Upgrade Motherboard & Ram

Nedved85

Hi all,

I have a long term upgrade plan in mind for my PC.

Key specs are here:

Processor Intel i7 975 Extreme
Graphics Card EVGA GTX 980ti
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 X58
Ram Corsair XMS3 1600MHz 12GB
Power Supply Zalman PSU 850W
HDD's Samsung 512GB SSD | Seagate Baracuda 1.5TB

At the moment I am looking to upgrade my Motherboard and Ram.

I am contemplating getting an HTC Vive down the line so I need a few USB 3.0 ports it seems. So I'm commencing with the MB upgrade

Budget would be about €200 ish, bang for buck would be good! Cheaper the better

Beyond this, I intend to upgrade the processor later this year, Maybe the 6700k or it's successor when it's released, but that is for another day.

Any suggestions for this? Anything I should know before I go make a purchase?

I have been looking at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B015E3M2H6/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=170O1TI60KKCX&coliid=IKZ4BB04T2YPL

Would these new style processors be compatible with my current i7 975 extreme processor? (Its about 5 years old )

Cheers!

Digital Solitude

Nope, your CPU won't fit into the board.

For about €300 you can get a Skylake i5 with a new board and 8gb DDR4 RAM which would sort you for another few years, for €200 you'd be looking at an i3 which wouldn't be a great upgrade IMO

Nedved85

Ouch, So I will have to upgrade the CPU, motherboard & RAM all at the same time.

I've my heart set on the 6700k or its successor for the processor anyways.

I'll still budget about €200 ish for the motherboard + RAM, can stretch a bit higher if it makes sense :cool:

Digital Solitude

Well the 6700k is about €340, a cooler is about €50, 8gb RAM is about €40 and a cheap Z170 board (so you can overclock) is about €70-80 so you're looking at about €500 for the total upgrade.

Do you think there's point in buying a new board for your i7 if you'll be upgrading soon? There's no point buying a Z170 now and running down the warranty while it sits on a shelf

Is the i7 necessary? Its not really for gaming or vr etc

TerrorFirmer

Z170, 8Gb DDR4. About €170 for decent of both. 6700K is about €350 though.

The i7-965 if still pretty OK, especially if overclocked to a decent level. I had an equivalent Xeon from 2009 recently that was 3.06Ghz (so bit slower and can't be overclocked either) and it handled Fallout 4 very well - the same or better than a Skylake i3, which is no slouch.

But selling it, the board and ram should net you back about €180 realistically and to be honest with a 980Ti you would see a huge improvement in minimum and average framerates with a Skylake i7. I have the 6700K myself.

Nedved85

Cheers lads,

The reason I want to go for the i7 6700k or its successor is length of life without having to upgrade.

I have had the i7 975 for 5/6 years now and its still flying along.

I'm going to go with the same mindset for this upgrade I think.

Ye are right though, no point having a shiny new MB and RAM sitting in a box waiting for a CPU.

Is 8GB DDR4 really enough these days? I was hoping to get 16GB, I am willing to stretch the €€ to make that happen.

€180 by selling on adverts should be doable hopefully!

TerrorFirmer

It's enough for now and will be for some time. I was trying to cut corners on my build as well - I was able to sell my old Haswell PC for the same amount it cost for my new build - and I settled for 8GB to keep costs down.

It's pretty much the easiest part in the entire PC to upgrade at a later date, in any case. Every ATX Z170 will have four banks, so a kit of 2x4GB is fine.

You're not wrong with the thinking really; if you had bought a socket 1156 i5 in 2009/2010, it would be significantly slower than the i7-965 today.

I have my 6700K at 4.4Ghz but there really is no reason at the moment from a practical point of view, but if you plan holding onto it for the next five years it will come in handy to keep you on top of the latest games. Plus, the i7 is faster than the i5 in some games now, and will continue to do so in an increasing number of titles most likely. This would not be an issue to the majority of people - but the majority of people don't have 980Ti's to get the benefit of CPU horsepower.

It's an amazing testament to how good Intel's architecture has been since the i-series, that a first gen i7 CPU from 2009 can keep pace pretty well almost 8 years later.

AMD CPU's from 3 years ago can barely keep pace as well.

Nedved85

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

It's enough for now and will be for some time. I was trying to cut corners on my build as well - I was able to sell my old Haswell PC for the same amount it cost for my new build - and I settled for 8GB to keep costs down.

It's pretty much the easiest part in the entire PC to upgrade at a later date, in any case. Every ATX Z170 will have four banks, so a kit of 2x4GB is fine.

You're not wrong with the thinking really; if you had bought a socket 1156 i5 in 2009/2010, it would be significantly slower than the i7-965 today.

I have my 6700K at 4.4Ghz but there really is no reason at the moment from a practical point of view, but if you plan holding onto it for the next five years it will come in handy to keep you on top of the latest games. Plus, the i7 is faster than the i5 in some games now, and will continue to do so in an increasing number of titles most likely. This would not be an issue to the majority of people - but the majority of people don't have 980Ti's to get the benefit of CPU horsepower.

It's an amazing testament to how good Intel's architecture has been since the i-series, that a first gen i7 CPU from 2009 can keep pace pretty well almost 8 years later.

AMD CPU's from 3 years ago can barely keep pace as well.

Well summed up I think,

Its actually a i7 975,you may have misread that above? Bought it second hand from some guy in Dell at a steal of a price at the time!

Amazon and Overclockers are the best places to buy? Poor old hardwareeversand seem to have disappeared!

grindle

If buying more than €300-350 worth of innards, mindfactory.de.
If buying components one at a time or you don't mind paying 10-15% extra for exceptional customer service (unless you snag a deal), Amazon.

Edit- >HWVS= scum.

