Old rig update

Potential-Monke

I have a mate who has a relatively old pc which he uses for professional photography editing and video editing. It's a fairly old build by todays standards, and he will be building a custom job at some stage in the future, but for now he's looking to get a bit more oomph, specifically for rendering video - he usually renders in 1080p, but will be working towards 4k.

For now, it's a Dell PC (I know), so mobo upgrades are non-existant. He can upgrade RAM not a bother, and will be, but he's still on an i3 2100, so no good anymore.

It's an LGA 1155 mobo, so does anyone have any recommendations for a CPU (preferably Intel, as they're allegedly better for rendering/editing - but I'm open to correction). His budget is around €250.

Or, would he be better off buying a midi tower, transferring over the parts and getting a new mobo? I haven't been able to check the model myself, and nothing comes up when I gave him the cmd string to get the details. All we know is the current one supports Ivy-Bridge.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: Motherboard is a Dell GDG8Y.

K.O.Kiki

Used i7-3770 might work?

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Intel-Core-i7-3770-3-4GHz-Quad-Core-Socket-LGA-1155-OEM-Processor-CPU-SR0PK-/272288338798?hash=item3f65a6536e:g:kpgAAOSwzJ5XZn~I

i7-3770S - same 65W TDP as his current i3-2100
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Intel-Core-i7-3770S-Quad-Core-CPU-Processor-65W-Socket-1155-up-to-3-90-GHz-/222164366931?hash=item33ba073653:g:r3kAAOSwQSZXPtuO

Comparison:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=749&cmp[]=897

Also SSD(s).

Also also, get him to install Speccy - it can output a URL with his full system specs for you to browse.

TerrorFirmer

2nd gen i5 from 2 or 3 series, SSD, GTX750, comes into budget and will be a massive boost. It's old but completely upgradable to the point that a whole new machine wouldn't be needed.

Or else as above go i7 and SSD, but some programs will make use of a dedicated Nvidia GPU.

Potential-Monke

Ok, I've relayed the messages, and the recommendations of the 2nd/3rd gen i5's etc was said to him. He then asked would it be worth his while buying a few bits and adding to them. We went through what would be needed right now, and he's set on a new mobo, ram, cpu and case. We did a few google searches, and he seems set on an X99 mobo and we found the ASRock X99 Extreme 4, the Intel i7-5820K Extreme Hex Core 3.3ghz, a fairly standard but maybe slightly fancy midi tower (more USB's the better), and a 16gb ram stick.

He stated that he has that to spend right now, and if it would be a painless operation to transfer the rest of his old pc to this new tower, and slowly upgrade it over time. Already has a Asus GTX 750ti, so that doesn't need to be upgraded until the 1080 gets cheaper. According to my more tech savvy friend, it's a fairly painless operation that just requires the download of drivers once swapped over.

I personally think this would be a better option, as he is future proofing a bit, whereas upgrading what he has would be a waste if he intended on building a pc by the end of the year anyway. What do ye reckon? He has a budget of about €800 for this (he was using a personal budget to upgrade the cpu, but can use the business account to half build), and the parts mentioned above come to roughly that, including 16gb DDR4 Ram (I think we were looking at the G-Skill Extreme 4 or something like that).

What say ye learned people? Upgrade what he has, or start with half a new build?

Oh, and he has a 600W PSU, so may need to upgrade that too!

K.O.Kiki

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Ok, I've relayed the messages, and the recommendations of the 2nd/3rd gen i5's etc was said to him. He then asked would it be worth his while buying a few bits and adding to them. We went through what would be needed right now, and he's set on a new mobo, ram, cpu and case. We did a few google searches, and he seems set on an X99 mobo and we found the ASRock X99 Extreme 4, the Intel i7-5820K Extreme Hex Core 3.3ghz, a fairly standard but maybe slightly fancy midi tower (more USB's the better), and a 16gb ram stick.

He stated that he has that to spend right now, and if it would be a painless operation to transfer the rest of his old pc to this new tower, and slowly upgrade it over time. Already has a Asus GTX 750ti, so that doesn't need to be upgraded until the 1080 gets cheaper. According to my more tech savvy friend, it's a fairly painless operation that just requires the download of drivers once swapped over.

I personally think this would be a better option, as he is future proofing a bit, whereas upgrading what he has would be a waste if he intended on building a pc by the end of the year anyway. What do ye reckon? He has a budget of about €800 for this (he was using a personal budget to upgrade the cpu, but can use the business account to half build), and the parts mentioned above come to roughly that, including 16gb DDR4 Ram (I think we were looking at the G-Skill Extreme 4 or something like that).

What say ye learned people? Upgrade what he has, or start with half a new build?

Oh, and he has a 600W PSU, so may need to upgrade that too!

What make/model is the PSU? 600W is more than enough.

i7-5820k doesn't come with a stock cooler, factor that in.
Rest is grand.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor (€394.65 @ Mindfactory)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (€32.20 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: ASRock X99 Extreme4 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard (€207.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Kingston FURY 16GB (1 x 16GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (€63.79 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: BitFenix Nova ATX Mid Tower Case (€34.31 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €732.84
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-07-02 14:17 CEST+0200

K.O.Kiki

Your friend might also like to think of a Xeon processor (e.g. Intel Xeon E5-1620 V3).
Direct comparison

The Xeon has fewer cores & is not overclockable, but it can support >64 Gb RAM, and might potentially be more reliable.

Potential-Monke

Cheers for the info K.O.Kiki, he'll probably go with your recommended ones above. And he'll stick with the i7, ram is not an issue at the moment and 64gb is more than enough for now.

He has just mentioned that he probably has another €200 to add, so what would you recommend he use that on?

K.O.Kiki

Save it for a nice, professional IPS monitor.