Need help with upgrading build

[Ruttlik]

Hello everyone,

I am looking forward to upgrading my build as tomorrow the black friday sales are kicking in. My plan at the moment is to upgrade my GPU to a MSI RTX 2070 Armor (which should fit into my computer case). Besides that there is something wrong with the sound card of my motherboard so I think it's time for an upgrade anyway. I have zero knowledge about motherboards so I'm here to ask for help which one I should upgrade to so it's compatible with the other parts of the grid and still fits in the case. I would also like to ask if my CPU will be able to handle all this new fast running gear and not overheat or anything like that. Last but not least, will my current power supply be able to handle all of this?

 

Specs:

Operating system: Windows 10 Home 64-bit

Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR3 8GB (2x4GB) 2400MHz

SSD: Crucial 240 GB SSD

CPU: Intel Core i7 4790K @ 4.00GHz

Storage: Western Digital 1 TB HDD

Graphic Card: MSI NVIDIA GTX 970 GAMING 4G

Motherboard: MSI Z97 GAMING 3

Power supply: Corsair VS650

Case: Corsair Spec 01 Red

[Fasauceome]

The armor card is super crap. That cooler design is no good. 

As for motherboard, try to find a Z97 or Z87 off eBay, or buy mine. (shameless plug)

 

[Ruttlik]

2 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

The armor card is super crap. That cooler design is no good. 

As for motherboard, try to find a Z97 or Z87 off eBay, or buy mine. (shameless plug)

 

Thanks for the reply, so you're saying I should go for the Gaming edition which is like a 100 euro more? I already have a z97 motherboard, did you mean something else? I just want a new one that's kinda up to date and that is compatible with whatever it needs to be compatible with in my build

[Fasauceome]

3 minutes ago, Ruttlik said:

Thanks for the reply, so you're saying I should go for the Gaming edition which is like a 100 euro more?

You might not want to spend too much more, perhaps there's a gigabyte model that you can spy

4 minutes ago, Ruttlik said:

I already have a z97 motherboard, did you mean something else? I just want a new one that's kinda up to date and that is compatible with whatever it needs to be compatible with in my build

It sounds like you wanted a new motherboard because of the sound chip, but if you just wanted to buy a sound card for whatever reason then that's fine too, but they're expensive.

[SimplyChunk]

You won't be able to upgrade your motherboard past Z97 without changing your CPU and RAM as well.  Z390 and 9th gen is very expansive at the minute so maybe a Z370 and an 8th gen (8700 or 8600) will do you better.  Another option is maybe a 6th/7th Gen on a Z270 board  You can get a 6700k now for around 170ish bucks (second hand) if you look hard enough

[Fasauceome]

14 minutes ago, Ruttlik said:

Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 8GB (2x4GB) 2400MHz

Also, how exactly do you have DDR4 on a haswell CPU? 

[SimplyChunk]

7 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

Also, how exactly do you have DDR4 on a haswell CPU? 

I hadn't noticed that lmao

[Ruttlik]

5 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

Also, how exactly do you have DDR4 on a haswell CPU? 

My bad, supposed to say DDR3.

Also I've heard that MSI is one of the better ones so I'm just going to stick with that but the gaming edition is like a 100 more then the armor one.

I want to buy a new motherboard because 1, it's fairly old and 2 the sound card is broken. Like I said I just don't know which one and all the compatibility 

[Ruttlik]

12 minutes ago, YouSirAreADudeSir said:

You won't be able to upgrade your motherboard past Z97 without changing your CPU and RAM as well.  Z390 and 9th gen is very expansive at the minute so maybe a Z370 and an 8th gen (8700 or 8600) will do you better.  Another option is maybe a 6th/7th Gen on a Z270 board  You can get a 6700k now for around 170ish bucks (second hand) if you look hard enough

Hey, thanks so much for the explanation and yes I meant to write DDR3.

