Time for some PC upgrades, need some recommendations.

electronic-fox

I've been using the same PC for nearly 3 years now, it was built as a budget PC for my game art studies at university and it holds its own fairly well.

It is now, however, showing its age and limitations a little with some of the freelance work I've been getting and I want to start upgrading it piece by piece.

My current specs are as follows:

motherboard: Gigabyte m68mt-2sp

AMD Athlon II x4 645 (3.1GHz)
8GB Ram
ATI Radeon HD 5770

2 monitors (1600x900)

I dont have a budget figured out yet, but the first set of upgrades I probably want to spend around £300 ($500-ish), and see as much improvement as I can with this.

Primarily I use Maya, Zbrush and Photoshop, I also use this PC for gaming semi-regularly.

So I'd like to see what you guys and girls would recommend for my first set of upgrades on this machine. Over the next couple months I do plan to eventually replace all the hardware, but for now its just what I can fit in that budget that'd make the most difference.

Thanks in advance.

grimsonfart

I would maybe invest in a good CPU such as 4930k (or even 4960k if you have alot of dough). When it comes down to rendering and anything 3D in general the regular ones does not cut it. I would also get 32GB ram, i have 16 and on several occasions had to close down apps due to lack of ram.

But as your budget is fairly low, 4770k/4670k (or atleast an Intel processor). But you might have to buy a new motherboard when getting an Intel CPU (nothing fancy needed).

[ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Graphics-BX80646I74770-Generation-Technology/dp/B00CO8TBOW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397641532&sr=8-1&keywords=4670k"]Intel Core i5 4670K Quad Core Retail CPU (Socket 1150, 3.40GHz, 6MB, Haswell, 84W, Intel Graphics, BX80646I74770, 4th Generation Intel Core, Turbo Boost Technology 2.0): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories[/ame] (160£)

[ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-Z87-G45-GAMING-Motherboard-USB3-0-LGA1150/dp/B00D12OBEU/ref=pd_sim_computers_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1ND2P7YQ2Y057DBHFRDP"]MSI Z87-G45-GAMING ATX Motherboard (Intel Z87, 4x DDR3, DVI, HDMI, 6x USB3.0, GBE LAN, LGA1150 Socket): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories[/ame] (100£)

RAM is probably the next thing you want to upgrade when you got the money

[ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CMZ16GX3M2A1600C9-Vengeance-Performance-Desktop/dp/B0085IWXB8/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1397641598&sr=1-2&keywords=16+gb+ram"]Corsair CMZ16GX3M2A1600C9 Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 Mhz CL9 XMP Performance Desktop Memory Kit Black: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories[/ame] (120£) I have these.

Skamander

Yeah, go with what grimsonfart said. Since your are on a budget something like this would also be good for the beginning http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1WjEH if you don't want to overclock your CPU h87 boards are enough and you get Hyperthreading with the Xeon which can be useful in some cases. Change the Xeon to a i7 4770 if you don't mind the £20 extra (you get 100 mhz more and a iGPU which can be useful if your dedicated card should ever malfunction).

As grimsonfart said go with 32 GByte RAM later if you can, for example this kit: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-memory-cml32gx3m4a1600c10b it's the most affordable (on partpicker) and on top of that low profile (makes sure it doesn't collide with larger cpu coolers - in case you should later get a better and larger cooler). For the time being you can reuse your RAM (I checked your current mainboard to make sure it's not DDR2 ram ).

electronic-fox

Thanks for those responses I thought a good increase in RAM would be a good start, great to have that confirmed (i have frequently run out of memory with some operations in Zbrush). I have also wanted to migrate to Intel. While my AMD has done well, the general consensus seems to be Intel is a bit better for this kind of work, and in the case of the iGPU, that'd be damn handy in a case where I cant instantly replace the dedicated graphics card.

MDiamond

Make sure your Power Supply can handle the upgrades. This might be useful.

http://www.coolermaster.outervision.com/

Skamander

Good that you mention that MDiamond, this reminded me of the low power states C6/C7 that Haswell introduced. Old PSUs can't handle these, so make sure to deactivate them in the bios. If you don't do that your PC will not start or crash while starting.

Power wise you should be ok. Haswell uses less power than the older AMD.

EDIT: interesting, the cooler master calculator is one of the better PSU calucaltors. It doesn't exaggerate the wattage as much as other calculators do. Nice.

EDIT 2: also, keep in mind that the Home Premium version of Windows 7 for example can only use 16 GByte RAM. You need the professional version if you want to use 32 GByte or more.