Some upgrades

[Blabagas]

Looking to upgrade some parts in my pc. The use is primarily for uni work - mainly adobe programs such as photoshop, illustrator, after effects etc. I do game as well however not very much anymore so I probably won't be looking to upgrade my gpu.

PC Specs -
i3-2120 @ 3.30
GTX 660 OC
Asrock H71M-DGS Motherboard
Corsair CX600M PSU
1x8GB Ram - I also have 2 old 2GB sticks not in.


By budget is $1000 nzd. My first priority is a case, SSD and screen. I know the case is personal preference so allow $100 for that, and for SSD I was thinking the 850 EVO which will cost me $150.

That leaves $750 for the monitor and additional parts. For the monitor I just need good colour and probably 1080p because I assume my gpu cant handle higher res.

What else would you suggest upgrading?

 

[S0ULphIRE]

To be honest, the cpu you have is pretty poor and the motherboard won't support anything beyond a 3rd gen intel either.

The SSD upgrade is definitely a great idea (good choice with the 850 evo too) but you'll still be heavily bottlenecked by that cpu/ram combo when trying to use Adobe After Effects or similar.
Also worth mentioning htat even if we only upgraded the ram, you'd be stuck with older variant DDR3 style sticks, meaning you couldn't use them in a new system if you decided to upgrade the rest of hte parts in another year or so

Any sites you normally use for purchasing pc parts in NZ? I'll take a look around if so

 

[Blabagas]

To be honest, the cpu you have is pretty poor and the motherboard won't support anything beyond a 3rd gen intel either.

The SSD upgrade is definitely a great idea (good choice with the 850 evo too) but you'll still be heavily bottlenecked by that cpu/ram combo when trying to use Adobe After Effects or similar.
Also worth mentioning htat even if we only upgraded the ram, you'd be stuck with older variant DDR3 style sticks, meaning you couldn't use them in a new system if you decided to upgrade the rest of hte parts in another year or so

Any sites you normally use for purchasing pc parts in NZ? I'll take a look around if so

I normally use PriceSpy - Compare prices and do more with your money! which has all the sites in a list. Otherwise I use https://www.ascent.co.nz/ or https://www.mightyape.co.nz/ but if you just find the parts on pricespy I can choose the sites. And yeah I was thinking I may need a new motherboard.

 

[S0ULphIRE]

Hmm seems like that PriceSpy website needs a little update too I searched "i7 6700" and the cheapest result it found was $502. Did a manual search on google and I found a 6700K for $460!

But lets see...

Monitor: 24" 1080p Philips V-line 24 LED LCD Monitor Full HD,DVI / VGA | ComputerStore NZ
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0 GHz, Socket 1151, Skylake-S | ComputerStore NZ
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B150M-D3H Intel B150 Chipset Motherboard LGA1151
Ram: 2x Kingston 8GB RAM 2133MHz DDR4 DIMM
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD 3D V-NAND, | ComputerStore NZ

Total comes to $1,126.48 (with $100 of that for the case).

If you can find a cheaper motherboard then go with that instead, the one I've picked there was just the cheapest in store that supported DDR4 and 1151 socket. Same thing for the monitor - I'm sure if you look around for a special you should be able to score one for $20-30 less than what I've listed there. That'll knock your final price down to less than $100 over your original budget.

And if you'd *really* not like to go over budget, you can swap the i7 6700 for something less powerful like an i5 6600 (which'd save you $100 or so)

 

[PP Mguire]

Even with my beast net I'm not down there so sites are pretty slow. I did find a board replacement that's cheaper.

Asus Intel H110 mATX Motherboard | ComputerStore NZ

 

[Blabagas]

Found this motherboard which is a bit cheaper as well (free shipping too), is it about the same? Not sure what the motherboard needs I was just looking for one with the 1151 socket.
ASUS B150M-A - Motherboard - micro ATX - LGA1151 Socket - B150 - USB 3.0, USB-C - Gigabit LAN - onboard graphics (CPU required) - HD Audio (8-channel) p/n: B150M-A

Edit: Also just checked and the reason those computerstore prices are cheaper is because they exclude GST from the price, so the motherboard that Mguire suggested for example is actually $125

 

[PP Mguire]

Actually that board is better. Hungover me didn't realize that the Asus board only supports DDR3.

 

[Blabagas]

Awesome. Just wondering about installing the OS on the ssd, how that is done and if I would have any problems. My OS came with the machine (HP) so it is OEM, since I bought it I have replaced the motherboard and upgraded to windows 10.

Also what sort of difference does ram speed make? I may hold off on getting new ram right now so I can afford the 6700k. My current ram is ddr3 1600.

Thanks for all the help

 

[PP Mguire]

If you get the B150 board you'll need to buy DDR4. Speed doesn't matter, so the cheapest is fine.

As for the OS, you can try putting the SSD in the new board and cloning your current install over.

 

[Blabagas]

So DDR3 is not compatible with the board? I may have to downgrade to the i5 6600k, is that a big performance hit?