If I had 5K to upgrade...

[Quadrum]

Guys, right now this is completely hypothetical, but if I got a spare 5000$ to spend on upgrading what would you think would be the best things to get? (I do music production.)

 

I currently have:

 

i7-7700K

ASUS Strix Z270E 

32GB GSkill Trident Z RGB 2133 MHz 

Corsair H100i v2

GTX 1060 6GB Founders Edition

1TB Crucial Mx300 SSD 

3TB Seagate Barracuda HDD

Silverstone Primera RGB PM01

Corsair Rmx 650

 

just thoughts!

 

 

[sh4z]

Music production, I'd start with the case choice. Completely silent if possible. The Silverstone Primera RGB PM01 is a great gaming case, but due to the large mesh intake at the front you'd be leaking system noise out to the environment. I'd be picking similar components that you might find in a HTPC rig except more emphasis on processing power and memory. My go-to case for silent rigs is the Fractal Define series. I'd go fully passive for the graphics card, upgrade all the fans to Noctua. Wait a month or two for the i9 9xxx series CPUs to drop and also the 11xx/20xx series RTX graphics cards from NVIDIA. Corsair RMx i'd keep they are passive (noiseless) until under significant load.

 

Get rid of the HDD and go fully solid state, something like NVMe Software Raid10 (4x NVMe SSD's like Samsung 980 Pro). Keep the 1TB Mx300 SSD and buy another one for RAID1 (O/S drive) The RAM will probably be compatible since it's DDR4, so you can also re-use that.

 

If you plan to upgrade and keep the existing board and CPU, I'd focus on things that'd get your noise floor down to 0 or close to silent as possible. This makes most of the budget going into things like passive heatsinks and quiet fans. You could also go for a mineral oil dip solution if your feeling adventurous. Completely fanless

[brob]

This build outlines my thinking. In addition to a much more powerful cpu, I think better performing memory is needed. The gpu should be fine and I'd only replace it to reduce noise. I don't see a real need for RAID arrays but high endurance ssd are worth the investment.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i9-7920X 2.9GHz 12-Core Processor  ($999.99 @ B&H) 
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler  ($84.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock - X299 Taichi ATX LGA2066 Motherboard  ($290.98 @ Newegg Business) 
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 64GB (4 x 16GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($756.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Samsung - 970 Pro 1.0TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($449.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Crucial - MX300 1.1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For $0.00) 
Storage: Samsung - 860 Pro 4TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($1590.50 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: NVIDIA - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB Founders Edition Video Card  (Purchased For $0.00) 
Case: Fractal Design - Define C ATX Mid Tower Case  ($89.19 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: Corsair - RMx 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (Purchased For $0.00) 
Total: $4262.62
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-16 22:07 EDT-0400