if it would be sufficient. I had my doubts, specially if I decide to put Xeon X editions in. Deepcool looks cool (and really similar to 212), I guess white version is different in color only, the price is bearable too.

3. Will have to look into it too.

4. Yeah, that's most definitely the case here. Do you have any reccomendations for additional fans?

For me, it's mindblowing that you get 30+ in Witcher 3 on ultras and in 1080p on STOCK CLOCK. Thanks for sharing that.

Also what PSU are you running with that?

 

[malkiv]

GPU: Do not go for the 2gb GPUs, because you will be micro-stuttering all day on modern games. The 1050 Ti is nothing to scoff at for the price point, and it's very low power compared to other cards in its class. The 1050 Ti doesn't even need extra 6-pin nor 8-pin power - it just plugs right into your motherboard and goes.

CPU: The lack of an L3 cache on those chips you've listed is going to be the largest restriction for gaming. You could drop a 1080 Ti into your system, and you'd still struggle to get over 30FPS on modern games. The only saving grace will be your increased clock speed - Just go for the X5470, because that will ensure you're getting at least 30fps with your monitor's resolution on most modern games.

 

[komikozovich]

GPU: Do not go for the 2gb GPUs, because you will be micro-stuttering all day on modern games. The 1050 Ti is nothing to scoff at for the price point, and it's very low power compared to other cards in its class. The 1050 Ti doesn't even need extra 6-pin nor 8-pin power - it just plugs right into your motherboard and goes.

CPU: The lack of an L3 cache on those chips you've listed is going to be the largest restriction for gaming. You could drop a 1080 Ti into your system, and you'd still struggle to get over 30FPS on modern games. The only saving grace will be your increased clock speed - Just go for the X5470, because that will ensure you're getting at least 30fps with your monitor's resolution on most modern games.

Thanks for the reply!

I'm not really planing to play a lot of modern games anyway, so it's not much of a problem in general.

Yeah, I'm closer and closer to 1050ti. Besides, there's even a pricetag as low as 120$. So far I've seen only the positive feedback about it, so that's most likely will be in my final build.

About the cache... isn't that the problem with all LGA775 CPUs nowadays? That's the point, hence why overclocking is in order, no other way.

Well, I guess I'm going to stop on X5470 OC + GTX 1050ti CPU+GPU Combo.

 

[The Paladin]

and don't forget to upgrade your ram to 8GB, it make a difference and slap an ssd for your OS and you will see plenty of speed out of the old girl.

I am slowly doping the same to my office pc, currently did the SSD 8GB ram upgrades trying to find a Nice Q9400/9550 on sale on ebay to boost my q8300 cpu.

 

[komikozovich]

and don't forget to upgrade your ram to 8GB, it make a difference and slap an ssd for your OS and you will see plenty of speed out of the old girl.

I am slowly doping the same to my office pc, currently did the SSD 8GB ram upgrades trying to find a Nice Q9400/9550 on sale on ebay to boost my q8300 cpu.

Thanks for reminding me about the need to purchase an SSD.

Yeah, the RAM will soon be 8GB (the 2x2 sticks I ordered a week ago are almost here). With all the way up to 16 in the future.

 

[The Paladin]

I would check the motherboard specks not many 775 board go to 16gb

 

[william p]

I looked and yes 16GB DDR2-1200. Good luck finding 4GB modules over 800 that aren't ECC. But maybe it can take cheaper high density AMD RAM unlike Dells which require low density. I hope it works for him.

 

[komikozovich]

I looked and yes 16GB DDR2-1200. Good luck finding 4GB modules over 800 that aren't ECC. But maybe it can take cheaper high density AMD RAM unlike Dells which require low density. I hope it works for him.

Honestly, as I'm looking at it right now, DDR2 RAM is actually the principal problem in the whole old-platform-build fuss, if one plans to make it higher than 8GB that is.

AMD RAM doesn't work with Intel chips (It is that cheap for this exact reason).

