What do do with 700 euros

[Deleted]

I have 700 euros at my disposal soon and sorry for making another thread again but I have to ask, what should I do with it? (In terms of, what parts should I buy) My original plan was: Get triple monitor and perhaps a new GPU.

But no, people said it was not smart to do that.

Now I thought of something, I want to upgrade my PC.

What my build is now

i5 2500 at 3,3 Ghz (NOT the K version) http://ark.intel.com/products/52209/

Asrock H61 S3/DE (a cheap mobo) http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=H61DE/S3

HD7870 AMD http://www.amd.com/us/products/deskt...deon-7870.aspx

WD 500 GB Caviar Black http://www.centralpoint.nl/harde-sch...ex-num-1382294

8Gb G.skill RAM (2 sticks of 4)

CPU cooler is a Cooler Master 212 Hyper+

Corsair 500watt CX PSU

And a case which I am not too fond of from Cooler master (Elite 430)
_______________________________________________________





I thought about upgrading the CPU but they ARE pretty expensive. Plus I could still use this one as it works fine really.



I am all in for upgrading the motherboard though, perhaps Crossfire with another HD7870. And another Power supply of course. (the 650TX comes to mind)

I am clueless and opinions would come in handy.

700 euro is the budget to improve the pc. (or almost build an entirely new one)

Also could a mod edit it to: What to do with 700 euros

[Lathais]

I have 700 euros at my disposal soon and sorry for making another thread again but I have to ask, what should I do with it? (In terms of, what parts should I buy) My original plan was: Get triple monitor and perhaps a new GPU.

But no, people said it was not smart to do that.

Now I thought of something, I want to upgrade my PC.

What my build is now

i5 2500 at 3,3 Ghz (NOT the K version) http://ark.intel.com/products/52209/

Asrock H61 S3/DE (a cheap mobo) http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=H61DE/S3

HD7870 AMD http://www.amd.com/us/products/deskt...deon-7870.aspx

WD 500 GB Caviar Black http://www.centralpoint.nl/harde-sch...ex-num-1382294

8Gb G.skill RAM (2 sticks of 4)

CPU cooler is a Cooler Master 212 Hyper+

Corsair 500watt CX PSU

And a case which I am not too fond of from Cooler master (Elite 430)
_______________________________________________________





I thought about upgrading CPU,s but they ARE pretty expensive. Plus I could still use this one as it works fine really.



I am all in for upgrading the motherboard though, perhaps Crossfire with another HD7870. And another Power supply of course. (the 650TX comes to mind)

I am clueless and opinions would come in handy.

700 euro is the budget to improve the pc. (or almost build an entirely new one)

Also could a mod edit it to: What to do with 700 euros

I would hold on to it and wait. Right now would not be the best time to buy a new MoBo unless what you have is really really struggling. The new socket for intel is coming out soon along with the haswell chips. Seeing as what you have is plenty for the time being, I would wait, maybe save a little more and look at upgrading then. Any MoBo you buy now, the best chip you'll ever be able to put into it would be an i7-3770k, that's the end of this sockets life cycle.

Perhaps buy an SSD. If you are not running Windows 8, you may want to pick a copy of it up for your new SSD too. Save the rest for now though IMO.

You could also, depending on what you currently have, pick up some nice peripherals. A nice mechanical keyboard, a fancy mouse, a cool headset, things of that nature.

[Deleted]

I would hold on to it and wait. Right now would not be the best time to buy a new MoBo unless what you have is really really struggling. The new socket for intel is coming out soon along with the haswell chips. Seeing as what you have is plenty for the time being, I would wait, maybe save a little more and look at upgrading then. Any MoBo you buy now, the best chip you'll ever be able to put into it would be an i7-3770k, that's the end of this sockets life cycle.

Perhaps buy an SSD. If you are not running Windows 8, you may want to pick a copy of it up for your new SSD too. Save the rest for now though IMO.

So I really really should save?.... okay.

Well Haswell would need an entirely different socket and they will be pretty expensive at release.

I already bought W8 btw, but not for my pc, I will stick with 7.

EDIT: Oh I am completely covered in the pheriphals part. K90 keyboard, a G500 mouse I got yesterday and G35 headset with a Razer mousepad made from cloth. Nothing to improve there much.

[Lathais]

So I really really should save?.... okay.

Well Haswell would need an entirely different socket and they will be pretty expensive at release.

I already bought W8 btw, but not for my pc, I will stick with 7.

Unless you really really wanna pick up an ASRock Extreme4 and a i5-3570k and overclock it. Buy a new case to put it all in since you don't like yours as well. Slap an SSD in there too if budget allows. Probably wouldn't be a bad choice, but as I said, what you have now is fine, and will be for at least a little while longer, so why spend money if you don't have to? That's just me being cheap though, if that money is burning a hole in your pocket and you feel you must spend it on your PC now, that would probably be your best choice.

