Should I build a new PC now or wait a month or so?

[Mythbredor]

Could I do that without losing everything (and not having to spend an hour figuring out what I want to backup)?



Browsers (quite a few Chrome tabs), watching a video on one monitor, 1-2 games (sometimes I'll load up other stuff with WoW like Hearthstone), IM/Chat services (Skype, Discord, Steam, etc)

Idk, stuff's just been really slow lately.

Uh no you'd have to figure out what to back up or install windows on a new drive, plug in your old drive once you're back up and running move everything you need then blow away your old drive.

Yeah a 2500k should have no issues multi tasking any of that. Assuming you aren't playing a bunch of youtube videos at the same time. I'd suggest a fresh install once you get your PC back working again.

[Abradix]

Yeah as said before:

1) Get a CPU cooler (http://noctua.at/en/nh-d15.html)
2) Overclock your 2500k to 4-4.5ghz
3) For maximum bang for buck wait for the AMD RX 480 to become available. You game in 1440*900, even a 480 is already insane overkill for you
Optionally:
- For more speeds, add in an SSD and reinstall windows freshly, using your current harddrive as storage (and this will save your files since you arent wiping your HD)
- Buy some more RAM

You don't need a new system unless you really want to spend the money, you just need to polish up your current one. You are gaming in 900p, you don't need a supercomputer for 100+ fps.

[Kagthul]

Je was talking about upgrading his monitors.

[Polarthief]

- For more speeds, add in an SSD and reinstall windows freshly, using your current harddrive as storage (and this will save your files since you arent wiping your HD)

EVERYTHING has been loading slowly though. I don't mean just windows and hard drive stuff. Would an SSD really take care of this?

[Mythbredor]

EVERYTHING has been loading slowly though. I don't mean just windows and hard drive stuff. Would an SSD really take care of this?

An SSD would make it feel much smoother yes, so you could buy an SSD move all your important files over to it and then wipe your old drive.

[Fascinate]

I dont have an SSD and my windows boots up very fast, its possible your HDD is going kaput. Windows 10 really does not need an SSD, sure you will notice it in boot up programs like curse/steam/etc but once everything is up and loaded your system should still feel very responsive even with a HDD, thats why if it isnt i suggested a format.

[Mythbredor]

I dont have an SSD and my windows boots up very fast, its possible your HDD is going kaput. Windows 10 really does not need an SSD, sure you will notice it in boot up programs like curse/steam/etc but once everything is up and loaded your system should still feel very responsive even with a HDD, thats why if it isnt i suggested a format.

You need to have used an SSD to feel the difference. It's pretty big it makes in general every day pc useage much smoother. But we have already confirmed he needs to do a complete reload.

[Fascinate]

You need to have used an SSD to feel the difference. It's pretty big it makes in general every day pc useage much smoother. But we have already confirmed he needs to do a complete reload.

No it doesn't. Once everything is up and loaded you legit cannot feel an appreciable difference. Yes, it increases boot times slightly (not nearly as much as it did on W7 tho) but past that, a normal person could not tell the difference on a PC running an SSD and a HDD. I am not condoning one way or the other, if you have the money for an SSD go for it ill probably only have solid state storage in my next pc, but in reality the average user could not tell a real difference.

[Mythbredor]

No it doesn't. Once everything is up and loaded you legit cannot feel an appreciable difference. Yes, it increases boot times slightly (not nearly as much as it did on W7 tho) but past that, a normal person could not tell the difference on a PC running an SSD and a HDD. I am not condoning one way or the other, if you have the money for an SSD go for it ill probably only have solid state storage in my next pc, but in reality the average user could not tell a real difference.

A lot of people can tell the difference. Your boot times are better, your game load times are better, your file browsing is better. It's a pretty big difference most normal gamers can tell. Even more so that he's going to be multi tasking. Again if you haven't used an SSD how do you know the difference between an HDD and a SSD.

[Aleksej89]

New upcoming GPUs are really impressive, i suggest waiting a bit to see how they will perform in latest games/reviews.

[Fascinate]

A lot of people can tell the difference. Your boot times are better, your game load times are better, your file browsing is better. It's a pretty big difference most normal gamers can tell. Even more so that he's going to be multi tasking. Again if you haven't used an SSD how do you know the difference between an HDD and a SSD.

Ive had this conversation too many times on this forum, agree to disagree bud.

