PC Upgrade

[Deleted]

Hi everyone.
I'm looking for some advice as I plan on upgrading my PC by christmas, and at the same time use the old parts to build one for my sister. So this will be kind of a two part question.

Current Build:
CPU - Athlon II x3 455 3,3ghz
Case - Cooler Master Elite 430
MB - ASRock M3N78D
RAM - ADATA XPG Plus 2 x 2GB DDR3 1333mhz
PSU - Antec Neo ECO 520c
GPU - Sapphire HD 6850
1 - I plan on upgrading my MB, CPU and Case, and I was thinking of buying either an ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 (144,9€) + an I3 3220 (112,9€) + Cooler Master St
orm Enforcer (79,9€) = 337,7€ . Or Asus M5A99X EVO (124,9€) + FX 6100 (114,9€) + Cooler Master Storm Enforcer (79,9€) = 319,7€.

As you can see the case is decided, because it hase 2 200mm fans, dust filters, side window and decent cable management (if you know any other good case at this price point or cheaper I would welcome your opinion). But what really bugs me is: Should i go Intel and when i need to upgrade in the future i'll have to buy another MB and CPU (since the next chips will be a different socket, or should i go with AMD (which does not perform as good in gaming but will have the same platform until steamroller and possibly save me some money on a future upgrade).
What i want out of my hardware is to be capable of running games at 40 - 60 constant fps on my 21,5 inch monitor on ultra settings (dont mind going down to medium on some games.
So is Intel so good it would be worth the extra 20€ now and probably 300€ more in 2 - 3 years? Or is AMD enough for a casual gamer like me?
Also i have a Patriot Memory Division 2 Viper Xtreme 2x4GB that i won in a contest. I heard 1,65v Ram is bad and can damage the cpu but i also heard ppls say they ran ram like this for 5 years or more with no harm done, so is it safe or not?

2 - My sister basicly only does web browsing and plays games like The sims and Minecraft. I was thinking on getting the leftover parts i will get + Corsair CX 430W, Seagate Barracuda 500GB and a Gainward GeForce GT610 2048MB. Would this be enough?

Your opinion would be very welcome as for me, money is not something disposable and i want to make the best decision possible.
Thank you.

[vesseblah]

The way you should look at it is this: AMD Steamroller will probably still suck in games compared to intel in 2-3 years, and even then you can upgrade the i3 processor all the way up to i7-3770K if you want to, and overclock the shit out of it. So with 20€ difference it's really hard to recommend going AMD way if WoW is any kind of priority.

When it comes to the second computer, you should think really hard about SSD. 64GB Crucial M4 costs less than 500GB Seagate HDD but would make low end PC feel like a rocket. 2-3 small games will fit on it just fine, but limits future options. Also GT610 is really bad card, but should be adequate for the use. You'd probably get much better value for money from ebay if you're up to second hand building. There's no practical difference between 1024 and 2048 meg options, just get which one is cheaper.

[Deleted]

Thank you for your reply
Yeah i thought a bit about that "if its on the same platform how much can it improve?" but 6 "cores" at such a low price seems like a future proof deal for someone like me who knows most things about computers by google searches xD. Also i might go for a Asrock Z75 Pro3 instead of the extreme 4 to save some money.
The 60gb ssd seems awesome... i have a 1TB external drive where she could store all the crap and have fast load times (awesome advice), and as for the gpu: i know its bad but i just want to build something that works well for qhet she does while spending as little as possible. (she played games on my old laptop with a GeForce 9300M GS and was quite happy with it.
As for the 1.65v ram: is it something problematic or are people just overreacting for no reason?

Edit: My current MB doesn't have SataIII. Would an ssd make sence in this case?

[Targaryen]

Thank you for your reply
Yeah i thought a bit about that "if its on the same platform how much can it improve?" but 6 "cores" at such a low price seems like a future proof deal for someone like me who knows most things about computers by google searches xD. Also i might go for a Asrock Z75 Pro3 instead of the extreme 4 to save some money.
The 60gb ssd seems awesome... i have a 1TB external drive where she could store all the crap and have fast load times (awesome advice), and as for the gpu: i know its bad but i just want to build something that works well for qhet she does while spending as little as possible. (she played games on my old laptop with a GeForce 9300M GS and was quite happy with it.
As for the 1.65v ram: is it something problematic or are people just overreacting for no reason?

Edit: My current MB doesn't have SataIII. Would an ssd make sence in this case?

Yes go intel i3 if you ask me external hdd are not entirely great for games...possibly with USB 3.0 but I would still get a backup internal. Definitely go for the SSD.

The ASRock 3 is a fine board and would only recommend the 4 extreme if you wanted to oc the chip.

Do not get the gt 610. rather look for an old 460ti or 6870. The 610 is only good for htpc setups.

Dont worry about SataIII vs II. Most drives don't come close to 6gb/s transfer so the 3gb/s is just fine.

[vesseblah]

but 6 "cores" at such a low price seems like a future proof deal for someone like me who knows most things about computers by google searches xD.

Cores do nothing for games really. Dual core x86 processors were introduced decade ago, and most games still use only one core so I doubt there's gonna be radical change in next 2-3 years either. AMD has been betting on multiple cores taking off big time in home use, which is why they suck compared to Intel who have improved the performance of lower number of cores.

Also i might go for a Asrock Z75 Pro3 instead of the extreme 4 to save some money.

Cheper motherboard usually limits overclocking performance first and the ability to use multiple graphics cards. If you aren't too fussed about either, go for it.

The 60gb ssd seems awesome... i have a 1TB external drive where she could store all the crap and have fast load times (awesome advice)

Remember you can also disassemble the external drive and make it internal if there's no real need for an actual external disc. It's regular SATA HDD inside.

As for the 1.65v ram: is it something problematic or are people just overreacting for no reason?

1.5v or lower is the official supported RAM for Z77 motherboards and new Ivy Bridge processors. Some motherboards work with 1.65v but I would not count on it. Also overclocking is usually impossible on higher voltage than 1.5v.

Edit: My current MB doesn't have SataIII. Would an ssd make sence in this case?

500MB/s SATA3 SSD would work at 300MB/s when plugged into SATA2 port. It will be slower, but you'll never notice the difference in daily use. What you do notice is the seek time difference between SSD and HDD, and that is still intact even when used in old SATA2 port. Personally I used SATA2 SSD in a laptop from 2006 with SATA1 port only, and still programs loaded almost instantly.

[Deleted]

Thanks guys. I'm defenatly going for an I3 and the Z77 Pro3 (for some reason its cheaper than the Z75 here in portugal).

1.5v or lower is the official supported RAM for Z77 motherboards and new Ivy Bridge processors. Some motherboards work with 1.65v but I would not count on it. Also overclocking is usually impossible on higher voltage than 1.5v.

I have a Iomega 1TB external hard drive. Can i safely open it and start using it as a Internal hard drive? that would be perfect.

Do not get the gt 610. rather look for an old 460ti or 6870. The 610 is only good for htpc setups.

Well the thing is i wanted to build a cheap pc for her... the 6870 is over 150€ here and my sister is only 12yo, she doesnt even know what frames per second mean. I saw that the 610 could run games like BF3 and MW3 wich are heavyer than anything she'll ever play.

1.5v or lower is the official supported RAM for Z77 motherboards and new Ivy Bridge processors. Some motherboards work with 1.65v but I would not count on it. Also overclocking is usually impossible on higher voltage than 1.5v.

So this ram I won is useless if i want a stable system?

Thanks a lot guys you're helping a bunch