[Deleted]

Unless you really really wanna pick up an ASRock Extreme4 and a i5-3570k and overclock it. Probably wouldn't be a bad choice, but as I said, what you have now is fine, and will be for at least a little while longer, so why spend money if you don't have to? That's just me being cheap though, if that money is burning a hole in your pocket and you feel you must spend it on your PC now, that would probably be your best choice.

Yes, I want to upgrade pretty much,

[yurano]

I would hold on to it and wait. Right now would not be the best time to buy a new MoBo unless what you have is really really struggling. The new socket for intel is coming out soon along with the haswell chips. Seeing as what you have is plenty for the time being, I would wait, maybe save a little more and look at upgrading then. Any MoBo you buy now, the best chip you'll ever be able to put into it would be an i7-3770k, that's the end of this sockets life cycle.

There's nothing wrong with getting an overclock motherboard for this rig. It all depends on what games he's playing. If he's playing WoW or other MMOs, this is the cheapest legitimate upgrade he can make. The alternative to drop some $350 for a Haswell i5 and a motherboard.

@ OP - I would hold off on Crossfire until AMD can fix the problems discussed in the following article: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphic...X-650-Ti-BOOST

Assuming you're going 3 screen for FPS games, another option would be to sell your 7870 and go for a single card solution like a 7970+ or a Titan.

[Deleted]

There's nothing wrong with getting an overclock motherboard for this rig. It all depends on what games he's playing. If he's playing WoW or other MMOs, this is the cheapest legitimate upgrade he can make. The alternative to drop some $350 for a Haswell i5 and a motherboard.

@ OP - I would hold off on Crossfire until AMD can fix the problems discussed in the following article: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphic...X-650-Ti-BOOST

Assuming you're going 3 screen for FPS games, another option would be to sell your 7870 and go for a single card solution like a 7970+ or a Titan.

I play WoW mostly. But I like having a nice rig. It's just something for me.

[Toffie]

New case coupled with a 7970 GHz ? Possibly a modular PSU.

[Lathais]

There's nothing wrong with getting an overclock motherboard for this rig. It all depends on what games he's playing. If he's playing WoW or other MMOs, this is the cheapest legitimate upgrade he can make. The alternative to drop some $350 for a Haswell i5 and a motherboard.

@ OP - I would hold off on Crossfire until AMD can fix the problems discussed in the following article: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphic...X-650-Ti-BOOST

Assuming you're going 3 screen for FPS games, another option would be to sell your 7870 and go for a single card solution like a 7970+ or a Titan.

If he was running a 2500k I would be inclined to agree with you, but he specifically stated NOT the K version in his original post. So he would need to buy a new CPU and MoBo to do that. It's just so late in the chips cycle, and what he has will be plenty fine until Haswell comes out. Buy a new CPU and MoBo combo then instead of right now, again IMO.

[Deleted]

So what if I wanted to burn the money right now?

http://2013.mycom.nl/hardware

This store mainly.

What would be best...

[Lathais]

So what if I wanted to burn the money right now?

http://2013.mycom.nl/hardware

This store mainly.

What would be best...

A case of your choice
i5-3570k
ASRock Extreme 4 or comparable Z77 Chipset MoBo
SSD

[Deleted]

A case of your choice
i5-3570k
ASRock Extreme 4 or comparable Z77 Chipset MoBo
SSD

So no GPU upgrade or Crossfire.

Also I never attempted to overclock a CPU.

[Lathais]

So no GPU upgrade or Crossfire.

Also I never attempted to overclock a CPU.

Nah, your GPU is fine for a single monitor 1080p setup. I also am a firm believer in keeping one strong GPU and not going Crossfire or SLI. The benefits are really only there if you are actually running a game across all 3 screens or are trying to push a 120hz monitor or larger. Especially seeing as your primary usage is WoW. I still run a single 6850 and it handles pretty much everything I throw at it well enough. Granted, I don't do any FPS games either though, so if you play those a lot, MAYBE an upgrade would be worth it, but with what you have, unless you get a Titan or something crazy, you are not going to see a huge improvement. Even getting a 3570k and OCing it, your not going to see a huge improvement in anything other than MMOs, and even then it may not be huge, but will be noticeable.

As for not OCing before, the K chips and the Z77 MoBos make it insanely easy, you can find guides for doing it and help with it either here or at overclockers.net(?)

[Deleted]

Nah, your GPU is fine for a single monitor 1080p setup. I also am a firm believer in keeping one strong GPU and not going Crossfire or SLI. The benefits are really only there if you are actually running a game across all 3 screens or are trying to push a 120hz monitor or larger. Especially seeing as your primary usage is WoW. I still run a single 6850 and it handles pretty much everything I throw at it well enough. Granted, I don't do any FPS games either though, so if you play those a lot, MAYBE an upgrade would be worth it, but with what you have, unless you get a Titan or something crazy, you are not going to see a huge improvement. Even getting a 3570k and OCing it, your not going to see a huge improvement in anything other than MMOs, and even then it may not be huge, but will be noticeable.

As for not OCing before, the K chips and the Z77 MoBos make it insanely easy, you can find guides for doing it and help with it either here or at overclockers.net(?)

Alright...well I will see. Need to carefully choose here.

