Serious upgrade build, <£300 budget! Need suggestions.

[Tedster]

Hey LTT forum!

 

This is my first topic on here (hope I've posted in the right section!) and I'm looking for help with choosing what to upgrade with/to.

 

WHAT I CURRENTLY HAVE:

CPU: AMD FX-6100 (stock clock, stock cooler)

 

MOBO: ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 (AM3+ mobo)

 

RAM: 16GB (4*4GB) Corsair Vengeance installed, 2x8GB sticks ready for use due to incorrect documentation when rig was first built

HDDS: I have 2 2TB drives, a WD Green and a Seagate Barracuda. I'll probably upgrade to 2x 240GB ssds in raid 0 for boot in the future.

 

GFX: GTX 650Ti (probably working) and GTX 680 2GB DirectCU II OC. Neither of these are installed due to me thinking that the 650Ti was dead when it was actually a problem with the board. 680 bought as replacement for said card.

 

PSU: 500w 80+ bronze. probably want to upgrade this at some point.

 

CASE: Cheapo horrible case. I am thinking of modding the case from an old PowerMac G5 I have lying around.

OS: Windows 7, which I'll probably stay with

 

WHAT I WANT TO DO:

 

I want to be able to do mainly 1080p (maybe 1440p) gaming on good settings and also have the threads and raw power to do advanced video editing.

 

I'm thinking that I should go with a 4690k and a decent z97 board, probably ATX, (but I like the idea of having a really small PC) with some AIO liquid cooler for OC'ing.
I'll stay with the 680 and I'm not sure what to do with the 650Ti. Maybe I could use it for its CUDA cores, rendering video while I can be gaming?

 

I definitely won't be able to do this upgrade for at least another month, but it's good to start planning the upgrade early.

[dizmo]

Welcome to the forum! I'd assume this is the right place, most noobs can't even find this section so congrats.

 

I'd probably go with the set up you're thinking of. Are you new to video editing? If so you should be more than fine with the 4690k.

Definitely stick with the GTX 680, and perhaps sell the other card to buy an SSD. It'll make the system feel a whole hell of a lot better.

 

Do you plan on streaming while gaming? Or recording while gaming? Those are the only two times when SSD's in RAID really make a great difference.

[Tedster]

Welcome to the forum! I'd assume this is the right place, most noobs can't even find this section so congrats.

 

I'd probably go with the set up you're thinking of. Are you new to video editing? If so you should be more than fine with the 4690k.

Definitely stick with the GTX 680, and perhaps sell the other card to buy an SSD. It'll make the system feel a whole hell of a lot better.

 

Do you plan on streaming while gaming? Or recording while gaming? Those are the only two times when SSD's in RAID really make a great difference.

Thanks for replying!

I was mainly thinking of raiding the ssds because it's slightly cheaper than getting a bigger one for me.

 

I'm not too adamant on SSDs straight away, but they're definitely a thing to think about. Until I build this, I can't actually test whether the 650Ti works.

 

I can't stream unfortunately due to my best-available internet speeds being terrible, though once I get better speeds I might want to do it in the future. Is streaming much more taxing than just recording and compressing on the fly?

 

So that seems pretty set then.

Do you think that the PowerMac case is worth using? (I don't mind putting in effort).

[dizmo]

Thanks for replying!

I was mainly thinking of raiding the ssds because it's slightly cheaper than getting a bigger one for me.

 

I can't stream unfortunately due to my best-available internet speeds being terrible, though once I get better speeds I might want to do it in the future. Is streaming much more taxing than just recording and compressing on the fly?

 

So that seems pretty set then.

Do you think that the PowerMac case is worth using? (I don't mind putting in effort).

Ermm...really? I've never seen the larger version of the same SSD cost more than a pair of the lower capacity.

I don't like the look of the PowerMac case. I think if you wanted an Apple case, should have bought an Apple. So my answer would be no.

[Tedster]

Ermm...really? I've never seen the larger version of the same SSD cost more than a pair of the lower capacity.

I don't like the look of the PowerMac case. I think if you wanted an Apple case, should have bought an Apple. So my answer would be no.

I can find quite a few SSDs that are cheaper to raid the lower capacity than to get the higher capacity one.

 

What case would you suggest I try?

[dizmo]

Okay.

 

What case would you suggest I try?

There's loads and it depends a lot on personal taste, so I generally don't suggest cases to people. Too sick of hearing "oh, but that's ugly".

I like the H440, the mATX version of Phanteks case, Caselabs S5.

My next case will likely be something like an FT03 Mini, they also make an mATX version of that.

[Tedster]

There's loads and it depends a lot on personal taste, so I generally don't suggest cases to people. Too sick of hearing "oh, but that's ugly".

I like the H440, the mATX version of Phanteks case, Caselabs S5.

My next case will likely be something like an FT03 Mini, they also make an mATX version of that.

Thanks. I'll look at these and their competitors.

 

I'm gonna say goodnight now and come back in the morning.

[Demons Wrath]

I was mainly thinking of raiding the ssds because it's slightly cheaper than getting a bigger one for me.

 

Not in merry old England!

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

Storage: Crucial M500 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£69.99 @ Amazon UK) 

Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£74.39 @ Aria PC) 

Storage: Crucial MX100 512GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£146.99 @ Aria PC) 

Total: £291.37

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-26 03:57 GMT+0000

 

If you wanted these MX100's say, they are both 29p per GB, so give or take a penny or two they are the same price per capacity. The only way of making a saving is by getting two M500's and putting two of those in RAID 0, that would save you a tenner vs the MX100s. But since the M500 is also 29p per GB, you're only paying less for less GB in total.