[Kagthul]

A lot of people can tell the difference. Your boot times are better, your game load times are better, your file browsing is better. It's a pretty big difference most normal gamers can tell. Even more so that he's going to be multi tasking. Again if you haven't used an SSD how do you know the difference between an HDD and a SSD.

my daily driver Mac has two 500GB SSDs in a RAID config.

Yes, it's faster.

Is it so much faster than my PCs SSHD that its like ZOMGAMAZEBALLSSOWORTHTHEEXTRAMONEY?

No. (I didn't pay for the SSDs in the Mac, bought it used, it came with them)

Game Loading times, to me, aren't meaningful if it means spending 4x as much for 1/4 the space, when that money could be better spent on getting a better GPU which will actually affect my framerates.

Now, if i have spare money in the budget? Sure. SSD away.

[Mythbredor]

my daily driver Mac has two 500GB SSDs in a RAID config.

Yes, it's faster.

Is it so much faster than my PCs SSHD that its like ZOMGAMAZEBALLSSOWORTHTHEEXTRAMONEY?

No. (I didn't pay for the SSDs in the Mac, bought it used, it came with them)

Game Loading times, to me, aren't meaningful if it means spending 4x as much for 1/4 the space, when that money could be better spent on getting a better GPU which will actually affect my framerates.

Now, if i have spare money in the budget? Sure. SSD away.

We aren't talking raid 0ing 2 500 gig ssds. This guy needs 1 250 gig SSD that's it well worth it and he has the budget to do so. The OP is probably looking to get a RX 480.

[Kagthul]

I'm seeing two options for you.

Option 1:

Upgrade the current rig.

You're looking at more RAM (another 8GB, about ~50$ for DDR3-1600)
An aftermarket CPU cooler (Honestly, a 30$ Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo will do you fine)
a new GPU
(possibly) an SSD.

Benefit: Less cost. (MUCH less cost). Performance will be... pretty good. The performance difference between the current i5 6600K and y our 2500K isn't so big as to be huge.
Downside: this is pretty much it for this rig. There's no upgrade path in the future. If you have the money to spend now on a 1000$ new rig, but might not have that money available when it comes time to upgrade next, it might be worth rebuilding. I know how my budgets are, and sometimes i have the money now but if i wait till later ill have to use it for something else or it wont be available.

Option 2:

Build new (re-using a few old parts).
You can probably keep your old case (if you want), old media drive (DVD/RW), and old HDD for Mass Storage if you want to use an SSD.
Your PSU is probably high enough wattage, but after a certain age... i'd say its worth getting a new one.
Youll be looking at a new CPU, RAM, Motherboard, GPU, PSU, and maybe SSD.

Will definitely be more expensive, but...

Benefit: An entirely new system for the most part that still has 2-3 1/2 years of upgrades in the pipeline (Socket 1151 is here to stay for the remainder of Skylake, Kaby Lake (late this year) and Canon Lake (late next year). If you decide you want to upgrade later, you wont have to scrap the whole system, you can just upgrade one part.

Downside: Obviously more expensive.

[Mythbredor]

I'm seeing two options for you.

Option 1:

Upgrade the current rig.

You're looking at more RAM (another 8GB, about ~50$ for DDR3-1600)
An aftermarket CPU cooler (Honestly, a 30$ Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo will do you fine)
a new GPU
(possibly) an SSD.

Benefit: Less cost. (MUCH less cost). Performance will be... pretty good. The performance difference between the current i5 6600K and y our 2500K isn't so big as to be huge.
Downside: this is pretty much it for this rig. There's no upgrade path in the future. If you have the money to spend now on a 1000$ new rig, but might not have that money available when it comes time to upgrade next, it might be worth rebuilding. I know how my budgets are, and sometimes i have the money now but if i wait till later ill have to use it for something else or it wont be available.

Option 2:

Build new (re-using a few old parts).
You can probably keep your old case (if you want), old media drive (DVD/RW), and old HDD for Mass Storage if you want to use an SSD.
Your PSU is probably high enough wattage, but after a certain age... i'd say its worth getting a new one.
Youll be looking at a new CPU, RAM, Motherboard, GPU, PSU, and maybe SSD.

Will definitely be more expensive, but...

Benefit: An entirely new system for the most part that still has 2-3 1/2 years of upgrades in the pipeline (Socket 1151 is here to stay for the remainder of Skylake, Kaby Lake (late this year) and Canon Lake (late next year). If you decide you want to upgrade later, you wont have to scrap the whole system, you can just upgrade one part.

Downside: Obviously more expensive.

