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Should I upgrade?

Fourstaff

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I was only planning on putting my OS system on it and one or 2 games and thats about it.

Fair enough, I struggle to consistently stay under 100Gb, you might have a different setup.
 

DamianJ

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Fair enough, I struggle to consistently stay under 100Gb, you might have a different setup.

I was gonna put my OS, WoW, and Arma 3 onto my SSD which will bring the space to 64gb and I have a 2tb harddrive for everything else.
 
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that sounds good but im gonna stick with the MSI G45, only get 8gb of 2133, and get a 120gb corsair neutron gtx along with a corsair 300R case. does that sound good?
That sounds just fine. The 300R is a great case, and will support the H100i, but certain motherboards may have RAM clearance issues. However, the H80i performs almost as well and fits any case with a 120mm fan mount. In my 400R, the H100 fits (barely), and I have 2 more fans outside of the case for push/pull (almost no improvement, the radiator is too thin).
A 120GB SSD will be fine for your stated use, and the Neutron GTX is a great choice.
8 GB RAM is also plenty for what you do, get a 2 x 4GB kit for dual channel operation.
As for the MSI board, my bad experience with a couple of them has biased my judgement, your experience may vary. In casual surveys by enthusiast sites, typically Asus gets 50-56% of the votes, Gigabyte 29-35%, Asrock 15-20%, MSI 8-9%. That's why I recommend Asus and Gigabyte - Asus is #1 for a good reason, and #2 tries harder. Some say Asus has been slacking lately, but I still use them with very few issues, and I would try a Gigabyte board without reservations. I'm sure many use Asrock and MSI boards with great success, but reading the buyer feedback on NewEgg, Amazon, and TigerDirect is not encouraging. The RMA process is a nightmare that will delay completion of your build/upgrade by many weeks. Let us know how the MSI board works out for you; I'd love to revise my opinion of them, if only because they're more affordable.
 

DamianJ

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That sounds just fine. The 300R is a great case, and will support the H100i, but certain motherboards may have RAM clearance issues. However, the H80i performs almost as well and fits any case with a 120mm fan mount. In my 400R, the H100 fits (barely), and I have 2 more fans outside of the case for push/pull (almost no improvement, the radiator is too thin).
A 120GB SSD will be fine for your stated use, and the Neutron GTX is a great choice.
8 GB RAM is also plenty for what you do, get a 2 x 4GB kit for dual channel operation.
As for the MSI board, my bad experience with a couple of them has biased my judgement, your experience may vary. In casual surveys by enthusiast sites, typically Asus gets 50-56% of the votes, Gigabyte 29-35%, Asrock 15-20%, MSI 8-9%. That's why I recommend Asus and Gigabyte - Asus is #1 for a good reason, and #2 tries harder. Some say Asus has been slacking lately, but I still use them with very few issues, and I would try a Gigabyte board without reservations. I'm sure many use Asrock and MSI boards with great success, but reading the buyer feedback on NewEgg, Amazon, and TigerDirect is not encouraging. The RMA process is a nightmare that will delay completion of your build/upgrade by many weeks. Let us know how the MSI board works out for you; I'd love to revise my opinion of them, if only because they're more affordable.

I changed my case to a 200R instead and im going to be getting an H80i. The only reason I was going with the MSI board was because of the OCGenie seeing as im not familiar with OCing. I will look at a different board due to what you said about MSI. I also have a gigabyte gtx 670, would my card run better on a gigabyte motherboard or does it not matter? Is there really any difference between the gigabyte UD3H and UD4H?
 
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All the Z87 boards have automatic overclocking utilities, regardless of brand. They all seem to set the vcore too high (for increased stability), which sends your temps through the roof. Most of them increase the bclk as well, which may cause crashes during game play. Learning how to safely overclock your particular combination of parts is a process that will take maybe a couple of hours, most of it spent stress testing for stability and acceptable temps. Most Haswell CPUs will only be stable and cool enough at 4.3 or 4.4 GHz, so it's not like you'll be testing a lot of different settings. Read Dave's guide to Haswell OCing here - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Haswell_OC_Guide/
The 200R is probably the best $60 case available, good choice.
 
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DamianJ

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All the Z87 boards have automatic overclocking utilities, regardless of brand. They all seem to set the vcore too high (for increased stability), which sends your temps through the roof. Most of them increase the bclk as well, which may cause crashes during game play. Learning how to safely overclock your particular combination of parts is a process that will take maybe a couple of hours, most of it spent stress testing for stability and acceptable temps. Most Haswell CPUs will only be stable and cool enough at 4.3 or 4.4 GHz, so it's not like you'll be testing a lot of different settings. Read Dave's guide to Haswell OCing here - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Haswell_OC_Guide/
The 200R is probably the best $60 case available, good choice.

thanks, good to know that all the Z87 motherboards have that but I will probably not use it now. Ill just learn how to do it with the guide you linked. Also, is there a difference between the UD3H and UD4H and would having a gigabyte motherboard help with compatibility and performance with my gigabyte gtx 670?
 
