Upgrading a Phenom for modern gaming and virtualization

Argonel · August 4, 2016

Greetings, all!

1. Budget & Location

Preferably under $500 USD? Would under $1000 be more reasonable?

2. Aim

Gaming (League of Legends, Guildwars, maybe Skyrim). I'm not sure what's out there these days, so I would like room to explore current options.
Virtualization. I currently run Arch Linux, and my attempts at doing anything with Wine have been spectacularly unsuccessful. A good hypervisor setup would be educational and give me the opportunity to play with BSD as well as re-learning Windows.
Along the lines of learning new software, I'd like to play with Blender or some other rendering engine. Maybe set up a DAW for digital music.

3. Monitors

Currently one Asus at 1680x1050. Those new ultra-wide curved screens look sweet, though, if they ever come down in price.

4. Peripherals

Current mouse is a Kensington ProFit; keyboard is an IBM Model M. Not sure whether I should upgrade these or not. I have an old Optiplex with a presumably legal copy of Windows 7 that I thought of cloning over if that would work. One 3TB external drive; USB3, see last point under #5.

5. Why are you upgrading?

I started building this system circa 2008 when my laptop died, then my budget at the time ran out leaving the system usable but 'unfinished'. If possible, I'd like to breathe new life into it without starting from scratch. This is my current setup:

CPU is an AMD Phenom 9950 2.6Ghz quad core (probably not a bottleneck?);
RAM is Corsair Dominator (2x 2GB) DDR2 1066 (currently acceptable until Firefox goes bonkers; definitely a bottleneck for anything more serious). Should I match this exactly ($45) or will any pair of 2GB sticks work without negatively impacting performance? Motherboard max is 8GB (MSI DKA790GX). What BIOS settings do I need for this?
Video is an ATI Radeon HD 3300. Definitely need something better, but there are so many options! Really out of my depth here. Would like something that could drive one of those ultra-wides I mentioned earlier, if I ever get one.
Storage... this is probably my biggest bottleneck; my Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM 1TB feels really slow. Obvious thing here is throw in an SSD, but ancient motherboard only supports SATA-II (300MB/s max; current SSDs can run at twice that). My current thinking here is something like the Kingston HyperX or some other PCIe solution. M.2? Or should I get a bargain basement SSD, and put the money toward a better video card?
Case is the Antec P182. Biggest mistake I made in this build is not using a modular powersupply. The Thermaltake W0172RU has a bunch of unused cables stuffed into the bottom of my case, but 850W should be plenty for everything I might add.
Are there any decent USB3 expansion cards out there? I've tried two by Anker, but they somehow caused networking to become inoperable. They had sent a second but it had the same effect, so I'm guessing some other hardware conflict and not the card itself? Any BIOS settings I should look at here?

So... things I need in order of priority: 4GB RAM, PCIe SSD, video card.

And things that might be nice if there's a good sale somewhere (no particular order)... gaming keyboard, HDD, blu-ray drive.

Thanks for any input!

Edited August 5, 2016 by Argonel
Typos and clarification

Argonel · August 4, 2016

Sorry... Typoed the title!

Meant to say "Upgrading a Phenom for modern gaming and virtualization"

squirrl · August 4, 2016

13 minutes ago, Argonel said:

Sorry... Typoed the title!

Meant to say "Upgrading a Phenom for modern gaming and virtualization"

You should be able to edit the title by editing your first post. I believe...

rf9661 · August 4, 2016

22 minutes ago, Argonel said:

Greetings, all!

1. Budget & Location

Preferably under $500 USD.

2. Aim

Gaming (League of Legends, Guildwars, maybe Skyrim). I'm not sure what's out there these days, so I would like room to explore current options.

Virtualization. I currently run Arch Linux, and my attempts at doing anything with Wine have been spectacularly unsuccessful. A proper virtualization setup would be educational and give me the opportunity to easily play with BSD as well as re-learning Windows.

Along the lines of learning new software, I'd like to play with Blender or some other rendering engine. Maybe set up a DAW for digital music.

3. Monitors

Currently one Asus at 1680x1050. Those new ultra-wide curved screens look sweet, though.

4. Peripherals

Current mouse is a Kensington ProFit; keyboard is an IBM Model M. Not sure whether I should upgrade these or not. I have an old Optiplex with a presumably legal copy of Windows 7 that I thought of cloning over if that would work. One 3TB external drive; USB3, see last point under #5.

5. Why are you upgrading?

I started building this system circa 2008 when my laptop died, then my budget at the time ran out leaving the system usable but 'unfinished'. If possible, I'd like to breathe new life into it without starting from scratch.

My CPU is an AMD Phenom 9950 2.6Ghz quad core (probably not a bottleneck?);

RAM is Corsair Dominator (2x 2GB) DDR2 1066 (currently acceptable until Firefox goes bonkers; definitely a bottleneck for anything more serious). Should I match this exactly ($45) or will any pair of 2GB sticks work without negatively impacting performance? Motherboard max is 8GB (MSI DKA790GX).

Video is an ATI Radeon HD 3300. Definitely need something better, but there are so many options! Really out of my depth here.

Storage... this is a priority; my Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM 1TB feels really slow. Obvious thing here is throw in an SSD, but ancient motherboard only supports SATA-II so I wouldn't be getting much benefit for the investment. My current thinking here is something like the Kingston HyperX or some other PCIe solution. M.2? And then maybe a couple more mechanical drives for bulk storage in RAID.

Case is the Antec P182. Biggest mistake I made in this build is not using a modular powersupply. The Thermaltake W0172RU 850W has a bunch of unused cables stuffed into the bottom of my case.

Are there any decent USB3 expansion cards out there? I've tried two by Anker, but they somehow caused networking to become inoperable. They had sent a second but it had the same effect, so I'm guessing some other hardware conflict and not the card itself?

A blu-ray player would be nice. Would it work with SATA-II?

Thanks for any input!