Getting a new PC, need some advice :)

[Deleted]

So the computer I currently own is literally blowing up; it has a faulty sound card, motherboard is messed up and the graphics card is blowing up. Its called a Dell XPS 2010 desktop model (bought in july 2010 at £900) with 1st gen intel i7 cpu (860 @ 2.8GHz), 6gb ram and the graphics card is an ATI Radeon HD 5700.

This PC has really served me well the past 4 years of owning it, it use to run WoW on ultra, but sadly nowadays it can barely run on good or fair. the computer has had massive amount of usage because other members of my family use it as well.

What I'm asking for is if it is worth just upgrading the model I have? I can't post links but I'm thinking the Dell XPS 8700 desktop is my top choice right now, its cheaper than what i bought 4 years ago as this model is going for £700 compared to £900, the specs are decent as well, which means i can run higher graphics in 25m hc progress. Anyway the specs of the PC I'm thinking of getting:

4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4770 Processor (8M Cache, 3.4 GHz)
16GB1 Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz
2TB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive + Intel® SRT 32GB SSD Cache
AMD Radeon™ HD R9 270 2GB GDDR5

If any of you have better suggestions, it would be really helpful my budget is around £800. Maybe it would be better to just build on the older PC I have now? Let me know

[moremana]

4770 is overkill, not to mention there is a newer version

4690K would be a better option, 16GB is overkill if your just gaming. SSD cache isnt as speedy as people think, go with a 256GB OS and game drive.

Other than that...the R9-270 is a decent video card.

save some money on CPU and Memory and up the ssd...

[wregelmann]

It seems like you would need to replace the mobo and upgrade your RAM, graphics card and processor. You're certainly better off getting a new one. The specs on that new build are a little excessive in my opinion, but if you can swing the money go for it. If you want something more budget friendly, but still high performance, look into building your own PC (not as hard as it sounds, and there are lots of great tutorials online), and go with hardware that is 1 generation old. Something like

-3rd Gen (Ivy) i5 or i7 at 3.3+ GHz
-16 GB DDR3 RAM at 1600+ MHz
-Radeon R7 or HD7000 series 2GB

Would perform at almost the same level for <75% the cost. Definitely stick with a SSD to boot from and a mechanical drive for storage. You may want a larger SSD (look for 64 or 128 GB) and a smaller HDD (~1TB). If you're interested in building your own, ask someone for help checking compatibility between parts. Best of luck!

[Deleted]

4770 is overkill, not to mention there is a newer version

Whats the newer version?

[Stormspark]

Whats the newer version?

The 4790k ("Devil's Canyon"). It's the same price that the 4770k was until recently. It will work in most Z87 boards with a BIOS update, but there are also new Z97 boards out specifically for these.

Also, you should not get a high end CPU like that and pair it with a midrange video card like the R9-270. The 270 isn't a *bad* card by any means, but it will be a HUGE bottleneck to a CPU like the 4770k/4790k. If you're getting a CPU like that, you should be pairing it with an R9-290/GTX 780 or better. If you can't afford that, you should back the CPU down to something like a 4690k and use the money saved to get a better video card like a R9-280x or a GTX 770.

A general rule of thumb is that the GPU should cost approximately 2-2.5x what the CPU does. It's not a hard and fast rule, but it's a decent guideline to go by. The main point being, in a system with a high end CPU and a midrange GPU, the GPU will not be able to keep up with what the CPU can handle, and you will have effectively wasted money by getting a powerful CPU that you can't take full advantage of. The same goes the other way (if you were to say take an i3 and pair it with a 780ti), in that case, the CPU would not be able to keep up with the GPU, and you'd end up with a huge bottleneck in the other direction. The 2-2.5x rule basically keeps you from spending a lot of money on hardware that your system won't be able to properly utilize.

[Deleted]

You could buy a beefy cooler for your CPU, overclock it a bit and wait till Skylake CPUs arrive to market. It won't be super smooth for 25m, but it can certainly be adequate. You could buy a 280X, 770 or even 760 along with it for WoW.

Advice above is a bit odd, you should buy components based on what you play with the PC, not on what they cost. If WoW is important, you don't have to spend a lot on GPU but spending on CPU is crucial, for example.