There is a bunch of DDR2 800 or 667 MHz single 4 GB sticks (or 2x4 /4x4 kits) for Desktop PCs, but they are extremely overpriced (that's because DDR2 isn't manufactured anymore and there's still demand for it). Starting from 150$ and going all the way to 350$, I could build a new PC with that amount of money.

[NewEgg shop link]

Ideally, getting two packs of these would do, but my everything still hurts because of that pricetag... And if I ever buy it, that's probably only if I plan to build a bomb LGA775-gaming-side-PC.

It actually makes me curious. 4GB single sticks of DDR2 RAM / PC2-8000 (1000MHz) don't seem to exist.

And it's pretty sad. There's always "The Chinese Solution" which would be AliExpress traders selling cheap noname single 4GB sticks (the lowest I found was 15$/1 stick [nonAMD]), but that's still 60$ and nobody knows how those are going to perform. Sadly it's the only solution I can think of now, provided I really don't want to get a new MoBo.

 

[william p]

I looked and yes 16GB DDR2-1200. Good luck finding 4GB modules over 800 that aren't ECC. But maybe it can take cheaper high density AMD RAM unlike Dells which require low density. I hope it works for him.

Honestly, as I'm looking at it right now, DDR2 RAM is actually the principal problem in the whole old-platform-build fuss, if one plans to make it higher than 8GB that is.

AMD RAM doesn't work with Intel chips (It is that cheap for this exact reason).

There is a bunch of DDR2 800 or 667 MHz single 4 GB sticks (or 2x4 /4x4 kits) for Desktop PCs, but they are extremely overpriced (that's because DDR2 isn't manufactured anymore and there's still demand for it). Starting from 150$ and going all the way to 350$, I could build a new PC with that amount of money.

[NewEgg shop link]

Ideally, getting two packs of these would do, but my everything still hurts because of that pricetag... And if I ever buy it, that's probably only if I plan to build a bomb LGA775-gaming-side-PC.

It actually makes me curious. 4GB single sticks of DDR2 RAM / PC2-8000 (1000MHz) don't seem to exist.

And it's pretty sad. There's always "The Chinese Solution" which would be AliExpress traders selling cheap noname single 4GB sticks (the lowest I found was 15$/1 stick [nonAMD]), but that's still 60$ and nobody knows how those are going to perform. Sadly it's the only solution I can think of now, provided I really don't want to get a new MoBo.

I would suggest buying 2x4gb sticks and stop at 12GB. that cuts the cost in 1/2, solves the immediate problem. and you're not wasting what you already have. The way I see it is that there wasn't any 4GB DDR2 back in the day. That's why there isn't very much used, and new is expensive because there's not a lot of demand for it any more. Sometimes it's cheaper to buy a DDR3 MB than to buy the DDR2 RAM.
But back to the budget theme just run 8GB and a 2GB GPU. The 960 2GB performs the same as the GTX1050Ti 4GB. I don't think you'll have any issues with that setup, and save some money at the same time. The GPU, and PSU can move forward, the DDR2 can't, so it's not a good place to put your money if you don't have to.

 

[komikozovich]

I would suggest buying 2x4gb sticks and stop at 12GB. that cuts the cost in 1/2, solves the immediate problem. and you're not wasting what you already have. The way I see it is that there wasn't any 4GB DDR2 back in the day. That's why there isn't very much used, and new is expensive because there's not a lot of demand for it any more. Sometimes it's cheaper to buy a DDR3 MB than to buy the DDR2 RAM.
But back to the budget theme just run 8GB and a 2GB GPU. The 960 2GB performs the same as the GTX1050Ti 4GB. I don't think you'll have any issues with that setup, and save some money at the same time. The GPU, and PSU can move forward, the DDR2 can't, so it's not a good place to put your money if you don't have to.

I thought about it, don't think I need to go higher than 12GB. Still, just the fact of DDR2 price is depressing.

