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Raistline on 14 December 2016
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bdbdbd said:
Raistline said:
I cannot give you an honest suggestion for PC parts until you tell me what your budget is. From there I can give you the best suggestions that will put you as close to you budget as possible.

I can and even suggest a few areas where it would be advisable to upgrade if you can increase your budget by X dollars. For example if your budget puts you at a GTX 1050 range, I would also suggest that if you spen $30 more you could a GTX 1060 or ATI 480 and get 2x performance increase.

I haven't really thought about the budget. I'm not that into PC's to know which components have high value - and can be expected to be easilly upgraded a couple of years in the future.

When it comes to PC's everything is upgradable honestly. 

The thing to know is that Graphics cards are usally the easiest to upgrade and give you the most performance between upgrades. The downside is that they become obsolete much faster than the rest of the PC. Plan on a 2-3 year upgrade schedule depending on how much you intially pay into it.

 

  • Low end price: 150-250
  • Mid Price:         250-400
  • Hi-end Price:    400+

 

CPU's can be upgraded but often have to be upgraded at the same time as the motherboard as architectures change. The reason behind this is that CPU upgrades are often not worth it unless you buy a really cheap chip with plans to buy a higher end version when you have the money. If you buy at least a mid-grade chip it will last you 5 years before it becoes obsolete. 

  • Low end price: CPU: 70-150     Mobo: 50-125
  • Mid Price:         CPU: 150-400   Mobo: 125-200
  • Hi-end Price:    CPU: 400+         Mobo: 200+        

Right now the Memory sweet spot is 16GB but if you are buying now i'd suggest 32GB. Memory is tied for the second longest lasting part in your PC and can last long enough that you can use it with two sets of CPU/Motherboard upgrades. I personally used the same set of DD3 sticks (8GB) for nearly 6 years and with two differnt motherboard/cpu compbos. 

  • Low end price: 16GB: 45-75
  • Mid Price:         16GB: 75-125
  • Hi-end Price:    16GB: 125+

The part that is tied with the Memory for longest lasting part is your system storage, aka: SSD or HDD. Best suggstion here is a 512GB SSD and somewhere between 1-3TB's on an HDD. This combo will easily last you years and years. Just make sure you also buy hard drive that is at least the same total size as your SSD and HDD so that you have one for backups. Unless you are running programs like Photoshop all day long you should just stick to decen non-performance based drives. It is a waste of money otherwise.

  • Non-performance SSD Price: 256GB: 125-150
  • Non-performance HDD Price: 1TB: 75-125

Finally the longest lasting part for you PC would your Power Supply. Buy a good 650W Silver or higher 80 PLUS rating power supply and it will outlast every other part in your system. Never go cheap on your PSU, if you do and have a failure it can fry the rest of your PC. Go with a strong name brand and 80 PLUS  silver as a minimum.

  • 650W 80 PLUS Silver price: 90-125
  • 650W 80PLUS Gold price: 115-200
All prices are US Internet retail pricing.