Recommend a good CPU/Motherboard combo upgrade and video card as well please

[cphantom]

So I'm finally starting the work on upgrading my computer heavily. I purchased a case first off, just so I can fit everything in. A Rosewill Thor V2, though somewhat gimmicky, is also huge and budget sized so I'm awaiting that to arrive today actually. I will be throwing in Corsair H100 cooling as well in the future for upgrading. But first I would like some help finding said upgrades.

My current parts I'd like to replace:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4
CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 550
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 DDR3 1GB


As you can see, I'm a little outdated. Can I get any recommendations? I would love multiple options as well based on price range and personal opinion. All my RAM is DDR3-1600 (PC3-10700) which I believe is supported still in many of these boards, but again, I need some direction in where I will be going.


Many thanks!

[Deleted]

Well it depends a lot on what do you want to spend :

a Z68 + i3 2100 series = 220-260$
putting arround 100$ more on top nets you an i5 2500k series

in GPU :

for around 170$ you get an ATI 6870
going for 240$ you have the ATI 6950 and the nvidia 560 TI

I think you will want a cpu cooler with that i5 ( the stock really frightens me , and lets face it ... a K version with a stock cooler is a waste )

Remember these prices are generated by me "random number generator median cause I can guess" method , so you might want to check around for real prices.

Also Your PSU probably won't hold up to this, so post your PSU specs along with how much money you want to spend and in no time You'll probably have a lot of custom builds here and much better options than those that I listed.

[Deleted]

If you're looking for something a bit mainstream I'd recomend either the i5-2500k (~200$) or the i7-2600k (~300$) (depending on if you want hyperthreading) with a Z68 chipset motherboard.

If you're want something a bit more powerful I'd recomend the new i7-3930k (~600$) which runs on X79 chipset motherboards.

Or you can skip the -k suffix if you're not planning on overclocking, however the price difference will be minimal.

[cphantom]

Thank you for the few replies so far I'm currently looking around as well. I need some onboard USB3 support too.

My current PSU is 750w btw.

[Deleted]

Check how many Amps the PSU has on it's 12v rail just to be sure.

If you'r looking in the i3/i5 way every major Z68 motherboard has USB3 ( if not all ) .

Stil,l a budget would be nice since, as culinus showed, prices can vary a lot .

[cphantom]

Well I'm looking at ~$400. And maybe I'm just not used to the whole USB 3.0 thing yet, but the cords that come with the Rosewill Thor V2 case I just got are male plugs, and I don't know if a motherboard with onboard 3.0 actually supports plugs that are like this? It looks like they are made for ports and not onboard, but it recommends onboard.

I was looking at this package though http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.798045

[Deleted]

I don't recoment that one , I'm kinda biased towards the i5- 2500k since for it's price it's a good buy , and even without ocing the K isn't that expensive and may prove usefull if you want to overclock it in the future.

an i3 2300 series + Asrock Z68 + ATI 6950 = 475$

Lowering the gpu you can get : an i3 2300 series + Asrock Z68 + ATI 6870 = 402$

putting an i5 on that bumps it with 100$ over the price ( But in my opinion worth it , ofc many will disagree , and I am ... EXTREMELY BIASED ) , and for me it's not a bad choice to take off the i3 and put an i5 + custom cooler worth about 130$ on it.

These setups are only for comparison , I'm sure people will fine tune it with other versions of the i3 series or find a way to squeeze in the i5 2500k ( assuming I didn't make usual mistakes :P )

You can check this thread by Marest http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-Sample-Builds
so you can see some sample builds and look mainly @ the cpu+mb+gpu prices