Upgrading PC for 50K

[hellknight]

1. What is the purpose of the computer? What all applications and games are you going to run? (Stupid answers like 'gaming' or 'office work' will not work. Be exact. Which games? Which applications? Avoid the word 'et cetera.')
Ans:Watching HD movies & TV shows via XBMC, casual gaming at 720p, sharing the data via LAN to other laptops in home, some photo & video editing & most importantly, running virtual machines & web-designing & coding under GNU/Linux.

2. What is your overall budget? If you can extend a bit for a more balanced configuration, then mention this too.
Ans:50k (+/- 5k)

3. Current configuration :-

• AMD Athlon II X4 640 (4 cores @ 3.0 GHz).
• Cooler Master Hyper TX3 CPU cooler.
• Biostar TA 790 GX BE motherboard.
• 3 GB DDR2 RAM @ 800 MHz
• Palit GTX 260 Sonic Core 216 graphics card.
• Samsung 1 TB @ 7200 RPM & 500 GB WD Green at 5400 RPM (both are SATA I @ 3 Gb/s). Seagate Go Flex 1 TB External HDD USB 2.0.
• Sony DRU 880S optical disk drive.
• Corsair TX 650 V2 SMPS (hell yeah)
• AOC F22 Full HD monitor.
• Logitech G300 gaming mouse.
• Logitech K260 wireless keyboard.
• Cooler Master Elite 430 cabinet.

4. Planning to overclock?
Ans: Maybe, if liquid cooling is in budget or a very silent dedicated cooler. I hate the sound of fans.

5. Which Operating System are you planning to use?
Ans: Debian or CentOS for 95% of time. Windows 8 only when I'll be gaming (don't include the price of Windows 8 in the configuration, I have a genuine licensed key).

6. How much hard drive space is needed?
Ans: Yes, 2 TB please (the space is running out with all those TV shows )

7. Do you want to buy a monitor? If yes, please mention which screen size and resolution do you want. If you already have a monitor and want to reuse it, again mention the size and resolution of monitor you have.
Ans:No

8. Which components you DON'T want to buy or which components you already have and plan on reusing?
Ans: ODD, keyboard, mouse, SMPS, monitor.

9. When are you planning to buy the system?
Ans: Mid-November

10. Have you ever built a desktop before or will this be done by an assembler?
Ans:I'll assemble it myself.

11. Where do you live? Are you buying locally? Are you open to buying stuff from online shops if you don't get locally?
Ans:Mandi, Himachal Pradesh. If stuff is available at a good price locally, then local else online.

12. Anything else which you would like to say?
Ans: The Intel Core i5 4570R with integrated Iris Pro graphics looks good to me. If it performs well at 720p in most games, then don't include the graphics card. But I doubt that it will play Crysis 3, Battlefield 4 etc at 720p resolution. Also, my current cabinet is cramped. I have my eyes on Cooler Master HAF 912. Moreover, I would like to have a silent PC, so if you can include a liquid cooling setup in the budget, that'd be great. Also, DO NOT include AMD APUs in the configuration as AMD has pathetic proprietary driver support for GNU/Linux.

 

[harshilsharma63]

Considering the AMD driver issue is only with APUs and not with CPUs:

FX 8350 (13000)
Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 (8100)
Kingston HyperX Blu 1600 MHz 8 GB (5100)
Seagate Barracuda 2 TB (6700)
Sapphire HD7750 1 GB (6500)
Corsair 400R (5700)
Corsair CH60 (4400)

total: ~50k

 

[hellknight]

This looks good. But the TDP of the FX 8350 CPU is quite high (130 W), I think. Also, can you recommend something based on Intel's 3rd or 4th generation platform with a NVIDIA card? Besides, how is Corsair 400R as compared to Cooler Master HAF 912?

 

[harshilsharma63]

This looks good. But the TDP of the FX 8350 CPU is quite high (130 W), I think. Also, can you recommend something based on Intel's 3rd or 4th generation platform with a NVIDIA card? Besides, how is Corsair 400R as compared to Cooler Master HAF 912?

> The high TDP isn't going affect too much. Also, 100% CPU usage occurs very rarely.

> Why Intel, why Nvidia? I thought Nvidia's driver support in Linux is bad.