As to the GPU, the thing is there's not a significant price gap between 960 2GB and 1050ti, I found the latter to be as low as 120$ (used), while 960 would be 110$, but 2 additional gigs of VRAM make a difference (plus I can move the GPU to the future rig). Will see, how everything turns out, thanks though!

 

[The Paladin]

the real amazing thing is that DDR2-800 8GB cost more than DDR3-1600 16GB, the only LGA775 upgrade I would consider in the future (not that I will do it unless its great price) is get a LGA775 Board that has DDR3 Ram slot on it, few and far in between I know and most only go to 8GB or ram in the first place.

its a loop-dee-loop, almost tempted to sell ram, motherboard and CPU, get i5-series 3 or 4 cpu, motherboard and ram for identical price is what it comes down to. (*used ebay of course*)

 

[william p]

I've just run benchmarks with my 8GB/ 1050Ti setup and they don't all have problems. Just Unigine stuff as far as I can tell. It is pretty bad when it happens. Maybe just choose your games carefully until you can get a newer system. 3Dmark11 7000, Skydiver 14000, Firestrikeright around 6000.. Cinebench too.

 

[william p]

I've been looking into this some more and what I'm finding is that the problem looks "manageable".
I found that running Google Chrome, and some anti malware programs I was hitting 4GB RAM usage while running the benchmarks. Turning them off got me away from the 4GB limit and they began to run normally. So in a pristine software environment it's OK. But it's definitely showing 4GB RAM as "Standby" or cached. 2GB at idle, and 4GB when benching. So you may need a clean user profile for gaming. The GTX1050Ti is a great card. It's pushing the envelope in an 8GB system. But that's what projects like this are all about. Offline gaming should be OK, online gaming might be a bit harder.

 

[komikozovich]

Hello everyone who's still tracking this thread.

I've decided to write one finishing post as I've come up with my decision. So I would like to list what I will get in the end.

Update as of March 2018, I've decided to switch from LGA775 before making the upgrade changes from this thread, due to my job being rather fruitful, all the info is here. Nonetheless, I'm really grateful for all the replies I've received here. You've all helped me realize a thing or two about building a PC. Cheers!

But first, let me do a short advertisement:

Today I got the Chinese DDR2 RAM I ordered 2 weeks ago (FOR INTEL, 2x2GB PC2-6400U 800MHz), and it's working perfectly (the PC sees all 4096Mb). It works on 6-6-6-18 clocks though.

The whole store specializes in CPUs and RAM. It's not newly manufactured I believe (CPUs definitely not, judging by the feedback) and the name itself (Re store) hints some of the parts are restored.

The thing is the price. It's cheap. Real cheap. If you need DDR2 RAM (2x2 or standalone 4 GB)- get it there. MAKE SURE you choose the right parameter (FOR INTEL / FOR AMD) while ordering.

Judging by the feedback, you may get faulty sticks here and there, but the seller is super responsive and always either refunds or sends new sticks. It's a good placeholder for perhaps a better RAM set as it gets the job done and doesn't slow your PC down.

They didn't pay me, I just thought I'd help my brothers-in-arms. Check out the pics: [1] , [2] , [3]

After a while I found a nice set of DDR2 1066Mhz RAM by the name of G.Skill F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ 8GB (4x2GB) . It was selling on Ebay for as low as 50$. But I'm Russian, living in Russia... Which is mainly a nope cause even getting it via third parties would be relatively expensive. I planned to get it via this offer [screen if archived] (which, as of March 11, is still standing). And as I've noticed it appears quite often on Ebay, works on 5-5-5-15 and can probably be OC'd to 4-4-4-12 on 2,1V (don't take my word for it). So if you're still rockin' DDR2 rigs, go for it.

Alright, now that I'm done. Here's the final upgrade plan if anyone ever finds oneself in a similar situation:

RE: Update as of March 2018, I've decided to switch from LGA775 before making the upgrade changes from this thread, due to my job being rather fruitful, all the info is here. Nonetheless, I'm really grateful for all the replies I've received here. You've all helped me realize a thing or two about building a PC. Cheers!

