Rig Upgrades


Recommended Posts

So back in September of last year I put together my first desktop PC in almost 10 years. At the time I was on a strict budget and made some tactical decisions with the build. Here is what I put together:

Case: Corsair Carbide 200R
Mobo: Asus Z87 Plus LGA 1150
CPU: Intel Core i3 4130
Mem: G.Skill Ripjaw 4Gb 1333Mhz
HDD: 1TB Western Digital
Video: AMD Radeon R7770
PSU: Raidmax RX-735 735W

To put it nicely, it was slower than a snail going through a salt trap. I think this was mostly due to the memory, but I can't say for certain. It is pretty much always at 75% utilization though, which is probably bad! I had decent frame rates in the games I play (WoW, Hearthstone, League of Legends), but the overall feel of the system was laggy and slow. For example, opening IE11 takes over 10 - 20 seconds depending on how soon after logging in I try to open it. Today I ordered a couple of upgrades that should help out a lot:

CPU: Intel Core i5 4670K
Mem: G.Skill Ripjaw X PC2133 16Gb(2x8Gb)

Later this year I'll work on upgrading to a SSD and once the GeForce 800's come out for desktops I'll probably pick up an 870 assuming they stick with the current naming conventions. Any other suggestions or comments?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 For example, opening IE11 takes over 10 - 20 seconds depending on how soon

Thats not right as it is so it might be HDD problem or drivers not updated, did you use the yellow SATA ports for the HDD? And BIOS set to AHCI?

 

 

Mem: G.Skill Ripjaw X PC2133 16Gb(2x8Gb)

Would opt for this kit with better timings and 1.5V

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231625

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thats not right as it is so it might HDD problem or drivers not updated, did you use the yellow SATA ports for the HDD? And BIOS set to AHCI?

I'm pretty sure I checked the BIOS to make sure AHCI was enabled, but not 100% on that. Would that even matter though since it's not an SSD? I used the SATA ports that the motherboard manual suggested for the primary drive, I'll check it when I get home from work later today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That is a weird drive to use for the OS. It looks very slow because I don't think it even reaches 7200RPM. You're also wasting money on memory. Why not buy something like this. And last, why did you order the parts and then ask for opinions?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That is a weird drive to use for the OS. It looks very slow because I don't think it even reaches 7200RPM. You're also wasting money on memory. Why not buy something like this. And last, why did you order the parts and then ask for opinions?

You make a good point about the drive, I didn't really pay attention to that when I bought it. I just bought the cheapest 1TB I could find. I think that is definitely why it's running so slow for me.

 

I disagree with you on the memory though. My motherboard and CPU both support PC2133 memory speeds and there is a significant performance gain over PC1600 and I only spent $35 more. I do a lot of Photoshop/Illustrator and Visual Studio (WP8 development), as well as run Windows Server 2012 in VirtualBox, in addition to the games I mentioned above.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I disagree with you on the memory though. My motherboard and CPU both support PC2133 memory speeds and there is a significant performance gain over PC1600 and I only spent $35 more. I do a lot of Photoshop/Illustrator and Visual Studio (WP8 development), as well as run Windows Server 2012 in VirtualBox, in addition to the games I mentioned above.

Disagree all you want but you'll get 5% (at best) better performance in limited scenarios. There's no noticeable difference in the real world. You've already made some sketchy decisions in the original build with the HDD and PSU, but it's your money and you can do as you please.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Disagree all you want but you'll get 5% (at best) better performance in limited scenarios. There's no noticeable difference in the real world. You've already made some sketchy decisions in the original build with the HDD and PSU, but it's your money and you can do as you please.

Sorry if I came off as argumentative, that wasn't my intention. What's wrong with the PSU?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, biggest problem is that it's too big for your original build and the one you're planing to make (870 GPU included). It would only have made sense if you were aiming for 2 GPUs. Then again I'm not too convinced it could run two $200+ cards since Raidmax ain't exactly known for high quality. My point is, you could have made a better choice than a lot of wattage for a low price.

