Upgrading My Computer

My gaming PC is 3 years old now and I'm thinking about starting to upgrade it. I've never built a computer or replaced/upgraded a part myself so it's a bit scary for me, lol, but when I bought this rig pre-configured I convinced myself that it would be less expensive overall and I wouldn't have to replace everything at once. Here's what I currently have:



CPU: AMD FX-4100 3.6 GHz Quad-Core AM3 + CPU 4MB L2 Cache + Turbo Core Tech

Mem: 8 GB DDR3 / 1600 Mhz Dual

Mother: CrossFIreX Gigabyte

Video: AMD Radeon HD 7770 1GB

Power: 430W

HD: 1TB SATA-III 6.0 Gb/s

Fan: Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator & Fan



Overall, it runs fine and I usually wait to buy/play games until the GOTY edition comes out and it's on major sale on Steam. However, I also enjoy testing out new games in beta and I'm at the point now where I can't play most of the latest games.



What should I upgrade first? Does it makes sense to upgrade the CPU and motherboard together? Thanks in advance!

As someone who has built many computers, I suggest always upgrading mobo and CPU at the same time. You'll save yourself a ton of compatibility issues that way.



After that, I'd suggest a new video card, 16gb ram, and an SSD hard drive.

Just stumbled on this today, so I thought I'd share it with you.



http://www.cnet.com/news/how-to-fix-diy-pc-common-issues/

I primarily use http://www.tomshardware.com/ when it comes time to put together PCs. I particularly like their System Builder articles. They often talk about the best components to use when building a value/moderate/ or high end machine and which components are best bang for the buck.

Great Cnet article! And I am aware of tomshardware. I like this GPU hierarchy list that they have (although it hasn't been updated for a few months):



http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html



I also read PC Gamer. They also have a budget/moderate/high end build guide. This is an article that I've bookmarked:



http://www.pcgamer.com/the-easy-pc-upgrade-guide/#page-2

Yeah, that's a good GPU hierarchy from Tom's. I just bought the GTX 970 a few weeks ago. It's been awesome.



I enjoyed the PC Gamer upgrade guide too, it's obviously a bit out of date with some of it's suggestions being over a year old but the concepts are right on.

So I posted my exact same OP on another online site that I'm a member of just to get a broad spectrum of advice. What do you think about this response?

Pre-built machines are usually cheaper because they either cut corners or use proprietary (un-upgradable) components or use all in one bundles.



Home builds tend to be expensive because somebody building from the ground up usually isn't wasting their time with cheap junk. I have seen it done, but they just should have gotten a pre-built instead. Waste of time.

If high quality isn't a top concern then go with a pre-built high performance gamer.

Your "upgrade as I go" is common concept, but usually the technology changes too quick to apply.



Home building is cheaper if you're building a high-end machine. Maybe $1500-2000 to home build with the same EXACT machine costing $2500-3000. I'm not talking spec sheets, I'm talking exact components.



Home building doesn't save enough to make building a cheap machine worth while, IMO.

Both quotes are from the same user. He's a pretty well respected poster. He seems to be saying that home building is only valid budget-wise for high-end machines and also that the "upgrade as I go" concept is not valid and everything needs to be upgraded at once. Thoughts?

I agree and I disagree.



First, the upgrade as you go philosophy is great, but speaking of my own experience I usually end up pushing my machine well past the point of where I should have upgraded individual parts until essentially the whole thing needs to be upgraded at once. But I don't consider that a terribly bad thing either, because if I consider I'll use $1000 over 5 years to upgrade parts of my computer does it really matter if I do it $200/year or wait until the end of 5 years and do the $1000 all at once? So I agree that the upgrade as you go idea has less merit.



But even with that being said, I have a 3 or 4 year old computer that I'm using right now that I added an SSD drive to last year and just upgraded the video card for, and I have no intention of replacing the mobo and cpu for at least another year.



As for the home building not being valid for budget wise computers I completely disagree. You read a Tom's Hardware budget build article and you can do it for $650 or so, you find a PC that has the exact same hardware in it (it will easily be $1000 or more). You'll never get a decent gaming video card in a budget PC. No matter what level you build to you'll save money, but sometimes the effort of building (even though it's easy) isn't worth the money you save. That's up to you.

I'm experiencing the uploading issue too, I think it may be an attachment size issue. I need to further research it.

I need to figure out how to do this. We bought my daughter an old desktop computer for Christmas, but it's starting to lag even watching YouTube. She doesn't play big games, but I do need to upgrade it a bit at some point, and I ain't smart.

Over the weekend I was playing a game online with my brother and the game suddenly minimized and I had a pop up asking me if I wanted to update to Windows 10 (still on Windows 7! :) ), I quickly clicked the red X so I could get back to my game. Well, about 10 minutes later the game suddenly minimizes again and then closes by itself and then my computer starts shutting down! I had no idea what was going on and then a message came up: "Preparing for Windows 10 Update." WHAT?! I didn't want that! So I hit the power button to force my computer to shut off cold turkey. I know you're not suppose to do that, but I did not want Windows 10. Two reboots later and my computer seemed back to normal.



Well, yesterday, I come home from work and notice a new Windows logo as the background on my computer. My kids are homeschooled so I asked what they did and one of them replied that the same pop up came up and even though they clicked the red X like I had Windows/Microsoft decided to force the update! I was SUPER pissed! First, I didn't want the change. Second, I wasn't there when it happened. Luckily, everything appears in-tact that I had before. But I did have some initial issues playing a Java based game.



I HATE Microsoft. They shouldn't be able to force this update on me. Maybe one of the kids (accidently) scheduled the update because I know I didn't. Sure, I planned on upgrading at SOME point. But I wanted to do it on my schedule when I was ready. After talking to an IT guy that I know at both church and work he wasn't really surprised. :angry: :angry:

Microsoft does tend to push things.



That being said, I've found Windows 10 to be an excellent operating system. Much superior to 8, and 7.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3030564/microsoft-windows/microsoft-uses-the-force-you-will-upgrade-to-windows-10.html



http://betanews.com/2016/02/02/microsoft-forcing-windows-10-onto-people-is-wrong/



Apparently Microsoft made a change so that any computer set to install recommended Windows updates will automatically update to Windows 10. I feel like Microsoft is becoming Genisys from Terminator Genisys. In the movie it is a soon-to-be-unveiled operating system that will be used on every computer system worldwide and it is Skynet's precursor (Skynet controls the terminators)...

pcpartpicker is a resource I use when building or upgrading my computers. They have a lot of resources like being able to see what parts are compatible. so if you find a mobo/cpu combo you like you can make sure your ram is compatible with that motherboard.



https://pcpartpicker.com/



as to the windows force updating to windows 10 . that is really annoying and there are a couple registry edits that can be made to turn that off. but it sounds like it already happened for you. windows 10 is far superior to the previous windows operating systems though.

Ok, this is a really noob question. Is my OS (now Windows 10) tied to my motherboard or hard drive? If I swap in a new motherboard (and CPU) will I have to do a clean OS install? Since I'm not taking out my hard drive do I need to back up and transfer all of my software and files?

The answer is maybe. The OS uses identifiers from the MB and CPU to track that it's licensed. It can be possible to move that, but do some research. Sometimes it's easier to do a fresh install, but Windows 10 may have made it easier to upgrade mobo. I'm not sure.

the free Windows 10 upgrade that they force on you is tied to your motherboard.however microsoft says that they will activate it on a new motherboard if you contact them.



http://www.howtogeek.com/226510/how-to-use-your-free-windows-10-license-after-changing-your-pc%E2%80%99s-hardware/