Noob question - buy or upgrade?

P

ParrotHead

New Member
Hello,
Foolish noob question here from an old guy needing help:

I need to upgrade our family computer that has one foot in the grave currently.
(XP/E7300 – 2.66GHz/2GB RAM)
We use if for everyday family activities. My son and I both use if for gaming also.

I have a budget of about $500.

Foolish question:
1. Buy new something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/CyberpowerPC-Gamer-Ultra-GUA880-D...

OR

2.
Upgrade my current cabinet with:
i3-3220
Asus P8B75-M/CSM Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
8GB (2 x 4GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR3 – 1600
Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Windows 7 64 bit

*I would use my existing 500W PSU and GTS450 GPU for the time being.

Which option will give me the better performance? I can do either for about the same amount of money.

Thank you!
 
you link is no good, I like your upgraded one though. I don't know about the PSU cuz that's not something I'm knowledgeable on but the system will hold up very well in my opinion as long as it doesn't get bogged down on the processor and video :). Put up a good link and I'll be able to tell yah :P
 
The CyberPower has a GT 610, which is a slooooooooooooooooooow GPU.
Quite frankly, if your PSU is good quality (be wary, if the PSU blows, your entire system might blow) I would go with the i3 option.
The i3 is also much more powerful than the FX-4100 as far as I know, which would serve you well, should you upgrade PSU and GPU in the future.
 
Yeah the GT 450 > 610 in that so that option is moot.

I'd say do the upgrade route you have, although if I were you I'd save a bit more and just start from the ground up (maybe keep your GPU for now until you can save more for a better one if you desire).
 
I was going to use the card I have now regardless of whether or not I upgrade or buy a new system.
I was more concerned about the processor performance difference and the RAM quality.
 
The i3 and the motherboard is better.
Can't seem to load the page, and I don't remember which RAM or mobo the CyberPower used, but talking from experience, it's most likely crap.
ASUS motherboards = good
Corsair RAM = always good
Intel CPU = always good, not always good price/performance
(Speaking for newish technology, not ancient stuff, wasn't born then :D)
 
Jiniix said:
The i3 and the motherboard is better.
Can't seem to load the page, and I don't remember which RAM or mobo the CyberPower used, but talking from experience, it's most likely crap.
ASUS motherboards = good
Corsair RAM = always good
Intel CPU = always good, not always good price/performance
(Speaking for newish technology, not ancient stuff, wasn't born then :D)
Click to expand...

OK thanks that's what I figured.
The Cyberpower uses a AMD FX4100 but doesn't state what mobo or what type of RAM.

As a separate question, is the AMD FX6300 superior or about as equal to the i3-3220 for mid level gaming?
 
I'd take an FX 6300 over the 3220 but not sure if actual benchmarks would back that up. I kind of imagine so but I'm running on a small amount of AMD bias due to liking their products in the past. :)
 
Really, just put a GTX 660 or HD 7850 in the i3 rig, and you will have a pretty good system. Cyberpower sucks and is overpriced, plus you don't need a new rig.
 
I always consider that when you're starting a new PC you can sell the old one! :P So if you look at it this way, perhaps you have enough to build a new rig eh? Sell ur PC for about $250+ (idk for sure) and then you have $750 for a damn good rig! :)
 
Jiniix said:
Personally I would take an FX-6300 over the i3, but for gaming, I think the i3 still wins.
Click to expand...

The I3 only wins in single threaded application performance, the FX6300 owns it in many other aspects.

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i3-3220-vs-AMD-FX-6300

I would take the FX 6300, if I didn't already have an I5 3570K. I debated on an I3 build before I settled on my current rig, but overall happy I waited another six months for what I have now. I could be happier though... But couldn't all of us?? :)

Plus the 6300 overclocks better.
 
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The EVGA GTX 660 Superclocked is on sale right now for $199.99 on Newegg, and your 500w PSU will work perfectly with it. Since your budget is $500, you could upgrade to a i5-3570 or i5-3570k. It uses the same slot as your current i3 (LGA 1155), so you should be fine. I believe it is also on sale on Newegg.com right now. You don't need to upgrade your CPU, but it would help boost the speed of your computer. Games like Battlefield 3 and Crysis 3 will not really work well with an i3, but games with graphics below it will do fine. A 7200rpm HDD will work great, but if your running out of space you could add a second one in there if you want. And PCunicorn is right, those top brand custom gaming/computer companies like CyberPower are just overpriced.
 
Currency said:
The I3 only wins in single threaded application performance, the FX6300 owns it in many other aspects.

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i3-3220-vs-AMD-FX-6300

I would take the FX 6300, if I didn't already have an I5 3570K. I debated on an I3 build before I settled on my current rig, but overall happy I waited another six months for what I have now. I could be happier though... But couldn't all of us?? :)

Plus the 6300 overclocks better.
Click to expand...

I agree, the i3 is better for dual core optimized games.
But since he's using a GTS450, I don't assume he's playing new, quad core optimized games.
I would personally pick the 6300 because I do a lot of zipping and unzipping (:D) and because it seems more future proof. Also overclockable, which basically is a must for me. You can't OC the i3, only by a very small amount of MHz.

Edit: If you plan on doing a full upgrade in the future, I would recommend buying something like this:
AMD FX-6300
Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3
Seagate Barracuda 1TB (I prefer these to Blue drives, but Black > Barracuda)
Same RAM and OS.

Then, in the future, I would upgrade to something like a GTX 760 (or perhaps a GTX 750 / GTX 750 Ti if they're out then) and get a new PSU + case.
I don't know which case you have, but considering it's used with a GTS 450, it's (no offense) probably too crappy for an FX-6300/GTX760 combo
 
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I have an Ultra Blaster X mid tower case. There is plenty of room in it.
We don't do hardcore gaming but it might be nice for the 6300 for the future.

If I go up to an i5 instead, will that future proof me for a while at least also?
 
Yeah, but it will cost quite a bit more. FX-6300 is around $120 and the cheapest i5 (the i5-4430) is $190.
The i5 is not overclockable, the FX is. It's really easy to overclock, and it's pretty much free performance.
The i5 is a solid performer though, and definitely not a bad buy. Since it's not overclockable, you can buy a cheap motherboard, since you won't need extreme power delivery and such.
 
OK thanks. I have no plans to overclock...I'm too old for that crap. :D
For some reason even though the i5 is a little bit more I am leaning toward that
for future considerations.
 
If you have no intentions of overclocking, the i5 is a great choice.
I would look at these:
Intel i5-4430: $190
Gigabyte GA-B85M-HD3: 80 | GA-B85-HD3: $90 | GA-H87M-HD3: $95
All three great price/performance, and you save a lot of money on losing the ability to overclock.

That'll be a solid performer for many years and it uses very little power when idling - much less than the i3 and the FX
 
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I would look into getting an hd 7870 instead of the 7850 because it is much more powerful and only a bit more expensive. Definitely stay away from the 660s no matter which one it is (ti, non it, oc, etc...) they cost a lot, have a low memory bandwidth of 192 bits, and offer little performance in comparison to the newer similarly priced nvidia cards and the 7000 series amd cards.
 
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