[Lathais]

Alright...well I will see. Need to carefully choose here.

Yeah, for me to part with that amount of cash would be a tough decision as well. Personally, the question I would ask myself is, "Is what I have really giving me problems? Am I able to do everything that I want to do already? Do I really need to spend the money?"

In your situation, I really do think your best bet is to just save it, add to it if/when you can, then build yourself a beast of a machine in a year or 2 when the answer to the second question become "no". You'll spend less money in the long run that way, as anything you buy as far as CPU/MoBo right now is really not going to be upgradeable at all. It's practically throwing away money, and it's not like it is for a huge improvement either. The difference between a 2500 and 3570 just does not seem like a justifiable cost to me, especially if you are hesitant to OC or thinking about not OC the new chip at all. The difference will be measurable and noticeable, but not huge and not worth that much money. Same thing if you were to upgrade your GPU or go Crossfire, it's not going to make a huge difference, especially not compared to the cost.

Now an SSD, that would be a good purchase for your system. Will really make it respond faster and reduce loading times. No FPS gain or anything, but your system will just feel faster overall.

I guess part of the reason I am saying this is you are already running a better rig than me, and I am able to do pretty much anything I want to, so you should be surpassing that by a fair amount.

[Deleted]

OKay... well that,s a bummer, was looking forward to upgrade.

[Toffie]

Only upgrade if you need it, like when the game you play cannot be run at MAX settings with 30+ fps.
You could upgrade the case now, no point waiting.

[Deleted]

Only upgrade if you need it, like when the game you play cannot be run at MAX settings with 30+ fps.
You could upgrade the case now, no point waiting.

Nah, I don't like taking out everything.

Maybe I will still buy upgrades after all, because I am stubborn.

Not sure though.

---------- Post added 2013-04-11 at 02:31 PM ----------

What if I just forgot the monitors altogether and maybe do that later.

I want to buy another HD 7870, crossfire them, with a new PSU and mobo+ a neat case. To top it off a new SSD.

Still use my old CPU and it's cooler.

[Rafax]

Why are you here asking for advice when you clearly still want to do the same thing as in teh first post? the only thing you need to change is the case for now because you dont like yours, crossfire is a waste of money, getting a new motherboard + cpu right now would be a bad idea since new stuff is like 3 months away, you dont need a new psu right now, at best you could get a good 250 GB ssd and save teh rest for when its really needed.

[Lathais]

Nah, I don't like taking out everything.

Maybe I will still buy upgrades after all, because I am stubborn.

Not sure though.

---------- Post added 2013-04-11 at 02:31 PM ----------

What if I just forgot the monitors altogether and maybe do that later.

I want to buy another HD 7870, crossfire them, with a new PSU and mobo+ a neat case. To top it off a new SSD.

Still use my old CPU and it's cooler.

With a single monitor 1080p setup, you will really not gain much, if any FPS or performance by adding crossfire. The only thing you will have is a headache in some games that do not support it well and I believe WoW is one of those games. There are still a lot of games that do not utilize it properly and will stutter with Crossfire. Your only option at that point is to disable oit for that game which makes it pointless to have. Throwing money away.

There is literally no point in buying a new MoBo now either, unless you buy a new CPU to go with it. Your current MoBo is fine for your current CPU and if you buy a new MoBo now, it's pointless because the current socket will no longer be used. It's throwing money away. Honestly, as I have said several times in this post, your current rig is fine. It's gonna play anything you want on reasonable settings and putting any additional money into it at this point would be a waste, other than an SSD.

An SSD is the only money I would spend on that system, and your probably not gonna hear any other advice otherwise here, because your system is already very good. I have also given you the best option for an upgrade if you really really want to flush your money down the toilet. I will repeat it here.

SSD
i5-3570k
ASrock Pro3(No Crossfire or SLI) or Extreme4
Case of your choice that you like

Edit: Also, your PSU is fine for any single GPU setup, even OCed. No reason to upgrade that at all. The only reason I would replace the PSU is if it fails or if you are going to Crossfire/SLI right now.

Again I just want to stress that just about anything you do other than an SSD right now is throwing money away. Your current system is gonna habdle anything more than adequately for at least a year. At that point in time Haswell chips and next gen GPUs will be out. Your very very best bet would be to put the money away and add to it over the next year as you can until you have $1200-$1500(USD, not sure what that translates to for you) THEN go all out on a new system with current gen hardware.

Also want to point out, this is very solid advice, I can tell, cause anytime I have given bad advice or even only semi-accurate advice, there are like 10 people jumping all over it to correct me.

I also want to say, it's your money and your choice, so do what you want, but you will not see much of a difference if any doing the things you are thinking about. The SSD will make a huge difference in QoL, but no real performance gains. Going with the i5-3570k and a Z77 MoBo and OCing it will give you a very noticeable and nice boost in WoW or any other MMOs and is really the only upgrade you can get without spending a ton on much nicer monitors, bigger PSU and something like a Titan or two for GPU. Your current rig is very nice and very top of the line without going super super crazy.