 

[ACidBaseD]

i5-4570 [14k]
Asus B85M-G [6.3k]
Kingston HyperX Blu 1600 MHz 2x4GB GB [5200]
Seagate Barracuda 2 TB [6800]
HAF 912 with side window - Sexiest thing in the world [6000]
Zota 650ti boost 2gb [12000]
----------------1----------------------
Total = 50k

Advantages over harshils build:
This rig can play most of the new games at mid-high settings on 1080p [thus using your monitors native resolution] and all the games released upto 2012 maxed out! It can play crysis 3 on medium preset with high textures smaa low on around 40-50fps avg on 1080p

Less power consumption

Better Linux Drivers by Intel
Also Nvidia has easier installation of linux drivers but amd isnt bad either.. I suggested 650ti boost as its best performance/rs in that range

 

[rijinpk1]

op, sell your old cpu+mobo+ram+gpu+cooler which i think will yield around 10k for you => 65k budget.

Considering the AMD driver issue is only with APUs and not with CPUs:

FX 8350 (13000)
Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 (8100)
Kingston HyperX Blu 1600 MHz 8 GB (5100)
Seagate Barracuda 2 TB (6700)
Sapphire HD7870 (17000)
Corsair 400R (5700)
Corsair CH60 (4400)

total: ~50k

+1. fx 8350 will be good for VMs

 

[hellknight]

> The high TDP isn't going affect too much. Also, 100% CPU usage occurs very rarely.

> Why Intel, why Nvidia? I thought Nvidia's driver support in Linux is bad.

NVIDIA has awesome support for Linux. Their drivers are fantastic & VDPAU decodes the HD content via the GPU. That's why I was vouching for NVIDIA.

But I think that FX-8350 will be awesome for virtual machines. As it is an 8-core processor. What are your views on this configuration :-

• AMD FX 8350 (13000)
  
• Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 (8100)
• Kingston HyperX Blu 1600 MHz 8 GB (5100)
• Seagate Barracuda 2 TB (6700)
• Zotac 650 TI BOOST 2 GB [12000)
• Cooler Master HAF 912 (5500)
  
• Corsair CH60 (4400)
  
• Total :- 55000

This seems good to me.

@rijinpk1.. Yeah that seems good, I should sell my old stuff barring the SMPS & HDDs at that should fetch somewhere around 10-12k for me.

 

[ASHISH65]

^ Perfect selection.go with it

 

[ACidBaseD]

NVIDIA has awesome support for Linux. Their drivers are fantastic & VDPAU decodes the HD content via the GPU. That's why I was vouching for NVIDIA.

But I think that FX-8350 will be awesome for virtual machines. As it is an 8-core processor. What are your views on this configuration :-

• AMD FX 8350 (13000)
  
• Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 (8100)
• Kingston HyperX Blu 1600 MHz 8 GB (5100)
• Seagate Barracuda 2 TB (6700)
• Zotac 650 TI BOOST 2 GB [12000)
• Cooler Master HAF 912 (5500)
  
• Corsair CH60 (4400)
  
• Total :- 55000

This seems good to me.

@rijinpk1.. Yeah that seems good, I should sell my old stuff barring the SMPS & HDDs at that should fetch somewhere around 10-12k for me.

Corsair CH60 will not be used to it's full extent because even though the M5a97 evo r2.0 is good for overclocking dont expect it to maintain 8350 stable at 5ghz!
[Also mind the extra power consumption caused by overclocking an 8350]
Running VM on i5 4570 won't slow you down at all as far as i know.
If you want i could try it for you after my exams

 

[hellknight]

Corsair CH60 will not be used to it's full extent because even though the M5a97 evo r2.0 is good for overclocking dont expect it to maint 8350 stable at 5ghz! Better get a m5a99fx pro r2.0 for 12k
[Also mind the extra power consumption caused by overclocking an 8350]

Thanks for the insight buddy, but I'm not looking to overclock. I may overclock after 2 years, but not initially. The liquid-cooling is for keeping the PC quite. Also, I have a Corsair TX 650 V2 which should be more than enough for everything.

I'm really, really impressed with this Intel Core i5 4570 R (*ark.intel.com/products/76640/Intel-Core-i5-4570R-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_20-GHz). Was reading the review of the latest 21.5 inch iMac on Anandtech (*anandtech.com/show/7399/215inch-imac-late-2013-review-iris-pro-driving-an-accurate-display). It has 4 cores & all the instruction sets which I need. If this gets launched this year in India (the processor, not the iCrap) then I may switch loyalties to it. After all, I run max 2 VM at a time on my system. Moreover, the Iris Pro graphics are good. This way, I can save some money and invest it next year when the next-gen NVIDIA cards make an entry.