Upgrade Time. €500-600

Recurve360

I donated my old fx6300 and 970a to my nephews gaming rig so im looking around for upgrades.

Budgets about 500 but could stretch to 600 if needed. Looking for a CPU, Mobo and some extra storage.

Heres what I already have:
Corsair 300r case or modded Lian Li Blue Ring(not sure of which to use)
Corsair CX600
CoolerMaster 212 Evo
6 BeQuiet SilentWings Fans
Seagate Barracuda 2Tb
Seagate Barracuda 1TB
Kingston v300 120GB SSD
Blu Ray Drive
Nzxt Sentry 2
16GB Crucial Ballistix
MSI Gamers GTX 660(Will be replacing this seperately after the r9 series comes out, was thinking either a 390x or a 980ti)

I also wont be overclocking so am I better off just getting an Xeon and what kind of board should I mix it with? Was thoinking of getting another SSd maybe a 250GB one? And also another 2TB drive as im running low on storage space.

Suggestions welcome. And also which case to use my new build in. Iv a red black theme and have braided all my PSU cables red. Both cases are fitted with LEd light strips and and primarily black.

Digital Solitude

Might as well jump a Xeon 1231v3 if you won't over clock
Don't need an exceptional board for single cards, ASRock Pro4 is my normal recommendation
Crucial Ballistix Sport ram is 55 for 8gb
Crucial BX100 250,GB is about 87 for an SSD

Whole lot is under 500

TerrorFirmer

Or else just get a normal i5, why the Xeon? If you're just gaming there's not going to be any different between a regular i5 and the Xeon/i7. An i5-4460 or similar is a massive upgrade to an Fx6300.

Recurve360

Digital Solitude wrote: »

ASRock Pro4 is my normal recommendation

Is the Pro 4 a H81, B85, H97 or Z87/97?
Already got 16GBs of Crucial Ram so im good on that front but ill swap that out for another 2TB Barracuda

Digital Solitude

Copped that after. H97

Recurve360

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Or else just get a normal i5, why the Xeon? If you're just gaming there's not going to be any different between a regular i5 and the Xeon/i7. An i5-4460 or similar is a massive upgrade to an Fx6300.

I meant to say its not only gaming. Will be doing a lot of photo editing/ after effects and maya rendering using mental ray. Basic stuff at the minute but its what i do in college so it will be getting more complex.

Should I get a 980 or even just SLI my GTX 660? Im not a massive gamer, once I can play at decent settings im happy. I only game at 1080p

Digital Solitude

970 is probably loads then, or a 290.

TerrorFirmer

Ah, in that case then yes, the Xeon is an excellent choice.

Card wise, no. The GTX980 has a massive premium for a less-than-massive performance increase over the GTX970.

The GTX660 is pretty good in Sli but I think for the pain in the ass dual cards can be at times, with certain games not supporting them, others having issues, and so on, it's just best to avoid such a setup.

A GTX960 or R9 280X are about 230ish and are a big improvement on the GTX660, but for a real upgrade if you have the cash the best options are a GTX970 at 330-350 or R9 290 at about 300, or just wait for newer cards.

Recurve360

Thanks Guys,
I think ill go with the 970 so. Its a bit of a stretch but ill try offload my old card in the next week or so before ordering. Ill be away for a week so cant order until then.

So its looking like the:
Xeon 1231 v3
AsRock h97 Pro 4 or the Fatality H97 Performance (PC has a black/red theme and was thinking of paying a little more for MOBO with black/red theme? Bout 15 quid in the difference,am I crazy??
Crucial SSD 250GB BX100
Seagate 2TB Barracuda

And this in a month or 2:
Gigabyte GTX 970 Windforce Edition

Coming out at €511 without the GFX card using Geizhals.


Do asrock boards support running hackintosh or is it only Gigabyte? I was curious of dual booting but its not an issue if they dont.

Then all I have to do is decide which case to build inside. Thanks for all the help lads.

Digital Solitude

Crazy over €15 quid? Yeah mate you're mental Don't know about the hackintosh, google is your friend there but I don't see any reason an ASRock wouldn't run one