Looking for some advice on my current PC on whether to upgrade or simply build a new one. Currently I am having issues with my motherboard as the ethernet port and 3 sata ports have died. I have remedied the issues with an ethernet card and raid PCI cards. The motherboard feels like its on its last legs.
Currently running the following.
Intel 2500k Overclocked to 4.7 Ghz G.SKILL 4 x 2GB DDR3 1600 Biostar TP67B+ LGA1155 Motherboard HD7950 3GB Graphics Card WD 1TB Blue Drive 4 x WD 2TB Green Drive
My question lies with whether or not to upgrade the mobo as it presents a few issues.
At this time lga155 mobo's are few in quantity and I am only finding MicroAtx boards with 2 Ram slots. This will require me buy new ram as this only allows me 4gb with my current hardware(4x2gb). In canada the board and ram will run me with around 140$ with tax.
Now my 2500k is still a great cpu but I have overclocked it to 4.7gHz for the last 2 years on an already 5 year PC.
I really don't like the idea of sinking 150$ into a computer that may not have that much life left.
Your hardware is lookin pretty dated and if you're experiencing issues I'd recommend upgrade the whole system starting w/ mobo & cpu. The next step here is to find out your budget.
Budget isn't really an issue. I game occasionally but, am not too concerned with running everything at high settings. I am still comfortable with the quality I get from my 3gb 7950. I do some video editing but, only for home movies so maybe i3 skylake could be my next step.
I ran an i7-2600K for a while, never really experienced any bottlenecking issues, but since upgrading to the 4790K I've been very happy. If you look around on Amazon, sometimes there are some pretty good deals. I got mine for almost 100 bucks off of new because the seller had put it in a test build once for a day or so. The only foreseeable issue with that particular socket choice is that the PCI express lane availability can be somewhat constricting, for instance my SLI setup only runs in x8 for both cards, vs x16 for a single GPU.
if your system is doing everything you need and want from it fine, their really is no need to upgrade. you can get 2 or 3 or more motherboards of ebay that'll solve your issues way cheaper then replacing the motherboard and cpu.
however if your system just isnt doing it for you anymore then upgrade.
Yeah if your mobo is dying, I wouldn't say get a new old mobo for too much money, I'd get a new CPU/mobo/ram combo.
If you don't want to another computer for 5 years grab a 6600k, its fast and a bit of an upgrade.
If you don't mind the possibility of upgrading sooner(you may not have to, but then again you might) an i3 6300 is super fast too, though not an upgrade at all.
My two cents is that it would be worth it only if a motherboard with the appropriate socket/chipset is available. If that isn't really an option I'd just upgrade to new platform and get some feature updates to boot.
I actually had the same exact issues with my P67 mobo and 2500k, but with a 4.5GHz OC with a very mild voltage bump. I got an affordable mATX mobo with a Z68 chipset and the voltage is out of control - it keeps pumping voltage well above stock settings so I haven't bothered putting much an overclock of fear of frying my chip. Under an AIO 240mm Liquid cooler it's running hotter at 4GHz than my 4.6GHz on air with the P67. Probably something to do with LLC or some crap.
I also got a case upgrade which technically supports mATX, but with a mATX mobo it blocks some fan slots and makes air flow a real pain, and it adversely affects my GPU performance (GTX 760 EVGA ACX SuperClocked) since it's running hotter, louder, and doesn't stay in boost for very long, where in the old rats nest $28 case it would stay in full boost on a near constant basis.
In hind sight, I should have just got a whole new platform, but I didn't want to throw away a perfectly good CPU.
To me, the answer will really depend on what you want the machine to do. A new Haswell, Haswell-E, or Skylake CPU will only get you slightly better performance, but the chipset/platform improvements may be worth it if you plan to take advantage of them soon (PCIe 3.0, DMI 3.0, NVME drives, etc.). If either a modest bump in CPU performance or these platform improvements are important to you, then upgrade. If not, consider sticking with the 2500K. Even for high-end gaming, an overclocked 2500K can keep up pretty well. Since you have indicated that you neither like to live on the bleeding edge of gaming nor do particularly hardware-intensive work, the 2500K and Sandy Bridge should give you at least another couple of years of use. $150 may seem like a lot, but amortized over two or three years, it's not that much. I personally would not want to pay $150 to keep a sluggish system on life support, but $150 to keep a great platform going for another couple of years would be just fine for me. If you can camp out on Ebay for a while, you might be able to snatch up a decent ATX board for considerably less.
I recently upgraded the graphics card in a friend's 2500K system from a GTX 570 to a 970, and the thing keeps up just fine with my Haswell-E system for gaming and basic productivity. It has a lot of life left in it, but I can say that because it does what my friend wants it to do.
