With my GPU gone I don't really have a use for my desktop PC at all right now. I have an Alienware 15 R2 with 970M that I use at the moment. It can do pretty much whatever I need it to. There are a few games I want that might do better with a better GPU, like Mass Effect Andromeda in a few months, but otherwise the 970m is serving me well.
I am considering just parting out the rest of my build, and just buying a Alienware Graphics Amp and a GPU. We're going to be moving into a smaller apartment this year so I'm putting off a new build until I can see what kind of space limitations I'm working with.
I do want to have a desktop PC at some point--I enjoy building PCs and I like the aesthetics of PCs. I also want another PC aside from the laptop since my wife uses Photoshop and Premiere pretty regularly so it would be more convenient for us to have 2 computers to work with.
With all of that in consideration, do you think it is worth holding onto the parts I have now, and just upgrading a few things like in this part list:
I would likely upgrade the PSU and get a new GPU first. Then change out the RAM and other things later on. I should also note, I'm not set on any of the parts.
Or should I go ahead and part it out and start from scratch once Ryzen is out?
I mean, it largely depends on how much you can get for your current parts, and how tight you are for money, but I really think you would probably be better off keeping everything and just upgrading a couple things. I also don't get why you want to upgrade your PSU. 800W is more than enough for any single videocard. Corsair makes high quality PSUs as well, should last a very long time. I would get a new videocard and then slap on more Ram.
Yeah, upgrading to Ryzen seems cool, but like, for gaming its not like CPUs make a huge difference unless you're streaming. So its not really necessary, you could wait until the 2nd generation of Ryzen or whenever either Intel or AMD is able to get a 7nm cpu to the mainstream desktop market. You have to imagine its going to be a long ass time after 7nm before they shrink down the process any more significantly, probably super stale desktop CPU market after that.
The problem with the PSU is that there are a FUCKTON of cables! Like, I just have all of these unused PCI, molex and sata cables jammed under the shroud in my 400C. I'd much rather be able to use that space for HDDs or something else. I want a fully modular PSU so I can keep a better handle on cable management. Also, the PSU gets really loud while gaming, so on top of the GPU fans, the PSU fan spins up. My plan is to keep the PSU for my home server/nas as that will be tucked away somewhere that sound and appearnace don't matter.
If I get a RX480 or GTX1070 I'll be fine with a 650W PSU, and I've heard great things about Seasonic Prime PSUs being really quiet.