General Upgrade Help

Wow, that would be an enormous help. I would love that. I’d prefer to keep the build around $800. But if there is a compelling reason to splurge a little more I could see waiting a little longer if it would be worth it.

I do have some parts already and I will list them. Perhaps we can save some money on the build. If you need specifics of these parts I would be happy to open up the case and get them for you.

I currently have:
140mm closed loop water cooler
Noctua 140mm case fan
2x4GB generic Kingston Ram
GTX 760 Reference Card (Would this be useful for a dedicated card for a VM? )
Silverstone 450W SFX Form Factor 80 Plus Gold Power Supply

Virtualbox doesnt really do passthrough. At least last time I looked into it, the support was very buggy and basically not usable other than testing.

I will put something together in a little while for you to think about. I dont think you need to spend $800 if that GTX760 is still doing ok for you. If you want to upgrade the GPU it will probably be closer to the $800 mark.

What kind of storage do you have?

I just realized your current build is SFF… do you want to reuse the case? if so what case is it so I can find clearances.

I have a feeling that reusing the case will cause some larger restrictions in the future due to its small size. What would you suggest? My current case is: https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=333

I also forgot to include in my parts list that I own an intel SSD 250GB

ITX is pretty commonplace and SFF isnt that big of a deal if you want to go that route. I have no problems if you want to reuse that case. Cases are kind of a weird personal preference thing. I’m not the one who has to build it so its totally your call. My recommendation is to use a newer more modern case but theres no reason we couldnt design the system around this one.

Realistically I cant reuse your AIO unless you went intel again because it wont have mounting hardware for the AMD socket, so that limits cooling design. I would recommend air anyway because I think we can get it done with todays modern air coolers and lower power AMD chips. I’m favoring AMD here because their new 7nm process combined with the advances on the zen architecture means they are without a doubt the performance per dollar king. Going intel here, especially for a budget build, simply doesnt make much sense IMO.

I’ll add in a GPU to the build too and you can decide for yourself if you want that or if your current one is good enough for now. Its simple enough to swap out a GPU down the road.

I’m not all that attached to my case as long as I can get more value for my dollar. I am tempted to get a different one. Perhaps a more quiet one? I agree with you, AMD seems the way to go. I would like to get a GPU that would have better compatibility with Linux as well. Is there a motherboard that would allow me to use both my old video card and a new one (for passthrough)?

I dont know much about the passthrough options on any current board offerings because it seems to change depending on bios.

Heres what I think would be a good option

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Qh88Mc

You could go for an AMD card for linux use but I cant say I would get a 580 in this day and age and the 5700 is quite a bit more expensive. The nvidia driver install is pretty painless on ubuntu but it can cause pains depending on some situations. The AMD route is built into the kernel but for the newer cards its not available in the older kernels ubuntu uses so IMO an nvidia card makes more sense anyway. You can feel free to ignore that and spend more for the arguable better bang for buck AMD card as well.

Understood. I am currently using a 250gb intel ssd

Thank you for helping me pick out those parts. This is a huge help.