Need some upgrade advice

Talsyrius · November 27, 2017

Hi,

I have planning to upgrade my PC for a long while now, and I think I'll finally have the time to pull the trigger.

I have an aging pc from late 2012. Originally it had the following specs (pasting from the buy order):

Spoiler

Corsair Carbide 300R Midi Tower Svart

Fläktar: 1x 140mm Front, 1x 120mm Bak, mATX, ATX, 2x USB 3.0, Art. nr: 746612 / Manufacturer part number: CC-9011014-WW

Corsair TX 750W PSU

ATX 12V V2.3, 80 Plus Bronze, Standard. 4x 6+2-pin PCIe, 8x SATA, 140mm Fläkt, Art. nr: 623449 / Manufacturer part number: CP-9020042-EU

Intel Core i7-3770 Processor

Socket-LGA1155, Quad Core, 3.4GHz, 8MB, 77W, HD4000, Boxed w/fan, Art. nr: 660226 / Manufacturer part number: BX80637I73770

MSI B75MA-P45, S-1155, PC-REP

m-ATX, B75, DDR3, 1xG3-PCIe-x16, SATA 6Gb/s, USB 3.0, VGA, DVI, UEFI, Art. nr: 749862 / Manufacturer part number: B75MA-P45

Kingston DDR3 HyperX 1600MHz 16GB

Kit w/4X HyperX Genesis 4GB DDR3, CL9-9-9-27, 240pin, Art. nr: 585007 / Manufacturer part number: KHX1600C9D3K4/16GX

Gainward GeForce GTX 670 2GB PhysX CUDA

PCI-Express 3.0, GDDR5, DVI-D+DVI-I, native-HDMI, DisplayPort, 915MHz, Art. nr: 751369 / Manufacturer part number: 426018336-2555

Crucial m4 SSD 2.5" 128GB

SATA 6 Gb/s (SATA3.0), 500MB/175MB/s read/write, Art. nr: 630675 / Manufacturer part number: CT128M4SSD2

Samsung DVD Writer, SH-224BB

SATA, DVD±R: 24x, DVD±R DL: 8x, CD-R: 48x, Bulk, BLACK, Art. nr: 761524 / Manufacturer part number: SH-224BB/BEBE

I have since bought one more HDD and one more SSD, and somewhat recently bought a 1080 graphics card.

I was planning to upgrade the CPU, but sadly that is slightly more effort than just plugging in a new GPU or drive. I was planning to get the i7 8700k, a new motherboard (obviously), and an air cooler.

My questions are mainly (unless there is something that I overlooked):

Do I need to get new ram? (probably)
Which motherboard would you recommend?
which cooler would you recommend? (Thinking air, because priority number 1 is no hassle)
Can i keep the PSU?

As a bonus question, can I keep my same windows install if I switch motherboard, and if not, can I somehow transfer it? And for a bunus, bonus question, is there any good way to tell if the parts will fit together with the case/each other?

I mostly play Eve online ATM, running one to 7 clients, which is putting some strain on my old cpu. I also occasionally play games like The witcher, Fallout, Divinity etc. No rendering/video processing work in sight.

As for the budget, money isn't really an issue, as long as it's sensible purchases. I am not interested in paying for blinking lights and fancy brand names, but quality and low effort install/maintenance is what I'm looking for.

newcbomb · November 27, 2017

1. Yes, you need DDR4 as apposed to DDR3

2. Any gaming motherboard that can overclock and is from a reputable brand. Maybe this https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-PRIME-Z270-LGA1151-Motherboard/dp/B01NGTYV2Q (I dont know much about motherboards)

3. The Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo, the red one is $14 right now. https://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-Direct-Contact-Unique/dp/B01KBXKP8W

4. That PSU should be just fine.

And yes, you can keep windows. It will detect the new hardware and most drivers.

kerradeph · November 27, 2017

Yes you will need new memory. The last 3 generations have been using DDR4.

Asus is a pretty good option for motherboards. Specific model more relies on what kind of features you're hoping to get from it.

Noctua coolers are good.

You should be fine with your current PSU unless you've been seeing signs of power issues.

You *can* keep your install of Windows, however with this much of a change, it would be highly recommended to reinstall as you'll probably see some issues with various things left over from previous hardware.

Your case will fit everything up to a standard ATX motherboard so you are pretty open with your options there. The only things that wouldn't fit are E-ATX motherboards, and I don't think there are any of those out for the Z370 chipset yet.

By the way, did you know Dreddit is recruiting?

Talsyrius · November 27, 2017

12 minutes ago, kerradeph said:

Yes you will need new memory. The last 3 generations have been using DDR4.

Asus is a pretty good option for motherboards. Specific model more relies on what kind of features you're hoping to get from it.

Noctua coolers are good.

You should be fine with your current PSU unless you've been seeing signs of power issues.

You *can* keep your install of Windows, however with this much of a change, it would be highly recommended to reinstall as you'll probably see some issues with various things left over from previous hardware.

Your case will fit everything up to a standard ATX motherboard so you are pretty open with your options there. The only things that wouldn't fit are E-ATX motherboards, and I don't think there are any of those out for the Z370 chipset yet.

By the way, did you know Dreddit is recruiting?

What kind of motherboard features is it that is worth looking out for? I don't plan on running sli ever. Only PCI-E slots that I use (other than GPU) is one for the wired network card, since the built in network thingy on my old motherboard died.

And I have, in fact, heard that Dreddit is recruiting.

kerradeph · November 27, 2017

You might be looking for the ability to run multiple M.2, or looking into having mass SATA storage. Possibly rear IO options. If you're not too bothered than the Asus Prime Z370 that was linked earlier would do just fine. It's a decent motherboard at a low cost.

Talsyrius · November 28, 2017

So I did some tinkering after the advice I got, would the following work well together? A bit confused about the RAM, as the description on the page I looked specifically said that it worked with skylake, is there any other factor that I need to look at in terms of compatibility, other than it being DDR4?

Looked a bit at the motherboards, asus had an -a version too, that was a bit more expensive, but didn't really have more options that I would be interested in from what I could tell. Is there any really compelling reason to pick that over the -p version if I don't want to run SLI?