upgrading my old work horse

martinsvi

hi,

I would like to upgrade my old pc. It's been quite a while since I've built my last pc and getting back to it seems bit more confusing than I expected. anyway, here's my shopping list, I was hoping someone could give it a quick look to see if I'm not trying to pair apples with oranges..

Mobo: MSI Z97M-G43 socket 1150
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K - 3.5GHz - Socket 1150 - Unlocked (what does Unlocked mean?)
PSU: Seasonic M12II Bronze Evo Edition - 750 Watt (can anyone tell me if it's compatible with the mother board? I remember back in the day not all PSUs where compatible with all Mobo's, is it still an issue today?)

for graphics I plan to use my GeForce 9800 gt from my old pc, it's PC express 2.0, do I understand this correctly that if mobo has PCIe x16 it means it will support both PCIe 2.0 and 3.0? am I ok with this card?

the rest of it will either come from my old PC or be bought new, but I'm planning on running 12 GB ram and 3 SATA drives, keeping in mind that I might overclock the cpu, how am I doing with the power? 750W should do the job?

Serephucus

PSU is way overkill. You won't need more than a 350W unit for the system you're planning, though you could get 450W to facilitate a future GPU upgrade if you like.
http://www.hardwareversand.de/400+-+500+Watt/113847/Corsair+Enthusiast+Series+RM450%2C+Modular%2C+80+Plus+Gold+450+Watt.article

An unlocked processor means it can be overclocked. That's all.

The 9800GT will work fine with the new system, though don't expect a huge increase in gaming performance, as 80% of the work is done with the GPU there.

Looks good otherwise though.

martinsvi

9800 GT docs said minimum recommended PSU is 450W. I was reading up on overclocking and some people are recommending very beefy PSU's for this, thus the choice of a 750er.. I would have to do some more digging I suppose.

I'm not much of a gamer, the only thing I run is MS Flight Simulator X. PC would primarily run some virtual machines for my work/side projects.. with that in mind I might even go for more RAM, as it's never really enough for those bloody things

TerrorFirmer

I would replace that 9800GT with something like a 100 euro euro GTX750, simply because it's much faster and uses far less power to boot, so that's worth going for. You could also look at cheaper cards like the GT740. Would cover you easily for any future simulations you wanted to get into. With a setup like that, 350w would easily cover it. 430w if you really wanted to get crazy. :P

What model 9800GT do you have? There were pretty power efficient models available, and the older power hungry ones, so if you have one of the power efficient ones, might be as easy to stick with that.

To use 750w to be honest you'd want to be overclocking that processor to within an inch of its life and running dual high end video cards....anyone who recommends a 750w to overclock a processor hasn't a notion what they're talking about.

martinsvi

thanks for the advice,

the card is this one - http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3185#ov is it any good?

turns out it needs 400w, not 450 as I remember it..

Serephucus

That 400W rating is only to account for the €15 "400"W units that explode when you put 300W through them. That setup would draw no more than about 250W under load.

martinsvi

in that case I'll go with my old PSU, it's 400w... how do I check if it's compatible with the mother board? Is it just the pin count? I vaguely remember something about different polarities and some wires being 3.3v not 5v, and so on... ? Google leads me to the same guys recommending 750W for clocking so, I rather ask here then..

also opinions on my current graphics card are more than welcomed (see 2 posts above)

Serephucus

Can you post the model/specs of your current PSU, just in case?

martinsvi

it's ACC, label says MODEL: 400W P4+PFC.
AC Input: 220V 50Hz 5A
DC Output: +5V -5V +12V -12V +3.3V +5VSB
and the current is 37, 0.5, 18, 0.8, 26 and 2 Amps accordingly

what I realized already is that it only has 2 SATA connectors, I need minimum 4.. I understand there are converting cables available but they're coming at 10 eur per cable.. with that kind of price tag might as well go with a new PSU

speaking of cables - are motherboards nowadays shipped with SATA Data cables or they have to be bought separately? I think "back in my day" you had to buy IDE's separately