Upgrading My Computer

[byufan4ever]

My gaming PC is 3 years old now and I'm thinking about starting to upgrade it. I've never built a computer or replaced/upgraded a part myself so it's a bit scary for me, lol, but when I bought this rig pre-configured I convinced myself that it would be less expensive overall and I wouldn't have to replace everything at once. Here's what I currently have:

CPU: AMD FX-4100 3.6 GHz Quad-Core AM3 + CPU 4MB L2 Cache + Turbo Core Tech
Mem: 8 GB DDR3 / 1600 Mhz Dual
Mother: CrossFIreX Gigabyte
Video: AMD Radeon HD 7770 1GB
Power: 430W
HD: 1TB SATA-III 6.0 Gb/s
Fan: Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator & Fan

Overall, it runs fine and I usually wait to buy/play games until the GOTY edition comes out and it's on major sale on Steam. However, I also enjoy testing out new games in beta and I'm at the point now where I can't play most of the latest games.

What should I upgrade first? Does it makes sense to upgrade the CPU and motherboard together? Thanks in advance!

[hawkwing]

As someone who has built many computers, I suggest always upgrading mobo and CPU at the same time. You'll save yourself a ton of compatibility issues that way.

After that, I'd suggest a new video card, 16gb ram, and an SSD hard drive.

[hawkwing]

Just stumbled on this today, so I thought I'd share it with you.

http://www.cnet.com/news/how-to-fix-diy ... on-issues/

[hawkwing]

I primarily use http://www.tomshardware.com/ when it comes time to put together PCs. I particularly like their System Builder articles. They often talk about the best components to use when building a value/moderate/ or high end machine and which components are best bang for the buck.

[byufan4ever]

Great Cnet article! And I am aware of tomshardware. I like this GPU hierarchy list that they have (although it hasn't been updated for a few months):

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu ... ,4388.html

I also read PC Gamer. They also have a budget/moderate/high end build guide. This is an article that I've bookmarked:

http://www.pcgamer.com/the-easy-pc-upgr ... de/#page-2

[hawkwing]

Yeah, that's a good GPU hierarchy from Tom's. I just bought the GTX 970 a few weeks ago. It's been awesome.

I enjoyed the PC Gamer upgrade guide too, it's obviously a bit out of date with some of it's suggestions being over a year old but the concepts are right on.

[byufan4ever]

So I posted my exact same OP on another online site that I'm a member of just to get a broad spectrum of advice. What do you think about this response?

Pre-built machines are usually cheaper because they either cut corners or use proprietary (un-upgradable) components or use all in one bundles.

Home builds tend to be expensive because somebody building from the ground up usually isn't wasting their time with cheap junk. I have seen it done, but they just should have gotten a pre-built instead. Waste of time.
If high quality isn't a top concern then go with a pre-built high performance gamer.

Your "upgrade as I go" is common concept, but usually the technology changes too quick to apply.

Home building is cheaper if you're building a high-end machine. Maybe $1500-2000 to home build with the same EXACT machine costing $2500-3000. I'm not talking spec sheets, I'm talking exact components.

Home building doesn't save enough to make building a cheap machine worth while, IMO.

Both quotes are from the same user. He's a pretty well respected poster. He seems to be saying that home building is only valid budget-wise for high-end machines and also that the "upgrade as I go" concept is not valid and everything needs to be upgraded at once. Thoughts?

[hawkwing]

I agree and I disagree.

First, the upgrade as you go philosophy is great, but speaking of my own experience I usually end up pushing my machine well past the point of where I should have upgraded individual parts until essentially the whole thing needs to be upgraded at once. But I don't consider that a terribly bad thing either, because if I consider I'll use $1000 over 5 years to upgrade parts of my computer does it really matter if I do it $200/year or wait until the end of 5 years and do the $1000 all at once? So I agree that the upgrade as you go idea has less merit.

But even with that being said, I have a 3 or 4 year old computer that I'm using right now that I added an SSD drive to last year and just upgraded the video card for, and I have no intention of replacing the mobo and cpu for at least another year.

As for the home building not being valid for budget wise computers I completely disagree. You read a Tom's Hardware budget build article and you can do it for $650 or so, you find a PC that has the exact same hardware in it (it will easily be $1000 or more). You'll never get a decent gaming video card in a budget PC. No matter what level you build to you'll save money, but sometimes the effort of building (even though it's easy) isn't worth the money you save. That's up to you.

[hawkwing]

I'm experiencing the uploading issue too, I think it may be an attachment size issue. I need to further research it.

[Mars]

I need to figure out how to do this. We bought my daughter an old desktop computer for Christmas, but it's starting to lag even watching YouTube. She doesn't play big games, but I do need to upgrade it a bit at some point, and I ain't smart.