Budget PC Upgrade

[Kiritomato]

Heya Guys, 

 

I'm gonna divide this post up in four parts:

1) The story, my motivation etc...

2) The technical summary

3) Budgetary and other concerns 

4) Final notes

 

Attachments:

- Current state build = how my pc looks now (i know i feel bad too)

- Components list = some of the components on newegg that seemed a good pick

- Looks list = some of the components on newegg for a better look on the pc

 

1) Story time !

Hi , my name is Raf, I live in Belgium and here's my PC story

 

So I bought a (what I though back then was) a mid-end gaming pc back in the year 2014.

This pc had a GTX960 + and a crappy AMD CPU on a Gigabyte FX-... mobo (see full specs in part2), 

which at the time ran everything decently except from any CPU load based games (Thank you AMD)

 

Recently however it started to fail to run any games at all, So I took out all my tools and started to research, and tinker away.

So here's what I figured out on my own, the 8 Cores on that CPU are useless, since my base clock was just under 2GHz, but mostly everything else wasn't half bad.

I proceeded to take an OEM Motherboard out of a HP Elite tower I had laying around, with it's CPU (i5-4690S) and install that into my gaming machine and run the machine off of a Samsung 860 SSD drive.

 

I surprised myself with the amount of performance improvement this little tweak did, 

I was playing mostly e-sports games at that point, which ran freaking marvellous !

 

Now here comes the next part...

 

I looked at that PC, that little gogetter who has given me so much joy and was appalled by the uglyness and untidyness of the machine (and OMG THAT OEM MOTHERBOARD!), 

so I decided I want to gives this lil' slugger a little makeover.

 

I know I can build a new one entirely, but the wallet isn't agreeing with this and I intend to use this machine as a dedicated plex server once I do go for an entire new build.

 

So, I am looking for parts to not necessarily upgrade but rather solidify my PC, like an actual decent motherboard, maybe some nice RAM covers, a better case maybe, ....

(again full list of what I intend to buy in point 2)

So let's dive into the technical side of things and explain what's what...

 

2) Let's get physical ! (ahum hum i mean technical)

 

Current build:

(this was originally, before any mods a prebuilt system bought from fierce pc in the UK)

 

- Unknown case (see pic) (propably some chinese knock off)

- OEM Motherboard (HP ms7860 v2.0)

- GPU = Nvidia GTX960

- Stock cooling on GPU

- CPU Intel i5 - 4690S (LGA 1150 Socket)

- Stock cooling on CPU

- RAM Memory DDR3 - 1666 MHz (Crucial 1 x 4Gb & No brand found 1 x 8Gb)

- Integrator 500Watt (80 PLUS Bronze)

- Case fans are original ones that came with the case

- 1 SSD Samsung EVO 860

- 1 SSD OCZ Agility 60GB SSD

- 1 HDD 1TB Seagate Barracude ST2000DM... drive

 

 

Wanted in the next build:

Components-wise:

- Decent motherboard from an actual mobo manafacturer (EVGA / ASUS / MSI / Gigabyte / ...) 

- RAM Memory 2 x 8GB if higher frequency is a noticeable performance improvement

- CPU Cooler (Closed Loop liquid cooling, current temps of cpu on load are 85~ degrees celsius)

- Modular PSU (500W is more then enough, but i'd prefer 80 PLUS Gold / Titanium)

- Decent case that fits everything and is prepared for future PLEX Media server build (e.g. lots of HDD's)

 

Looks*:

(*This is very personal, but here is what I was planning on:)

- Some nice heatspreaders on my ram sticks (maybe with RGB, not yet decided)

- Good looking Closed Loop CPU Block

- Cablesleeves (e.g. like cablemod's)

- A Case with a nice tempered glass panel, because I want my baby on my desk when she's pretty  

- I don't need RGB Overload or anything, but some minor lighting and a small color scheme makes any pc look nice

 

Other hardware:

- AOC 2560x1440 monitor 32" @75Hz  (Gaming screen)

- HP 1920x1080 monitor "24 @60Hz   (Other screen)

 

 

 

3) Budgetary & other stuffsies:

 

So when speaking of a budget, the total has to be below 500 Euros (= 450$~) and I prefer to spend more on quality components then just looks, 

especially if we're talking about no quality improvement but only RGB improvement... 

---

I am in Europe (Belgium), so everything is a tad more expensive, I have a friend who lives in north-carolina, but I can (at max) ask her to bring maybe one thing overseas, 

and even then, that is hoping customs doesn't see that she did...

---

I am thinking of trying to get a Z97 chipset board, so I can overclock in the future (I might buy a Intel i7-4790K), 

but what I don't know is whether that will improve any gaming qualities of the rig, since my GTX960 might become a bottleneck at that point ?

---

Finally the mentioned plex media server... To give you guys an idea, for now I am running the media server on an old desktop that was laying around (just put some extra ram in there and an SSD).

Don't mind the specs that one is not important, BUT what I can tell you is the specs of my plex media server...

 

I have about, 8TB in files (movies / tv shows / music) on it, these are (ATM) on an expanded volume on several drives (X6).

I plan on buying 4TB Drives and working in RAID volumes in the future (when the wallet allows me too)... and expanding my plex media server to about, 

24-36TB, 

There is about 5-10 people who use my media library, and about 2-3 viewers usually at the same time, 

currently the peak has been 7 viewers, at which point everything goes fuck up and stops working

(so I limited it now obviously)

 

I have a couple of services running:

- Sickrage TV Show adder & Indexer

- NZBGet for NZB handling (lemme know if I need to remove this from the thread for reasons)

- Radarr for movie indexing and handling

- Couchpotato for metadata creation and movie file naming

- Sidarr for Music handling, indexing, renaming

- Ombi for requesting new titles

- And of course Plex Media Server

 

ATM I cannot stream 4k movies decently (though 4k tv shows do work), but I would like that to be possible with this rig once I build myself a new one for gaming...

 

4) Final notes:

So hey guys, I don't know if anyone or how many people will end up helping me out with making some of these decisions, 

but in advance, thanks, doesn't matter what you do, I have been reading a lot on this forum and this community and you are all awesome peeps  

I'm not trying to be lazy, I have a list for components (https://secure.newegg.com/global/be-en/Wishlist/MyWishlistDetail?ID=6328436&RandomID=19244841991027420181107061130)

and a list for looks (https://secure.newegg.com/global/be-en/Wishlist/MyWishlistDetail?ID=6552456)

 

already made on newegg.com but, i wanted to talk about this with some fellow enthusiasts, so, im looking forward to the discussion !  

[Fasauceome]

Was the newegg part list your shopping list or just a parts list? You shouldn't buy parts that old brand new from a retailer.

 

I recommend an i7 4790 and another 8GB DDR3 dimm, that way you get dual channel, that sweet hyperthreading, and higher frequencies. That way you can get yourself a 1070 or something later as a graphics card.

[Kiritomato]

@fasauceome those are just lists to show some of the components i was thinking of :)

It would feel weird to pay 200€ for this old of a motherboard...

 

But i'mnseriously divided between mobo that can overclock (150€~) / mobo that cant (50€)...

[Fasauceome]

2 minutes ago, Kiritomato said:

@fasauceome those are just lists to show some of the components i was thinking of

It would feel weird to pay 200€ for this old of a motherboard...

 

But i'mnseriously divided between mobo that can overclock (150€~) / mobo that cant (50€)...

Unless you really want to, I wouldn't recommend. It's not strictly necessary, haswell at stock clocks is still good.