Do you possibly have some sort of website or spreadsheet with all the compatibilities of the different generations and motherboards? I think the best solution for me is to just repair my current Z97 since I would have to upgrade: motherboard, cpu and ram which would be so expensive if I added that with the RTX 2070.

[Fasauceome]

5 minutes ago, Ruttlik said:

I want to buy a new motherboard because 1, it's fairly old and 2 the sound card is broken. Like I said I just don't know which one and all the compatibility 

If that's the case you should check out Ryzen for sure. Great value, and Intel has a 14nm shortage so their prices are up.

[SimplyChunk]

1 minute ago, Ruttlik said:

Hey, thanks so much for the explanation and yes I meant to write DDR3.

Do you possibly have some sort of website or spreadsheet with all the compatibilities of the different generations and motherboards? I think the best solution for me is to just repair my current Z97 since I would have to upgrade: motherboard, cpu and ram which would be so expensive if I added that with the RTX 2070.

speak of the devil lol @fasauceome prob knows intel old gen better than me.  What's your audio setup? What speakers/headphones do you use?

[Fasauceome]

2 minutes ago, Ruttlik said:

Do you possibly have some sort of website or spreadsheet with all the compatibilities of the different generations and motherboards?

For you, get a Z97 or Z87. Without them you can't overclock, and you've got an excellent chip so you should definitely be overclocking.

 

3 minutes ago, Ruttlik said:

I think the best solution for me is to just repair my current Z97 since I would have to upgrade: motherboard, cpu and ram which would be so expensive if I added that with the RTX 2070

A repair will be a huge pain, MSI has awful customer service. You might be better off selling it and buying another. (see my above shameless plug)

[Ruttlik]

5 minutes ago, YouSirAreADudeSir said:

speak of the devil lol @fasauceome prob knows intel old gen better than me.  What's your audio setup? What speakers/headphones do you use?

Oh I just use a pair of Samsung earbuds and some random 20 year old speakers. But it's not the audio that's messed up but it's my microphone, I use a blue snowball (USB) and it sounds really bad is what everyone has been telling me (I tried switching to different usb ports and I also tried a different mic but it's definitely something wrong with my motherboard I think).

[SimplyChunk]

3 minutes ago, Ruttlik said:

Oh I just use a pair of Samsung earbuds and some random 20 year old speakers. But it's not the audio that's messed up but it's my microphone, I use a blue snowball (USB) and it sounds really bad is what everyone has been telling me (I tried switching to different usb ports and I also tried a different mic but it's definitely something wrong with my motherboard I think).

a USB mic shouldn't be touching your sound card? Am I wrong?? Was the second mic USB also?

[Fasauceome]

3 minutes ago, Ruttlik said:

Oh I just use a pair of Samsung earbuds and some random 20 year old speakers. But it's not the audio that's messed up but it's my microphone, I use a blue snowball (USB) and it sounds really bad is what everyone has been telling me (I tried switching to different usb ports and I also tried a different mic but it's definitely something wrong with my motherboard I think).

Try redownloading chipset drivers from the webpage for your motherboard

[Ruttlik]

8 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

For you, get a Z97 or Z87. Without them you can't overclock, and you've got an excellent chip so you should definitely be overclocking.

 

A repair will be a huge pain, MSI has awful customer service. You might be better off selling it and buying another. (see my above shameless plug)

I've heard about the customer service, I actually don't know exactly what's wrong with it because audio is completely fine it's just whenever I try to plug in any microphone it sounds like a potato.  I've never gotten into overclocking as I am a complete noob when it comes down to these types of things but both my CPU and GPU temperatures have been hitting 80C while gaming so idk if it's smart to overclock. (I run 2 144hz monitors so it puts a lot of pressure on the rig I assume)

[Ruttlik]

1 minute ago, YouSirAreADudeSir said:

a USB mic shouldn't be touching your sound card? Am I wrong?? Was the second mic USB also?