His CPU is perfectly fine for what he's doing we've already established that he just needs to overclock it, get a new CPU cooler, and upgrade to 16GB of ram. He's going to wait to get a RX 480 I believe. There is plenty of upgrade path... Once he's gotten an SSD, and GPU, he'll easily be able to upgrade his Motherboard and CPU later. Only things that probably can't be reused in his new rig is the DDR3 ram and his existing Motherboard. Also please read through the thread before posting a suggestion that we've pretty much already covered.

[Lathais]

No it doesn't. Once everything is up and loaded you legit cannot feel an appreciable difference. Yes, it increases boot times slightly (not nearly as much as it did on W7 tho) but past that, a normal person could not tell the difference on a PC running an SSD and a HDD. I am not condoning one way or the other, if you have the money for an SSD go for it ill probably only have solid state storage in my next pc, but in reality the average user could not tell a real difference.

Well, my wife and I must not be normal people. We have 2 identical machines except for one difference. I have an SSD and she does not. There is a noticeable difference between the 2 in both boot times and loading times in certain games. Maybe you can't tell the difference, but when you put the 2 literally side-by-side, both with fresh clean installs of Windows and then a variety of games, I most certainly can see the difference.

You know what I find funny though, is that you don't have an SSD. Before I got one, I said many of the same things as you. I really did not consider them worth it, but decided to see what all the hype was about anyway. Now I see the light. They are definitely worth it.

- - - Updated - - -

His CPU is perfectly fine for what he's doing we've already established that he just needs to overclock it, get a new CPU cooler, and upgrade to 16GB of ram. He's going to wait to get a RX 480 I believe. There is plenty of upgrade path... Once he's gotten an SSD, and GPU, he'll easily be able to upgrade his Motherboard and CPU later. Only things that probably can't be reused in his new rig is the DDR3 ram and his existing Motherboard. Also please read through the thread before posting a suggestion that we've pretty much already covered.

The OP did express interest in running his old PC, sans video card, to leave for a family/guest computer, so suggesting an entire new build as an option that fits that desire is likely welcomed. Perhaps you should read the whole thread before calling someone out?

Regarding my old build, I think my GPU is the part that crashed though I'm still not 100% sure. Regardless, most of the parts would be kinda unusable in the upgrade, but I'll go ahead and post them out below. I also plan to put this computer, if it still works without the GPU, into the guest room for family/friends that come down to have access to a computer.

[Polarthief]

Really quick regarding CPUs, people keep saying that I won't get a huge difference, but what if I went with like an i7 or something? I still have a friend claiming that the performance is ridiculously faster.

[Lathais]

Really quick regarding CPUs, people keep saying that I won't get a huge difference, but what if I went with like an i7 or something? I still have a friend claiming that the performance is ridiculously faster.

Only with tasks that make use of hyperthreading and the larger cache. That's literally the only difference between an i5 and an i7 of the same generation and none of the tasks you have listed make use of those features. The only other slight difference is that in some generations the i7s come with a slightly higher boost clock. If you OC yourself, this difference is entirely negated anyway. If you were streaming or doing video editing or something that actually made use of hyperthreading, yes, in that case the i7 is much faster. For gaming and general home use though, the difference is nil.

[Mythbredor]

@Lathais Yes I'm fully aware that he was thinking about having his old pc once he got it working again as a guest/family PC. But it's a waste of money to not keep his current components unless the OP wants to build a completely new PC, and if he does than that would save us a lot of time. He will see some small performance benefits from moving to a 6700K but not enough to justify doing so. If he wants a completely new PC I've got a build sitting in pc part picker ready to go. But he doesn't need a 6700k for what he's doing.
@Polarthief What exactly do you want to do? Do you want a completely new PC and do you have the money to do so? You'll see a little bit of difference between a 2500k and 6600k/6700k but it woun't be anything to get excited about unless you're planning to do a lot of video editing or other heavy hitting cpu tasks.

[Kagthul]

His CPU is perfectly fine for what he's doing we've already established that he just needs to overclock it, get a new CPU cooler, and upgrade to 16GB of ram. He's going to wait to get a RX 480 I believe. There is plenty of upgrade path... Once he's gotten an SSD, and GPU, he'll easily be able to upgrade his Motherboard and CPU later. Only things that probably can't be reused in his new rig is the DDR3 ram and his existing Motherboard. Also please read through the thread before posting a suggestion that we've pretty much already covered.

.... Thank for offering nothing of value for like the tenth post in a row. You were seriously suggesting he buy a GTX 960.

Anyone who takes your advice deserves what they get. Enjoy ignore. Youve earned it.

User was infracted