Decided to upgrade

[Bez]

Ok so here's the deal, i was going to see if i could get another six months to a year out of my desktop PC and then have a go at building my own from scratch.

The problem is when i saw the specs for The Witcher 3 i just knew my PC wasn't going to be able to run this game on high settings (or even mid settings).

I've always liked to be able to run all my games at max settings as i think this is the way the games are meant to be played and also makes for a better gaming experience.

I have upgraded bits along the way so I do have a fairly decent setup as it is but as you can see my 5 year old CPU is letting the rest down.
CPU:Intel® Core™ i7-950 3.06 GHz
MOTHERBOARD:GigaByte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX Ultra Durable™3 Mainboard Triple-Channel
Asetek LCLC 240 Liquid Cooling system w/ 240MM Radiator and Dual Fans
MEMORY: 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3
VIDEO: GTX 780Ti 3GB
Agility 4 128GB Solid state drive
HDD:1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MBCache 7200RPM
HDD:1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MBCache 7200RPM
HDD:320GB SATA II
1000 wat power supply

Before i go any further, i don't want to go down the over clocking road with the CPU i have now as I've tried it and even with the water-cooled setup i have the results are not as good as i want plus it is unstable at times.


So i have decided to upgrade my CPU, unfortunately this will mean i will also have to upgrade my Motherboard as well and maybe even my water cooler as I'm not sure if it will fit on the new one but let's stick with the CPU and Motherboard for now.
At the moment i am still looking but the CPU i have my eye on is the......
Intel Core i7-4790K 4.00GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150

Or maybe this bundle with Motherboard

So what do you guys think, do you know of a better setup or a better motherboard to go with this CPU?
I'm trying to keep the cost to around the £400 mark because even though this will give a lot more life span to my PC I still want to build a new one maybe a year to 18 months down the line.
I'm open to any suggestions on the setup but I do like the Devils Canyon Core i7 4790K CPU

[MadManCK]

Looks like a nice bundle to me. Gigabyte does make good stuff too. But sometimes their succes makes them sloppy.
Maybe make a comparison of high end MB and check what features you need or want. ASUS, MSI, Asrock and Gigabyte have the best ones now. Don't let a 20 pound bundle discount cloud your judgement.

You can re-use your Ram, PSU and Videocard. And probably most HDD and SSD as well.
Building a complete PC and doing it carefully will take you approx. 4 hours or so.

Maybe you will need a new socket 1150 mount for your Liquid cooling system. But if it fits on a 1155 it also fits a 1150.

As Corsairs coolers are made by Asetek , this bracket might do the trick.
Just contact them and tell them you have a H50 and want to mount it on a 1150 socket
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/cwch50-brktkit" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Beardroid91]

Sounds interesting Bez, but you have picked a bad time to upgrade, as we don't know how good Intel's next Broadwell and Skylake desktop cpu's will be like

Also heard that Intel Xeon have be proved to beat the consumer I7's, but i'm not compteltly sure about it

But i got a friend with a I7 4790K which he says rocks vs his old cpu, he had a I5 2500K before.

Here is a comparison of the I7 950 and the I7 4790K
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-9 ... e-i7-4790K" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I wouldn't trust Gigabyte for mobo's anymore, i would go Asus or MSI, but thats just me, i know their stuff works well.

But good luck with your upgrade

[Bez]

@MadManCK thanks for that link I will keep that in mind.

@Bear304 I know it sounds like a bad time to upgrade with the new CPU's coming later this year but the way I see it is if I do this small upgrade now it will increase the life span of my PC by at least 12 to 18 months by that time the new CPU's will have dropped in price and maybe even some newer beefed up ones have come out.

So looking at it this way its not so bad to upgrade now.

As for the motherboard, I am still looking (as Madman says I wont be tempted just because of a £25 discount)
And thanks for the link to those comparisons, very interesting.

EDIT:
I would like to get the motherboard from my local PC store but not much choice , what do you think?
http://www.falconcomputers.co.uk/catalo ... -100000208" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Beardroid91]

hmm i think you could just get the bundle from OverclockersUK, i just saw it was a G1 class motherboard, G1 is Gigabyte's top tier, i have a well overclocked Gigabyte graphiccard, i think what i experienced was a isolated issues with support with HD 7950 cards, it was a low ranked card and it was Z87, and this one you looked at is Z97

Plus if they bundle it, then it must work well together, and you have a GTX 780 TI so support should not be an issues

But do check if you can get the parts cheaper, but you get a good 2-3 years out of it, so go ahead

edit:
Remember to get thermal paste when you buy it, you can go wrong with Noctua's NT-H1, even if you get i in on the motherboard it is not nonconductive and transfers heat into the block pretty well

[Prepsi]

The 950 is still a good CPU, will it bottleneck a bit in witcher, maybe yes but it won't be that noticeable. I'd say wait for broadwell myself.

[Bez]

@Bear304 Thanks for looking into that I appreciate you and Mad's knowlage on these things.
Like you say I will probably go with that setup unless I see something cheaper and better.

@Prepsi I know what your saying but these CPU's will be expensive when they first come out and add to this the price of the motherboard and I still think doing a small upgrade now and a full build in 12 to 18 months will be the best option.

[MadManCK]

Yes, go for the Z97 chipset.

Also, check what features you want or think that are important for you. Some MB have a very good onboard sound or network.
There might be a lot of features you will never use or dont need and make a board expensive.

The 4790K is the most epic gaming CPU right now. It is probably a few steppings up from the release version. Always buy a seasoned CPU IMO. This will last for at least 4 years. It outperforms your current CPU by at least 50%. In practice it will be twice as fast in most applications. And it will smoke everything in games.
I was tempted to buy a similar set earlier, but my 2700K OC can still run everything at max.
Biggest issue with OC the 950 is that it is not unlocked, so you have to tweak frequencies and therefore adjust everything on your MB, including bus speeds, ram timing etc. This makes OC unnecessary complicated and can easy cause failures.
New MB have factory OC profiles that are fully optimized and will run stable.

As the Gigabyte MB is from their top tier series it will probably be a good board. There is a good one from ASUS ROG at 139 at your local shop as well.

http://www.falconcomputers.co.uk/asus/r ... 0-atx.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



You can tell them that you can get a combo deal for less than 400 pounds. If they are clever they will give you the same deal.

Good luck with the build.

PS The bracket for the Asetek is only a 10$ part. And that cooler is more than sufficient to cool the 4790K. It has a TDP of 88w vs 130w of the 950. So it can run more silent as well.

[Bez]

I take it you mean this board http://www.falconcomputers.co.uk/asus/r ... 0-atx.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
If so it looks good, will put it on the maybe list.

[MadManCK]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... ubcat=2811" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes, that one. Jut take a look at the description of the features, compared to the Gigabyte Gaming 7 board.

PS I think Bear has a similar one.