Help with Upgrades

[Norevan]

I have two computers I am looking to upgrade mine and the wife's. I am looking to spend about $1000 per computer. I thought i knew a lot about what was needed for a gaming computer till i came across LTT i have since realized my knowledge is severely lacking. To start i do not plan on over clocking till i can put in custom water cooling into each but at this time budget really doesn't fit well with that and the much needed upgrades. If possible I would like to also hear the reasoning you choose the components you suggest so i may be better informed on what to look for in the future when it is time to upgrade them again. We are looking to just upgrade the towers at the moment.

 

My Wife's Computer is as follows

CASE APEX| PCV-588 RTL

MB ASUS|M5A99FX PRO R2.0 990FX AM3+

VGA SAPPHIRE|100366-2L R7 260X 2GD5 x1

PSU APEX|AL-D500EXP 500W RT

CPU AMD|6-CORE FX-6300 3.5G 8M R

SSD 250G|SAMSUNG MZ-75E250B/AM R

MEM 8Gx2|GSKILL F3-1600C11D-16GNT R

HDD 2T|ST ST2000DM001 7.2K 64M %

 

She is looking to be able to run games like Minecraft, Medieval Engineers, Dragon Age:Inquisition, the Witcher series, BioShock Infinite, Fallout 4. She also is into doing 3D Modeling. She is currently using two monitors but we are wanting to upgrade to a third one in the future.

 

My computer is as follows,

 

GPU | VisionTek Radeon 6870 1g GDDR5

MB | GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3P AM3+ AMD 970 6 x SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

CPU | AMD FX-6300 Vishera 6-Core 3.5GHz (4.1GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 95W FD6300WMHKBOX Desktop Processor

MEM | G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL10D-16GBXL

PSU | Thermaltake TR22 600W

HDD1 | SSD 250G|SAMSUNG MZ-75E250B/AM R

HDD2 | 500G Segate (Wanting to replace with a 2 TB storage drive).

My case Currently is a random Full tower i was given that has poor ventilation (I will be upgrading to a Cooler Master Mastercase 5 pro this is not part of the budget)

 

I am looking to make mine into a gaming computer that can play the same games but also including Space Engineers. I do Java Programming on this computer as well as use it for my gaming. I currently have two lower end Monitors I will be in the future be upgrading both the monitors to 2 PG278Q.

 

[petem]

Check out http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-budget-gaming-pc,4065.html at tomshardware, it's about a $700 dollar gaming build, then head over to

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/mainstream-enthusiast-pc-build,4056.html, their $1300 enthusiast build.  Figure out what you like / don't like from each

and build a compromise machine half way between them

[petem]

Also note, that they include the price of *everything*, including windows.  If you can supply some of those items on your own (and most people that tinker with computers a bit usually can), then it's not too hard to get the cost of the $1300 machine down to $1000 with some of your used parts

[petem]

Some of those games are not very CPU or GPU intensive, but Witcher and a few others will bring a wimpy or even OK system to it's knees.  If you want more than 1080p displays, expect to spend a fair portion of your budget on a good (or 2 good) GPU(s).

[petem]

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention pcpartpicker: https://pcpartpicker.com/

 

It's a great web site to virtually gather and price the various parts that you intend to put into your new PC.

You should be able to assemble and price a system in less than an hour if you are just starting out, less if you are a quick study.

 

It's also a good reference to look at what other people are doing, but be careful about that - you can fall in that black hole and when you come out find that the season's changed  :huh:

[Norevan]

Those would work for the gaming portion of our computers but what about the other functions we are looking for?