 

Still, you can live with the PSU, but you need that SSD or a regular 7200RPM HDD because your OS is crippled until then.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, biggest problem is that it's too big for your original build and the one you're planing to make (870 GPU included). It would only have made sense if you were aiming for 2 GPUs. Then again I'm not too convinced it could run two $200+ cards since Raidmax ain't exactly known for high quality. My point is, you could have made a better choice than a lot of wattage for a low price.

 

Still, you can live with the PSU, but you need that SSD or a regular 7200RPM HDD because your OS is crippled until then.

I'm having issues with the power adapter port on my G73 to the point where I'm going to probably have to re-solder or replace it, so I'm going to take the SSD that I put in that and throw it in this machine today.

 

When I bought the original components I had a tight budget, so I tried to do the best I could for the money just to get a functioning machine. The plan all along was to upgrade everything later. I used Newegg's filters to get the best components I could for what I had to spend. The only component I didn't compromise on was the motherboard since that's the central part. Once everything is upgraded I'll have almost enough parts to put together a low end system for my kids or to have as a test computer for Linux or something like that. If I need to get a higher quality PSU, I'll do that.

 

What power range would you recommend for a single GPU setup with the other parts listed? I was under the impression that 700w was midrange, but I guess that's not correct?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I disagree with you on the memory though. My motherboard and CPU both support PC2133 memory speeds and there is a significant performance gain over PC1600 and I only spent $35 more. I do a lot of Photoshop/Illustrator and Visual Studio (WP8 development), as well as run Windows Server 2012 in VirtualBox, in addition to the games I mentioned above.

 

you don't need RAM that fast for the kind of workload you are going to put in that PC; also that's moot when you are using only 4GB for PS, VM's, VS...

 

Sadly even with a dead slow 5400RPM disk IE should be THAT slow, so i guess there's other issues in there. :/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm having issues with the power adapter port on my G73 to the point where I'm going to probably have to re-solder or replace it, so I'm going to take the SSD that I put in that and throw it in this machine today.

 

When I bought the original components I had a tight budget, so I tried to do the best I could for the money just to get a functioning machine. The plan all along was to upgrade everything later. I used Newegg's filters to get the best components I could for what I had to spend. The only component I didn't compromise on was the motherboard since that's the central part. Once everything is upgraded I'll have almost enough parts to put together a low end system for my kids or to have as a test computer for Linux or something like that. If I need to get a higher quality PSU, I'll do that.

 

What power range would you recommend for a single GPU setup with the other parts listed? I was under the impression that 700w was midrange, but I guess that's not correct?

I understand you worked with a tight budget and that is why I'm saying there's no need to go with the more expensive memory.

 

It's kind of hard to say at this point since it's unknown how much power the 870 will use. The 750 Ti, which is a Maxwell card uses a bit over half the power of GCN/Kepler cards of similar performance. With current high-end (780/290X) cards I'd go with 600W at most if the PSU is high quality. Take into account that a system would very rarely run at it's maximum power and that a good PSU can go above the rated wattage if needed.

 

You could use something like this for a general idea of how much power your particular system would require. Don't trust it too much though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Upgrading the memory wont give you much. CPU either. I'm running an old core i5 750 and my pc is not slow. I upgraded from 4GB to 8gb last fall and 4gb was good enough back then and probably still is. Not a bad thing to upgrade the ram as 4gb wont be enough soon with the new consoles but right now you wont see much of a difference. while a core i3 is nothing to write home about most games are gpu bound these days and a better cpu wont give you much more fps.

 

First thing to upgrade is the gpu without any doubt.

 

Also if you want your PC to be ready right after login you'll need to buy a ssd for the os and apps (and keep the 1tb for games and media). An hd will always slow down the entire systen when a lot of IOs are done and right after the login a lot of them are done to load the services and such. On slow drive with lot of background services it can take up to 5 minutes before you get a perfect control of the OS.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sadly even with a dead slow 5400RPM disk IE should be THAT slow, so i guess there's other issues in there. :/

 

i meant "shouldn't". Right now i'm using a i5 with 4GB of RAM and a WD Blue 1TB and it takes like seconds to boot; the machine is fast but it hasn't much installed. As soon as i install heavy apps then the lack of SSD will show; still IE shouln't take long to start, so you must have other issues in your machine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I installed the SSD this afternoon and it's running GREAT! Thanks Luc2k for pointing out the HDD!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.