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Uppgrading my old setup -

Holydays
By Holydays
in New Builds and Planning
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I intend to make my computer into a multiple workstation. To play games on, render videos and record on it.

This is what my computer consists of : 

Processor : AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz with Stock Cooling

 

Motherboard : Asus M5A97 R2.0 

Case : Cooler Master - Mid Tower HAF 912 

Graphics Card : ATI Radeon HD 4850

Power Supply : OCZ 600W Semi Mod

Hard Drives : WD 500GB / Pretty old ones and they're dying!


I'm trying to uppgrade the cooling for the CPU and the Graphics Card for more intense gaming, so I dont need to lag when I'm playing low end games.
I've been trying to figure out what's the best Graphics Card for me is, and I'm asking help and suggestions on what to get.

I'm going to change out the Hard Drives, PSU ( If nessesary ) the Graphics card and I'm getting water cooling for my CPU - 900$ Ish budget 

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I'd get a 980 or 970 for the GPU since they're really good, and an SSD. 

What's the RAM on the system?

Also are you from Australia or the US?

Remember to be a good citizen and choose a 'best answer' when your problem has been resolved!

(that way people know when a problem's been resolved)

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PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3t8qwP

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3t8qwP/by_merchant/

 

CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($89.99 @ Newegg) 

Memory: Kingston Fury Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  ($154.99 @ Newegg) 

Storage: Crucial MX100 512GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($201.98 @ SuperBiiz) 

Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($69.49 @ Amazon) 

Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 980 4GB STRIX Video Card  ($579.99 @ Amazon) 

Total: $1096.44

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-20 09:27 EDT-0400

 

If you're in the US, this is what I'd get. for now, you could try for a 5.0Ghz OC on the 8350, moving on to a 4790K CPU if its still not good enough for you.

The SSD and HDD are for your boot disk and mass storage for video recordings respectively, and the 8 cores of the CPU should allow 4 for gaming and more overhead for recording while you're gaming. 

The 980 is an amazing card, and you should be able to OC that too

the RAM is a personal choice - go with 16GB extra to help with video rendering, but if you can't spare the cash don't spend it now. (also applies if you already used up all the RAM slots on your Motherboard or already have 16GB+ of RAM)

Total budget is $1100, but you should be able to do things one by one - maybe upgrade the GPU first, followed by the SSD+HDD and then CPU cooler and finally RAM?

You also might be able to get some sweet black friday deals.

Remember to be a good citizen and choose a 'best answer' when your problem has been resolved!

(that way people know when a problem's been resolved)

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PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3t8qwP
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3t8qwP/by_merchant/
 
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($89.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Kingston Fury Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  ($154.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Crucial MX100 512GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($201.98 @ SuperBiiz) 
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($69.49 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 980 4GB STRIX Video Card  ($579.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $1096.44
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-20 09:27 EDT-0400
 
If you're in the US, this is what I'd get. for now, you could try for a 5.0Ghz OC on the 8350, moving on to a 4790K CPU if its still not good enough for you.
The SSD and HDD are for your boot disk and mass storage for video recordings respectively, and the 8 cores of the CPU should allow 4 for gaming and more overhead for recording while you're gaming. 
The 980 is an amazing card, and you should be able to OC that too
the RAM is a personal choice - go with 16GB extra to help with video rendering, but if you can't spare the cash don't spend it now. (also applies if you already used up all the RAM slots on your Motherboard or already have 16GB+ of RAM)
Total budget is $1100, but you should be able to do things one by one - maybe upgrade the GPU first, followed by the SSD+HDD and then CPU cooler and finally RAM?
You also might be able to get some sweet black friday deals.

 

Thanks for the response! 

I live in Norway, and the prices here are unbeliaveble. The Video Card I can pull off and it sounds very nice, I'm going to ask more about this.

My RAM is Corsair Vengance 2x4GB 1600MHz 

The thing I'm worried about is my PSU, the poor cables are barely to reach the motherboard 6-Pin connector so I'm probably going to change it to a Full Modular one.

Thank you very much with your expertise! This helped me a lot and now I'm toally pointed into a right direction.

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I've never OC the CPU before, but the BIOS settings are sooo userfriendly that even a 10 year old can overclock that CPU and shouldnt be a problem to do when I get the Water Cooling set up.
I was thinking of getting a Seargate 2TB for my storage.

I have a cheap SSD in my system, but it should do ( ShineDisc 128GB)
I'm even going to put 2 extra mem sticks in there for a totall of 16GB of RAM, and that should do I'd guess

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I've never OC the CPU before, but the BIOS settings are sooo userfriendly that even a 10 year old can overclock that CPU and shouldnt be a problem to do when I get the Water Cooling set up.

I was thinking of getting a Seargate 2TB for my storage.

I have a cheap SSD in my system, but it should do ( ShineDisc 128GB)

I'm even going to put 2 extra mem sticks in there for a totall of 16GB of RAM, and that should do I'd guess

Yeah! Be careful with the voltage though, and read a few guides before :)

The SSD should be oaky

Personally I'd go with a Hitachi and WD as I heard they've got better reliability, but honestly I don't think its that big of a deal.

For the RAM, I'd get a 8GB stick to put in there. If you put two more sticks, you'll get 16GB and it'll be your maximum. If you use an 8GB stick, you'll get 16GB with an option to go to 24GB if you have the money and would like the performance boost.

 

See if Amazon ships there, or if there's a mail forwarding service! I live in Singapore, and the prices here are bad, too. I can buy all the parts and ship them to here from the US, at lower prices than if I bought it locally.

Remember to be a good citizen and choose a 'best answer' when your problem has been resolved!

(that way people know when a problem's been resolved)

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The platform itself is pretty good, no need to upgrade. The costs involved will only bring you an incremental increase in performance rather than a marked performance boost. My advice to you is just upgrade the GPU to something much nicer, and get some good HDD and SSD. For the SSD the most popular seems to be the Crucial MX100 for price to performance. For HDD, Seagate Barracuda's or WD Blacks, or WD Blue if you only get 1TB. Greens and Reds run slower. That's about it really. For the GPU, look at the prices of R9 290s, GTX 780s/780ti's and GTX 970s. If any of these should be a lot cheaper than the other three types listed, grab it!

 

Also, praise be tomshardware!

 

Norway
Komplett
Dustin Home
Advance.no
Cdon.no
MPX.no <--- Best Buy / Fry's type store for Norway, sells PC parts
Tofte Elektriske

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