"old" PC to build around with and test stuff

[salatji]

Hey there. I am planning to build a PC with older parts.

 

I already do own a prebuild DELL T3500 with a xenon W3680, 12 GB 6x2 ddr3 memory and a quadro 5000/1050 ti (will sell the excessive gpu). I also have a used 650W PSU (XFX XXX 650 Watt), however I might swap it out for a new psu.

 

I do plan to get a different motherboard (currently have my eyes on a MSI X58 pro due to reasonable price) to do some minor overclocking.

 

So now my questions:

 

• Is the MSI x58 pro a ok motherboard to do some moderate overclocking? Nothing to crazy, however I want to get a little more performance out of the CPU (will also add a 240 AIO if I can find a fitting one to get proper cooling)
• The motherboard does only have PCIe 2.0, while the 1050 TI I'd love to use would have PCIe 3.0, will this cause problems? (I've found a old tomshardware-thread where they said that this isn't too much of a problem.)
• If I'd mount a SSD as boot-drive, will it give me a similar boot-speed to my current battlestation or is it limited due to older SATA-connections? Is a SSD even smart to be used or should I simply stick with a HDD for this rig?

 

In general, I'd appreciate any tips you could give me in this regard, maybe even recommendations for different motherboards or tips during the build/swap.

[Jasun]

I do not believe that you will need a powerful PSU (your 650 watt will do just fine) and also, I have a GTX 750 in my 7 year old prebuilt Dell PC so I think the PCI slot will not cause many problems. (performace will probably drop by marginal amounts but eh, money is money)

[NoxiousOdor]

46 minutes ago, salatji said:

• Is the MSI x58 pro a ok motherboard to do some moderate overclocking? Nothing to crazy, however I want to get a little more performance out of the CPU (will also add a 240 AIO if I can find a fitting one to get proper cooling)
• The motherboard does only have PCIe 2.0, while the 1050 TI I'd love to use would have PCIe 3.0, will this cause problems? (I've found a old tomshardware-thread where they said that this isn't too much of a problem.)
• If I'd mount a SSD as boot-drive, will it give me a similar boot-speed to my current battlestation or is it limited due to older SATA-connections? Is a SSD even smart to be used or should I simply stick with a HDD for this rig?

I don't know anything about that motherboard but from what I have seen you can overclock fairly well on most x58 boards

 

The slower pci speed shouldn't effect you much with that gpu, if you had something like a 1080ti and you were doing rendering then maybe it would but you should be okay

 

If you want your OS to feel a little faster I would definitely put an sdd in it. it is amazing how much of a difference it can make