Correct, one mic was a USB blue snowball and the other was just a USD webcam mic (C920 logitech). I tried removing my GPU 3 days ago and I pulled out some pins from the motherboard where the GPU is supposed to be so I couldn't put it back into where it was but there was another spot for a GPU so I just put it into that one which I assume shouldn't be a problem.

[SimplyChunk]

1 minute ago, Ruttlik said:

Correct, one mic was a USB blue snowball and the other was just a USD webcam mic (C920 logitech). I tried removing my GPU 3 days ago and I pulled out some pins from the motherboard where the GPU is supposed to be so I couldn't put it back into where it was but there was another spot for a GPU so I just put it into that one which I assume shouldn't be a problem.

No, not necessarily, you could have you card plugged into a lesser PCIe slot.  What pins did you pull out? any chance you can take a pic? 

[SimplyChunk]

3 minutes ago, Ruttlik said:

Correct, one mic was a USB blue snowball and the other was just a USD webcam mic (C920 logitech). I tried removing my GPU 3 days ago and I pulled out some pins from the motherboard where the GPU is supposed to be so I couldn't put it back into where it was but there was another spot for a GPU so I just put it into that one which I assume shouldn't be a problem.

was it a USB header?

[Ruttlik]

6 minutes ago, YouSirAreADudeSir said:

No, not necessarily, you could have you card plugged into a lesser PCIe slot.  What pins did you pull out? any chance you can take a pic? 

It was this thing holding the GPU, (the pins below are completely fucked and aren't looking straight up anymore so there is no way to put it back on)

[SimplyChunk]

Spoiler

13 minutes ago, Ruttlik said:

It was this thing holding the GPU, (the pins below are completely fucked and aren't looking straight up anymore so there is no way to put it back on)



 

Yeah...You've cooked your only 16x PCIe slot.  See @fasauceome 's shameless plug above

[Ruttlik]

2 minutes ago, YouSirAreADudeSir said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Yeah...You've cooked your only 16x PCIe slot.  See @fasauceome 's shameless plug above

So which slot exactly did I break and which slot am I using right now? Everything performance wise seems to be running just fine (even tho I've been noticing lower FPS and this weird microphone quality)

Is this bad for my motherboard or for my graphics card?

[SimplyChunk]

Spoiler

1 hour ago, Ruttlik said:

So which slot exactly did I break and which slot am I using right now? Everything performance wise seems to be running just fine (even tho I've been noticing lower FPS and this weird microphone quality)

Is this bad for my motherboard or for my graphics card?

 

You're running an x4 PCIe slot (the only other x16 SIZED slot on the board)  That means your 970 is only getting a quarter of the bandwidth of the x16 slot.  It won't damage anything but it'll be slower.  As for the USB mic not working the bare pins on the x16 slot may be touching each other and causing a short this WILL damage things over time.  You are going to HAVE TO replace your motherboard or get it repaired by a professional

[SimplyChunk]

Spoiler

1 hour ago, Ruttlik said:

So which slot exactly did I break and which slot am I using right now? Everything performance wise seems to be running just fine (even tho I've been noticing lower FPS and this weird microphone quality)

Is this bad for my motherboard or for my graphics card?



 

not only that but the x4 slot is only PCIe 2.0 so it is already half that of PCIe 3.0 and a quarter of PCIe 2.0 x16 making it actually an 8th of the speed of the main slot that you've broken

[Ruttlik]

22 minutes ago, YouSirAreADudeSir said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

not only that but the x4 slot is only PCIe 2.0 so it is already half that of PCIe 3.0 and a quarter of PCIe 2.0 x16 making it actually an 8th of the speed of the main slot that you've broken

Damn, I really got screwed ffs. Buying a MSI RTX 2070 Gaming Z as we speak for 600 euro's. Do you think it would be cheaper to get the motherboard repaired or buy a new one? I think new ones cost like a 100 something