Guide for futureproopfing and wiser part picking decisions.

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First i'd like to mention that futureproofing isnt a real thing IMO, but there is some things could follow in that category. Also if i Missed something please comeback to me immediately.

ALSO MOST OF THIS IS IN MY OPINION. OTHER PEOPLE'S THOUGHTS MAY OR WILL VARY.

Currency=American Dollars.

Another great tip I'd like to mention is that getting the best isnt always a good idea for futureproofing/upgrading, unless you ABSOLUTELY NEED THOSE COMPONENTS.

Optional tip, Ghetto mounting and being creative makes your parts last longer too.

 

First off is the case.

Any case will have spare room for upgrading if you dont fill it up now and its a standard form factor (EX Mini ITX, ATX) case. Other features like silence and fan hubs are completely up to you.

Cases are easy to upgrade, dont need to talk a little more than that. Just make sure you have all you need, Drive cages, fan placement, and cable management, and it will last until it breaks apart.

Getting a used case isnt a bad idea. Just see if it has everything you need.

 

Storage is next.

ANY SSD IS GOOD FOR BOOT (except kingston/840evo)

Hard Drives are becoming obsolete, I remember a time, bout 2 years ago, when a Terabyte of SSD storage was 3000 Dollars? but now its 300. Its generally wiser now IMO that you get a harddrive with all your needs and less of your wants. 24/7 or NAS/HTPC use? Nas drives will work great on your pc. Intensive workload? Black drives. General Bulk storage/Parental PC? Green or Blue drives. Pretty much ALL Hard Drives will have sub 150MBS write speed, if you wanted faster than that you could always buy a ssd and cache it with the hard drive. Im sure you could wait in games for about 10 seconds for loading time. Once i had a 4GB system, and when i played demanding games that couldnt fit in the ram, it took a little while to boot, but only takes 7 seconds. Again, by the time your HDD dies a TB ssd will become 50 dollars. Never buy used. Side effects are Degraded performance, Beat up or not working, corrupts data too much, has person identities/viruses or has porn on it, or even worse which could land you in jail, Torture and Child porn.

 

Cpu.

Essentially the cpu you could upgrade will be limited to the socket on the Mobo, and where it ends.

The mainstream boards will last around a year or less. So 2 Microarchitecture's on intel's side (except 1150, which had haswell, Haswell-r, and broadwell.) will be on the socket. Amd however lasts for a long time, the FX series has been for 4 years and still kicks benchmarks. So generally speaking if you bought a i3 on skylake, you can only upgrade to a i5/i7 on the same socket (1151) otherwise If you upgraded you would have to upgrade the motherboard as well. The EXTREME (X) platform lasts for about 3-4 years. Haswell-E has been runnin about kicking ass for 2 years, and not expected to die out because its successor Broadwell-E will rise this year, on the same X99 Platform. So upgrading is a piece of cake. Dont like the i7 8core? get a 18core xeon! So without rambiling its safe to say that cpu upgrading is a little harder dependent on what processor and architecture your getting. This is an example of going overkill will make your parts last a little shorter. dont buy used unless its a xeon. because bad oc's

 

Gpu.

Gpu is even easier. graphics card is not bottlenecked from the slot (hell it doesnt need the horsepower from a 16x 3.0 slot, you only need a 8x 2.0 for it to run max lol) but from the cpu. Every cpu after 06 will not really bottleneck a graphics card. Choosing the right graphics card is easy. I'll just quote a good friend @Moonzy because they nailed it. short explanation, get  the gpu for your games for money, then upgrade when its trash. BUT FIRST WAIT FOR PASCAL/POLARIS

Spoiler

Quote

Choosing by tier (price):

Minimum GPU: Intel HD530

Suitable for: low end 1080p gaming, save-a-couple-bucks-and-buy-a-gpu-later gpu

 

the minimum dGPU that i would recommend: 750Ti

Suitable for: low~low mid range 1080p gaming

 

Above the GPU above: GTX 950

Suitable for: low~mid range 1080p gaming

 

Above the GPU above: R9 380 (4GB) / GTX 960 (4GB) ; raw gpu horsepower: R9 380 > GTX960

Suitable for: mid~high end 1080p gaming

 

Above the GPU above: R9 390 / GTX 970 ; raw gpu horsepower: R9 390 > GTX 970

Suitable for: high end 1080p gaming, low~mid range 1440p gaming

 

Above the GPU above: R9 390X / GTX 980 / R9 Fury

Suitable for: High end 1080p gaming, mid range 1440p gaming

 

Above the GPU above: GTX 980Ti

Suitable for: mid-high end 1440p gaming

 

Choosing by screen resolution: (Sweetspot)

1080p: R9 390/380, GTX 960/970

1080p UW: R9 390(X), GTX 980

 

1440p: R9 390X, GTX 980, GTX 980Ti

1440p UW: R9 390(x) CF, GTX 980Ti SLI

 

2160p (4K): GTX 980TI SLI

 

Things to consider when choosing GPU:

CPU matters when it comes to choosing a GPU, AMD driver have higher CPU overhead for DX11 games, therefore if your cpu is near being a bottleneck, it is wiser to choose an nvidia card of the same tier

but if CPU bottlenecking is not an issue, then pick the one with the most gpu horsepower of the desired tier

Nvidia gpus comes with some extra features like nvidia shield and geforce experience, so if you're into those then you might wanna pick nvidia gpus

It's never a good idea to run dual gpu setup unless you are using the best gpu available in the market and still crave for more gpu horsepower

 

 

RAM

Contrary to some might believe, Taking all the slots is just like taking half the slots.

Its not recommended to used revised versions (or completely difrent/distcint) ram sticks to each other. Just buy all of them at the same time, and thats it. so upgrading is easy. Take cheap memory from Kingston or crucial, then upgrade to some corsair or gskill memory in the future. Get it used? maybe, just see if it works (and what you paid for), the lifespan will be much shorter.

 

Motherboard

Motherboards will last as long as the cpu. Motherboards dont effect performance, just features.

Need Storage, get that. Need more (or ecc) get that. NEED A HIGH OC, get that. and dont just get the cheapest thing that fits everything. That will make your motherboard un-upgradable. everyone will have diffrent use cases so just be aware of this if you want it to last.

 

PSU

Most pins have been the same since 06 or even earlier (20pin, 4 pin, 6pin, 8pin, molex, sata power) But just like the motherboard please consider, will you make a dual gpu/cpu setup in the future? More Drives? Lot of OC? Generally wattage and build quality is what you are looking for. In a small inhome server any psu is fine. however some psu's will hang the cpu(causing a screech in your headsets and a reboot) when the caps deal with a lot of wattage, say for example a CX or a NEX, they are fine at 400 watts, but when its 750 watts and the pc is on load its a different story. never get used, the psu could leak!

 

DISPLAYS

by far these are the most advancing tech for pc users. For budget builders and gamers where fps is key, a TN screen is the best you can get. Even I as a editor does not use a IPS screen but i get the job done (a picture i made and edited) But if you are a baller and stubborn to have the best, a IPS is good too. this i cant say much of because you have to see it in person. I cant tell the difference.

 

MISC

everything is fine, upgrade if you want it.

 

The reason why I did this is because so much people say they want to upgrade and last for 8 years but they get the most un upgradable parts.

I keep telling them but they boil there choice to the best. Be wiser and consider what you do, and think the long run if you want it to last. AND DONT FORGET TO LOOK OUT FOR TECH NEWS

It will seriously help your decision 20x better.

 

Also this is more of a consider the following, not telling you what to do.