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If you want to really feel the difference when you upgrade, here's what I recommend;
1. i5-4670K, overclocked to at least 4.3 GHz
2. Asus or Gigabyte Z87 motherboard, at least Z87-Pro or GA-Z87X-UD4H
3. 2 x 8Gb RAM DDR3 2133 MHz, any name brand with decent timings
4. H80i or H100i liquid CPU cooler (depending on the case you select).
5. Any ~$100 case you prefer, as long as it has good airflow (at least 3 120mm fans).
6. Any recent vintage SSD, at least 120GB, but 240/256 models are faster (fastest are Samsung 840 Pro, Corsair Neutron GTX, Sandisk Extreme II).
You'll get the biggest boost from the overclock and the SSD, but the fast RAM, haswell CPU, and decent motherboard will also help. It won't be cheap, but you wanted to know, so there it is. You can of course trim some $ off in any of these categories by shopping for combo deals or settling for lower specs. Keep in mind that even with all the above upgrades, it may not be the mind-blowing experience you imagine. It should, however, run everything 20 to 30% faster and cut load times in half or better.

This.

These are the parts I'm currently considering and are some of the best currently on the market (for comparison I'm going to ignore the parts you're thinking of re-using):

intel i7-4770k
asus z87-pro, maximus vi formula
evga gtx 770, 780 superclocked
corsair vengeance pro 1866 or 2133 with 9 cas (16+ gb)
corsair 860 or 1200 AXi psu
samsung 840 pro series 256gb (x2 in raid 0 for best performance)
western digital 2tb black 7200 64mb cache hdd (x2 in raid 1 for security)

The rest is pretty much personal preference, but for cases I'd look at the corsair 750d or 900d, the coolermaster HAF X or the NZXT phantom 630. The 900d is the water cooling case of choice (it's HUGE) and the rest are all solid air performers without being horribly noisy.

For cooling - noctua u12s or prolimatech genesis for air, swiftech h220 or corsair h110 for closed water. If you don't intend to overclock, just get a good air cooler. They are more reliable and you won't have to worry about a pump going out, they will also keep your system VERY cool with arctic silver 5 thermal paste.

What you decide will depend on how much you want to spend and how long you want it to last. If you go with dual GPUs or intend to overclock go with the maximus vi formula or an equivalent board from ASRock (extreme6 or better) or a Gigabyte Sniper G5. I'm personally going with 32gb of ram in case I want to set up a 16gb ram disc for gaming and whether or not I go with 1866 or 2133 will depend on prices when I build. Above 2133 the prices get ridiculous fast and the performance is barely better, not to mention you can overclock to higher speeds (2400 at least) on most dims rated for 1866/2133 without too much extra power.
 

DamianJ

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This.

These are the parts I'm currently considering and are some of the best currently on the market (for comparison I'm going to ignore the parts you're thinking of re-using):

intel i7-4770k
asus z87-pro, maximus vi formula
evga gtx 770, 780 superclocked
corsair vengeance pro 1866 or 2133 with 9 cas (16+ gb)
corsair 860 or 1200 AXi psu
samsung 840 pro series 256gb (x2 in raid 0 for best performance)
western digital 2tb black 7200 64mb cache hdd (x2 in raid 1 for security)

The rest is pretty much personal preference, but for cases I'd look at the corsair 750d or 900d, the coolermaster HAF X or the NZXT phantom 630. The 900d is the water cooling case of choice (it's HUGE) and the rest are all solid air performers without being horribly noisy.

For cooling - noctua u12s or prolimatech genesis for air, swiftech h220 or corsair h110 for closed water. If you don't intend to overclock, just get a good air cooler. They are more reliable and you won't have to worry about a pump going out, they will also keep your system VERY cool with arctic silver 5 thermal paste.

What you decide will depend on how much you want to spend and how long you want it to last. If you go with dual GPUs or intend to overclock go with the maximus vi formula or an equivalent board from ASRock (extreme6 or better) or a Gigabyte Sniper G5. I'm personally going with 32gb of ram in case I want to set up a 16gb ram disc for gaming and whether or not I go with 1866 or 2133 will depend on prices when I build. Above 2133 the prices get ridiculous fast and the performance is barely better, not to mention you can overclock to higher speeds (2400 at least) on most dims rated for 1866/2133 without too much extra power.

well, im not looking to spend that much money, these are the parts I have picked out now, dont mind the PSU, graphics card, or optical drive, i already own those.and i mean i think 8gb of ram is good enough for me while gaming. (i hope so) lol

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1JDeS
 
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Your system is better than mine and I am not looking to upgrade
You really shouldn't upgrade
 

Frick

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Your system is better than mine and I am not looking to upgrade
You really shouldn't upgrade

THAT is a bad reason not to upgrade. I am not considering an upgrade either at this point, and my system sort of suck.

I agree it's money thrown away though, but whatever, Damian can do what he wants with his money.
 
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