[Build Help] After 3 years how's my build holdin' up?
This is my current build
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Rigbone/saved/7CLFf7
Last year my 6870 died and then I bought a 7870 that had issues. When I returned it they gave me an 7950. A couple of months after that, there was an power outage and then my integrated network adapter stopped working? I don't know. I had to buy a PCI network card to replace it. Oh and my power button broke. Other than that, everything remains unchanged. Is there anything I should upgrade to keep my PC up with the times? I'm mainly looking at my CPU and Mobo.
Should I hold off for a year or go ahead and change out some parts?
Posted Aug 8, 2014, 5:22 AM UTC
13
Your CPU is basically ancient in terms of gaming. Are you overclocking it at all?
My best advice for now is to get a Noctua NH-D14/15, install it and overclock as far as you can with that processor. In the future, the noctua NH-D14/15 will have the mounting brackets (it comes with them) to attach to any other system -- And if enough time has passed and sockets have changed, noctua will ship you new brackets for free.
I'd wait with the above-mentioned configuration until Intel's broadwell architecture is released -- Then get yourself an unlocked i5, a new board, and you'll have the means to overclock it stupid high.
For now, the 7950 is the same as the R9 280, so I'd say you're pretty well set in the graphics department. It's just that processor that's holding you back. I wouldn't let go of it just yet. Like I said, overclocking is a great idea with the 1055T, as it's actually got slightly faster IPC than it's FX counterpart and is a TRUE 6-core processor that doesn't share anything but L3 cache between cores.
Out of the box it only used 1 core, but I unlocked all 6 of them. Now, I don't know much about overclocking it at all but I did it a bit using the OC Tuner built in. Got it from 2.8 to 3.1... which isn't a lot but I'm afraid to do anything else because I don't know what I'm doing. I was also thinking of getting a liquid cooling system.
All in one liquid coolers are fairly useless when it comes to high-end overclocking, unless you get something really high-end like the Corsair H110. I've always been a bigger fan of the Noctua NH-D14, the new D15, Bequiet's Dark Rock/Dark Rock Pro series, and other dual-tower heatsinks. The benefits include lower noise (for the noctua and bequiet coolers at least) less points of failure (no pumps, no tubing, it's just a block of metal) and generally better temperatures than nearly all the AIO water coolers, with the exception of the H100i and H110, which are both dual-length 120MM radiators. Corsair's products also come with mounting hardware for all the current sockets -- So you'd still be all set with a new board and processor later on.
Find yourself a guide on how to overclock the processor and from there it's essentially trial and error. Know where your CMOS_RESET jumper is on your motherboard in case you end up with a system that doesn't want to boot. With a high-end cooler there isn't much to be worried about -- AS long as you don't crank the voltage up very high. Anything past 1.5V is where voltages start getting dangerous with the Phenom line.