Upgrade path advice

glic83

Hi all, built my current set up in late 2012/early 2013, pc is as follows,

8GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance Low Profile schwarz PC3-12800U
ASRock B75M-ITX, Sockel 1155, ITX
be quiet! PURE POWER CM BQT L8-CM-430W
BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX
BitFenix Spectre PRO 230mm Lüfter - all black
Intel Core i3-3220 Box, LGA1155
Samsung SSD 830 128GB SATA 6GB's

I also added an Asus 2gb 760 graphics card and rently added a 4tb western digital hard drive.

I started doing a lot of photography in the last 12 months and would mainly use lightroom and Photoshop, which I've found started to become a bit more sluggish over the last few months, I have a 7 to who also likes to play a few games but nothing too intensive that the 760 can handle so far.

What would be my best upgrade route for the above applications and light gaming. Should I just try upgrading the CPU to an i5/i7 or should I really be looking at a new platform, if moving to a new platform, I'd be looking to keep anything I could from the current rig (760 should be ok for the moment) as I doubt I'd get much for it if I was to sell. Ideally I'd like keep the budget below 500 but can stretch if required depending on the suggestions.

Cheers

TerrorFirmer

Just get an i7. €140 or so and still a very good CPU.

More RAM also maybe, could pick up more cheap on Adverts or similar.

glic83

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Just get an i7. €140 or so and still a very good CPU.

More RAM also maybe, could pick up more cheap on Adverts or similar.

There is only 2 ram slots on the mobo so any ram would need to be 2x8gb and remove the current 2x4gb.

K.O.Kiki

Get a bigger & newer SSD if you can, too.

glic83

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Get a bigger & newer SSD if you can, too.

Yeah would probably get a 256gb SSD , kinda toying with the idea of just upgrading altogether to either a Ryzen 2600 or a core i5 8400, would cover me for a while then.

Xenoronin

It probably isn't worth the expense to dump and rebuild. Unless you need the ports (usb c and usb 3.1) then hold out a little longer. I doubt you are running into RAM issues with 8gb on Photoshop and Lightroom. Keep the task manager open and see how much RAM you have free while you work. If it seems to be bumping into the limit, upgrade to 16gb.

I also doubt that SSD is in need of an upgrade tbh. Having more space is nice, but as an OS drive, it should still be fine. Pretty sure I'm using one at home. Adding an additional 500gb SSD as another storage option is a good idea though.

Just upgrade the CPU to the one TerrorFirmer mentioned. You'd be surprised how much life that can breathe into the PC. I upgraded from the i5 3570K to the i7 3770K and it was a nice upgrade. It allowed me to multi-task quite effectively (gaming and running a media server which the i5 complained about). The jump from the i3 to the i7 should be very noticeable.

Xenoronin

Do some spring cleaning too. Install CCleaner, uninstall programs you no longer use. Disable some rubbish that loads on startup. Run the Registry cleaner and disk cleaner.

glic83

Just to update, managed to get a good deal on a i7 3770(85 delivered) so happy out, should last me another while yet