[strike]MoBo: Everlasting ASUSP5Q SE PLUS (LGA775)

1. CPU: Intel Xeon X5470 (used, E0 stepping, 40$)[/strike]
2. CPU COOLER:Chinese Allseye Eddy-120 Tower Cooler (new, 30$)
3. GPU: nVIDIA GTX 1050ti (used, 120-160$, now it won't go below 160$ I SHOULDN'T HAVE WAITED TILL MARCH)
4. SSD: Kingspec 90GB Sata 3.0 (will sure be capped by SATA 2.0 port, no biggie.)
5. HDD: Seagate Momentus Thin (500GB, taken out of my dead laptop)

PSU is Zalman 700-LEII, as much as everyone says Zalman and PSU are incompatible, the PSU has been doing well so far. Display: 1080p. + 2 case coolers (one DeepCool XFAN 120 and two 80mm Titans DCF-8025L12S).

Thanks everyone for participating, Happy Holidays!

 

[timmy721]

Hello everyone who's still tracking this thread.

I've decided to write one finishing post as I've come up with my decision. So I would like to list what I will get in the end.

But first, let me do a short advertisement:

Today I got the Chinese DDR2 RAM I ordered 2 weeks ago (FOR INTEL, 2x2GB PC2-6400U 800MHz), and it's working perfectly (the PC sees all 4096Mb).

The whole store specializes in CPUs and RAM. It's not newly manufactured I believe (CPUs definitely not, judging by the feedback) and the name itself (Re store) hints some of the parts are restored.

The thing is the price. It's cheap. Real cheap. If you need DDR2 RAM (2x2 or standalone 4 GB)- get it there. They even sell 1333-1600MHz DDR2 4GB sticks (they are still expensive though but much less expensive than EU/US market). MAKE SURE you choose the right parameter (FOR INTEL / FOR AMD) while ordering.

Judging by the feedback, you may get faulty sticks here and there, but the seller is super responsive and always either refunds or sends new sticks.

They didn't pay me, I just thought I'd help my brothers-in-arms. Check out the pics: [1] , [2] , [3]

Alright, now that I'm done. Here's the final upgrade plan if anyone ever finds oneself in a similar situation:

MoBo: Everlasting ASUSP5Q SE PLUS (LGA775)

1. CPU: Intel Xeon X5470 (used, E0 stepping, 40$)
2. CPU COOLER: Deepcool Neptwin V2 (new, 43$)
3. GPU: nVIDIA GTX 1050ti (used, 120-160$)
4. SSD: Kingspec 90GB Sata 3.0 (will sure be capped by SATA 2.0 port, no biggie)
5. HDD: Seagate Momentus Thin (500GB, taken out of my dead laptop)

PSU will be around 600-700w, Display: 1080p. + 2 case coolers. That will vary.

Thanks everyone for participating, Happy Holidays!

Hi,

Sorry for the late response. I've been busy for the past week. It's good to see that you are finally getting there.

1. PSU: I think 600W PSU is more than enough for your build as mine is also a 600W(EVGA Broneze 80+ ).

2. CASE Fans:

a. First Plan how you are going to set up your case fans and heatsink fans. (Does your mobo have enough fan
headers? which fan headers are you going to use for each of your heatsink fans and case fans? etc)

b. If your mobo does not

- have enough fan headers, consider buying a fan hub or a Y-splitter

- support pwm or voltage control, consider buying a Low-noise adapter
(because w/o the voltage control(3pin) or pwm(4pin), case fans will constantly run at full speed making a loud noise)

c. Make sure to buy the case fans with good air flow.

3. SSD: Don't forget to enable "AHCI Mode" in your BIOS for the maximum performance of your ssd, if not already done so

4. Enjoy your upgraded build.