Nedved85

Hi guys - Sorry to bring up my old thread. Anyways it looks like it's buying time for the motherboard and cpu. Looks like I am going to go with amazon for the motherboard as I have a 10 pound voucher and 30 pound gift card to spend.

For the motherboard I'm veering towards the ASRock Z170 Extreme4

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASRock-Z170-Extreme4-Skylake-Motherboard/dp/B012D7HBTA/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1468364988&sr=1-1&keywords=z170+motherboard

Seems to have a decent set of specs and a good few USB ports which is a must I think.

Any reason not to go for this motherboard? Any other recommendations?

I don't mind spending a little more really if it's worth the extra cash.

I would LOVE to get the Z170 Sabertooth but that's purely from an aesthetics point of view!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Lga1151-Z170-Sabertooth-Motherboard/dp/B01BBWYYH0/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1468365699&sr=1-1&keywords=z170+sabertooth

For the cpu I'm torn between the 6600k and 6700k - I understand that games wise at the moment you can't really justify a 6700k over a 6600k, but I went all out years agon on my i7 975 extreme and it served me well, hence my slight preference to go all out again and get the 6700k.

:cool:

K.O.Kiki

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-intel-skylake-core-i7-6700k-review

The i7 only is a benefit in a few select multi-threaded games.

IMHO get the i5-6600k and spend the extra budget on more + faster RAM (DDR4-2400 minimum) & a good cooler.

Alternatively, get an i7-6700 (non-K), or consider a Xeon platform.

Nedved85

Cheers - RAM is on the way - bought 16GB 3200MHz Corsair Dominator - 90 delivered from amazon which is pretty good value:

https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0143UM4TC/ref=pe_386201_140981381_TE_dp_1

Cooler sourced too http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835214065

The price difference between the 6600k and 6700k is about 80 going by whats available on Amazon (eu stores).

The motherboard is my main concern though as I don't really know too much about them and want to make sure I'm getting a decent one.

TerrorFirmer

Seeing as you probably plan having it as long as your 1st gen i7, I'd go with the i7-6700K for the long run.

Not only can it be overclocked in future, it also has a higher base clocker than the standard i7-6700 non-K.

K.O.Kiki

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-motherboards,3984.html

Seems the Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3 & ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming K4 are cheap, good overclockers

Icyseanfitz

Was in fairly same boat as yourself, had an i7 930 for 5/6 years, spent ages looking for stuff to last me as long
I bought this MSI pro gaming motherboard (https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-z170a-gaming-pro-carbon-intel-z170-socket-1151-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-317-ms.html?campaign=affiliate/tag) with an i7 6700k, read a few reviews and articles that put it up with more expensive stuff

Venom

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

Was in fairly same boat as yourself, had an i7 930 for 5/6 years, spent ages looking for stuff to last me as long
I bought this MSI pro gaming motherboard (https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-z170a-gaming-pro-carbon-intel-z170-socket-1151-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-317-ms.html?campaign=affiliate/tag) with an i7 6700k, read a few reviews and articles that put it up with more expensive stuff

Was looking at the board myself for when I pull the plug on my current system but I have a soft board for Gigabyte mobo and saw this

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/gigabyte-ga-z170x-ultra-gaming-intel-z170-socket-1151-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-54c-gi.html

Nedved85

FYI If you do buy that motherboard there is free steam credit from Gigabyte:

http://g1.gigabyte.eu/uk-steampromo-ug.aspx

Nedved85

OK Lads - Thanks for all the replies - I think I am going to go with the
MSI Z170A Pro Carbon and 6700k from Amazon.

I'm hoping if I get it posted to Parcel Motel up North I can qualify to claim back 40 Pounds via https://toptechcashback.com/gb/en/pages/cpumb/qualifying

which would be sweet!

One final question - I am going to need a copy of Windows 10 - The Windows 7 upgrade ends on the 29th but I should be building this around the 23rd I reckon.

Where do ye buy copies of Windows 7/10?

According to Paul's hardware he recommends something like https://www.kinguin.net/catalogsearch/result/index/?q=windows+10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXTqz3Fd28M

Icyseanfitz

yeah i bought mine from g2play for like 17 euro, heard some tale that windows 10 legit copies will be tied to your windows account so im hoping i can just carry it straight over to my new pc with my account, if not il do g2play again.

ps MSI high five

K.O.Kiki

Kinguin, G2Play etc are all pirates.

Except you're giving them money.

Icyseanfitz

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Kinguin, G2Play etc are all pirates.

Except you're giving them money.

i disagree, its a grey market, certain places sell less than legit keys, others dont, and at the end of the day its microsoft! I am not going to lose sleep if they lose a few euros, my god between windows keys and 360 failures ive given that company too much damn money

K.O.Kiki

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

i disagree, its a grey market, certain places sell less than legit keys, others dont, and at the end of the day its microsoft! I am not going to lose sleep if they lose a few euros, my god between windows keys and 360 failures ive given that company too much damn money

Microsoft doesn't sell license keys that cheap. What you're buying is the equivalent of someone buying a multipack of crisps at 80% off, then selling you a single pack at full price.

Icyseanfitz

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Microsoft doesn't sell license keys that cheap. What you're buying is the equivalent of someone buying a multipack of crisps at 80% off, then selling you a single pack at full price.

Again won't lose sleep over Microsoft, have a few of their devices that have windows installed but can't transfer, not going to throw 80euro at a proper retail Windows kit.

Nedved85

So it seems that I may be able to use my Windows 7 retail copy to install that on the new PC:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/can-one-windows-7-license-key-be-used-on-another/40d8255a-1b5f-e011-8dfc-68b599b31bf5?auth=1

I may aswell give that a go

Icyseanfitz

Worth a shot sure