CPU, Motherboard and Graphic Card upgrade advice

The 2600K is still a strong CPU and not likely to fail outright, so I'd look to spend the money elsewhere unless you have a serious upgrade itch and just can't help yourself.

You've got plenty of RAM and good hard drives unless you are running out of space.

I'd say the graphics card is the weak link in your current components, but I'm not sure how much your current tasks would benefit by upgrading it.

But 800 Canadian if you insist on upgrading should certainly let you fit in a new motherboard, CPU, and video card. It's mostly a matter of whether you can talk yourself out of doing it. I wouldn't think you'd notice a night and day difference in anything if you did go with a new CPU.

I'm in a somewhat similar position with an Intel i5-2500. Right now, I think I'm going to upgrade in the next 6 months to Skylake (new motherboard, CPU, and RAM), but I keep telling myself that it's not really justified from a pure performance improvement standpoint---more because I can afford it and have an itch.

Would you benefit more from a new monitor and possibly video card, and stay with the 2600K and current motherboard?

Is your PSU long in the tooth?

Hi,
Yep you're on the bare minimum for 3d rendering in photo shop at 1gb
I'd also suggest at least 8gb ram.
Board and cpu are primarily up to your budget some pretty good deals on z97 boards around.

illusions said:

If you eventually upgrade in the next 6 months to Skylake (new motherboard, CPU, and RAM). Which motherboard, and ram are you leaning too ? Since skylake does not have stock fan what fan would be good ?

What video card would you suggest ? Thanks

I'm going to use an i5-6600K. The next step up is the 6700K, but it's at least $100 more expensive. The benefit of the extra $100 is hyper-threading and a slightly higher base clock speed--neither of which is worth that extra price for my use situation.

If you intend to overclock, by all accounts the 6600K overclocks as well as the 6700K.

If you aren't going to overclock, there's no point in getting a K series processor.

Motherboard: I have to decide if I want ATX or micro ATX. If ATX, I'd have no qualms about buying the Gigabyte Z170X-UD3. High quality components and Intel NIC, latest Realtek sound chip, supports 2 M2 drives if you might upgrade to M2; Intel 3.1 USB, and not a lot of gaming-related doo-dads that I'd never use.

If I decide on micro ATX, I'd prefer to wait a few more months. There's not many micro ATX Skylake boards out there yet and some of them have components I'm trying to avoid, like a Killer NIC rather than Intel. I'm hoping Asrock will introduce a Z170 micro ATX version of their OC Formula board, but it hasn't happened yet. There was a Z97 version of it for the previous generation of Intel processors, so I'm hoping they will eventually provide a Z170 version.

RAM: I'd try to get 2666 speed at least, as Skylake seems to provide some advantage for higher speed RAM. I'm leaning toward Hyper X or possibly Crucial; 2 sticks of 4 GB each. The Hyper X is under $60 in the US. Stock RAM is 2133 speed, but the higher speeds are not much more expensive.

CPU cooler: depends on whether you want to overclock, the width of your case, and how important low noise levels are to you. And of course, how much you want to spend on that one component.

I've got a very quiet Noctua NH-U12S that I intend to carry over to my new build. It's one of the best single tower air coolers and within a few degrees of the much larger dual tower coolers that I wanted to avoid. My fans are all set to NEVER spin above about 900 rpm, so my PC is effectively silent. Under a severe load, my max CPU temps are in the low 60s--in a warm room (27 ambient).

If you have a relatively narrow case, you have to be careful and not get a tallish cooler. The Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo is the standard recommendation for an overclocking cooler if you don't want to spend much. If you aren't going to overclock at all, there are undoubtedly some acceptable cheap coolers for even less money than the Coolermaster, but I haven't researched them.

If you have a narrow case and still want to overclock to moderate levels, there are a few good low profile coolers, such as the Scythe Big Shuriken 2 revision B and the Noctua NH-L12.

Some people are obsessed with temperatures, but I don't really care if my CPU temps are 55 under load rather than 60. I'm not trying to set overclocking records.

If I were buying tomorrow, I'd get the 6600k, a Gigabyte Z170X-UD3 full ATX motherboard, and 8 GB (2 x 4) of HyperX DDR4 RAM, 2666 speed. It's just a matter of how long I want to hold out for a possible micro ATX board.

I'll leave the video card suggestions to someone else. I don't game and am perfectly happy with the integrated video on Intel CPUs.

Yep Cooler master hyper 212 evo is what I got and hovering at 38c with 2-4 pin PWM Enermax UCTB12P fans on it and they only spin at 6-700rpms so they are silent and set to smart fan in bios so mobo will adjust automatically.

@ illusions:

I wouldn't bother upgrading anything but the GPU right now and adding some more RAM. You have a perfectly serviceable system and unless you have a serious upgrade itch, like Thrash said, there is no point in blowing the money until the new Skylake CPUs and DDR4 RAM come down in price.

If you want to stay with a Radeon video card, which in my opinion would be fine, since you aren't gaming, you could get a reasonably good card for around $220.00 CDN. Here is an example:

XFX Radeon R7 370 995MHZ 4GB Dual Dissipation GDDR5 HDMI 2XDVI PCI-EXPRESS 3.0 Video Card - R7-370P-F24M

If you'd like to get more card for the same money, the older R9 200 series is being replaced by the 300 series, and high performance 200 series cards are going for lower prices right now. Something in the R9 280 series would be suitable for your requirements and it won't break the bank.

I've had great luck with XFX and Sapphire video cards. I have an XFX R9 280 myself, and I can play any game at max settings with an acceptable frame rate. That doesn't matter for your use, but it means that it can handle any graphics intensive application with relative ease, and it was only about $279 CDN with shipping and GST in.

The reason I'm not suggesting Nvidia cards is that they tend to be a little more expensive, and I don't know enough about them to comment. I'm sure one of the Nvidia users here can suggest a suitable card for your use. Since you aren't gaming, there is no need for an ultra performance card. Something in the $200 to $300 range should do nicely for video work and graphics intensive stuff, from either brand.

Save all that leftover cash to put toward a Skylake system when the prices come down a bit. :)

Agreed, the 2600K is an awesome cpu, Sandy Bridges just might be the best cpu ever made by Intel, only thing I would suggest is getting faster memory if your motherboard supports it, and definetly a new 980 or 980 Ti

Dominator® Platinum Series — 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3 DRAM 2400MHz C10 Memory Kit (CMD32GX3M4A2400C10)

EVGA - Products - Graphics - GeForce 900 Series Family - GTX 980 Ti

and possibly your power supply.

EVGA - Products - EVGA SuperNOVA 850 P2 Power Supply - 220-P2-0850-X1

or

EVGA - Products - EVGA SuperNOVA 850 G2 Power Supply - 220-G2-0850-XR