I've been contemplating building a PC for a while now and today it hit me, why build from scratch?
Today while sitting on my forklift at work (not doing burnouts mind you) I figured I could just re-purpose some bits from my current machine, not a new idea or anything but I never figured that it couldn't apply to me because reasons.
My current machine is comprised of Mobo: ASrockZ75 Pro3 CPU: Intel Core i7 3770 GPU: MSI GTX660 Twin Frozr III (kicking ass even at 1440p on current games!) RAM: 32GB Corsair Vengeance 1600mz PSU: Corsair HX750 3 SSD's and 3 HDD's
I will be upgrading to Mobo: EVGA Z97 FTW (can't quite figure out why the Classified is almost double the price) CPU: Intel Core i7 4790K GPU: GTX 980ti (don't know which one yet but leaning towards EVGA)
As far as I can tell there is nothing wrong with this plan which is a surprise since I came up with it. I checked PC-Parts for power and incompatibility issues and didn't have any. What do ya'll think? Any hidden issues that I may have missed. Also why is there is huge price difference between some GTX 980ti's?
There's nothing wrong with the Upgrade. In fact it's pretty good. but I would say wait till the R9-Fury X card gets released in a week or so. it could be faster than the 980ti.
Cool cool good to hear. Regarding the GPU, isn't the Fury-X a re-brand of the current r9 290 cards? I'm not 100% familiar with AMD tech so any help would be welcome.
Nope. the 390x is the 290x re-brand. Fury X is a whole brand new GPU from AMD. and has HBM & a 4096-Bit Bus. which will be amazing for high resolutions.
If you want me to be more specific. The R9 Fury X is the GTX Titan X Equivalent.
And don't be afraid by the all-in-one water-cooler. there is a air-cooled version.
Ok that I did not know of so I must have misunderstood the articles on the new AMD GPU's. For months I've waited for the new line but when I read the word re-brand I just tossed it aside.
I won't be purchasing for a few weeks so I will wait on the GPU reviews and scores since I believe High Bandwidth Memory is new to GPU's and do want to see how well it fares to conventional models.
One thing I did not mention is that I will be using this machine not just for gaming but for CAD/ Adobe Premier and stuff, as well as UDK4 so how well do "Stream Processors" stack up to Nvidia's Cuda Cores. (I've read a few years ago that Stream Pro. are better for CAD)
I agree with your upgrade path, and definitely no need to rebuild from scratch when you can reuse so many good components still. You won't get any surprises with that configuration, everything should go together well and work provided nothing comes DOA
That's also a viable option I should look into. But the main reason for a new motherboard is because I need more than 2 SATA-6 ports. My current mobo only has 2 SATA-6 ports and 4 SATA-3 ports...all of them in use already. I'm mostly looking for a board with plenty of SATA-6 ports (at least 8, hence the EVGA FTW). But now that you mention it, that 3770 is still a powerhouse, but do you have any recommendations for a Z77 board with at least 8 SATA-6 slots?
Yea after looking around they're all (unsuprisingly) discontinued, so buying a Z77 board may be out of the question if I can't find one to purchase.
A second reason for wanting a new board is because my current mobo isn't recognizing several USB Ports so I figured time to upgrade. However I never considered a PCI expansion so that's good. I can live with that small issue if I can't upgrade mobos since the expansion slot will take care of the shortage of Sata-6.
Now comes the big one however. Originally I was only going to upgrade the GPU to something much more powerful as well as useful for content creation. And that is indeed going the be the first thing I do. I'll make my decision on the GPU whenever reviews and forum threads start coming in, but what I really want to calculate is how much power either a Fury X or 980ti will be sucking up under full load. According to PC-Parts picker with my current configured set up I'll be running around upper 500's watts with the 980ti, but I don't know if that takes into account power being drawn under full load. Also I should now take into consideration how much power the Fury X will draw under full load.
I won't lie, I would replace the mono before getting a new graphics card. If the USB ports are failing, there is s reason. I'd hate for it to be electrical in nature and fry some new parts.
The motherboard hasn't recognized some USB ports for the the best part of a year now and its because there's was a power outage and it must have fried just those ports.
What I'll now probably end up doing is simply swapping out my current ASrock z75 pro3 with a new ASrock z75 pro3 which is still in stock, still awarded, and still being sold for under 90USD on Newegg. It takes care of the worry about a bad board and a PCI card can take care of the lack of Sata-6.
I agree with Deejeta, just buy a gpu unless you want m.2 or are out of sata ports. If you decide to upgrade to a new socket you will not need the classified unless your going to need more than one x16 pcie slot and even then its not crucial. If your a competitive gamer consider keeping your mobo and upgrading your monitor if your below 120hz.
Do you need access to all those 7+ drives at all times? I would not use those syba high point rosewill knock off cards for anything and I dont know a good solution for you off hand that is affordable. Someone chime in :)
If its crucial to have more sata slots then it may make sense to do what you intended with your mobo.
I would consider buying a used intel sata card over a new syba/highpoint/rosewill/vantec etc
To be honest none of the build is crucial but the GPU. As far as storage drives go, 6 max isn't too crazy I think. One SSD for Windows, another for Linux and 1 more for heavy hitter programs like Solid Works. And then 3 HDD's to store everything from those 3 solid states such as pictures, videos, games and school projects.
I do have a combo card reader but the mobo won't read it sometimes. (I have other methods of transferring stuff tho). I think after discussing my options I'd be better off simply buying a GPU First, and then doing everything else. Such as mobo replacement. As far as expansion slots go, it is something I'll think about but I'm OK with paying more for a quality product if it means it will actually work, its just a matter of me researching the right part for this upgrade.
