The guts of this computer I'm using is from 2007. I don't particularly have problems with it in terms of speed, but it's getting a bit long in the tooth. Also the fans are quite loud on it which has become more annoying recently, I suspect because the mobo has never properly managed fan speed like it should.

Current specs:
Q6600 core 2 quad, 2.4Gz * 4
4GB RAM
P35-DS4 gigabyte mobo
Geforce GTX 460 (bought second-hand about 2 years ago)
Boot drive: Samsung 840 Evo 500GB SSD (SATA 3 rated)
Data drives: 60gb Idilinix Barefoot 2 SSD (Previous boot drive), 2 x 1TB HDs in RAID 1
Enermax Liberty modular powersupply, 80% efficient. Either 500w or 620w (can't remember, haven't pulled computer out to look), probably 500w.
Silverstone TJ09 TEMIJN case
Dell U2412M 24" 1920x1200 monitor

I'm really only looking to replace the CPU, motherboard and RAM at this point, but am open to recommendations on the other parts. Generally just for game playing; D3, SC2, Far Cry 4 (haven't actually played it so don't know how it runs), Bioshock.

A generous budget is about $800 US for these 3 parts, but obviously the less spent the better. Goal is to get something that will last 5+ years. The intel I5-4460 is about what I'm looking at for CPU. I've never had an AMD before but would be open to the idea. Probably just go with 8GB of RAM with room to upgrade in the future, but it seems unlikely that more than 8GB will be 'required' for anything for a long time. Really I have no clue what motherboard to get; I don't have any unusual requirements here (form factor size ain't a problem since my case is huge), although perhaps something with better than standard audio might be nice. Onboard n or ac wifi would be of interest if it's not a huge price markup.

It would seem to make sense to delay the actual upgrade until Windows 10 is out, assuming it won't be a shit-house nightmare like 8 was. So any imminent changes in technology would be worth keeping in mind (more from the view that existing tech will be cheaper, rather than jumping on the bleeding edge). Living in NZ, a lot of stuff from Amazon won't ship here, although it looks like Newegg can ship here now; but don't go all-out looking for special deals or sales prices.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 13 2015, 9:48 pm by Lanthanide.

Built-in WiFi is harder to find on non-ITX boards, but if ITX is fine for you, you can look at http://nz.pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-gah97nwifi. I'd just get an adapter if you need that functionality, though.

Five years is a pretty long time, but it should get you there for the most part. I suppose if you have more money to burn you could get an i7 for more of a guarantee.

Regarding new tech: Desktop Broadwell processors are due any day now (and the H97/Z97 chipsets support it, of course). New CPUs typically don't affect prices of older CPUs, though, so this is more a note for future-proofing than saving money.

DDR4 is also slowly coming around, but I think only LGA2011-3 boards support it at the moment. DDR3 is still currently the best bang for your buck, but that will likely change, possibly as soon as the end of this year with the Skylake processors.

I'm using Windows 10 right now, and minus the bugs (because it's still in technical preview right now) it's excellent. They basically took the good parts from 7 and 8 and put them together. And then there's some metro apps... but they're contained in windows now instead of going fullscreen, so it's a significant improvement. Windows 10 is also expected to be released at the end of this year.

TL;DR: If you can hold out to the end of this year, there's a lot of new stuff coming down the pipeline, but you're probably not gonna save any money from it.

It's always the case that waiting will get you better stuff; but you have to bite the bullet at some point.

Just looked into Windows 10, I was expecting a mid-year launch date, rather than end of year. Apparently Microsoft usually aim for an August release, but a rumour (possibly just completely made up) is that they're aiming for June this time, so the OEMs have enough time to spec out computers to target the back-to-school market.

And yeah, 5 years might seem like a long time, but the Q6600 and the rest of this 'ancient' stuff I've got hasn't given me any complaints.

I presume there's no longer any speed increase available from having 2 matched sticks of RAM like there used to be?

The point is that there's more new stuff prepared for rollout than usual. However probably none of those will be so revolutionary that it's going to be a must have.
CPUs are not really getting faster anymore, just more power efficient.
RAM is never your bottleneck so whatever improvements DDR4 will have is going to have minimal impact on real-life performance.
Windows 10 can just be installed over whatever you currently have, should you decide to get it when it's officially released.

The memory bandwidth would still double. But as mentioned above RAM is never the bottleneck so making it even faster is not going to do much. 5% tops unless you're doing simulations.
This hasn't changed in like a decade.

Right, but if the price difference to get 2x4GB sticks is less than 5%, it's probably worth it. Also if you get 2 sticks of RAM, a one goes bad, your computer will still work. If you've got 1 stick of RAM and it goes bad, you're fucked.

My BF's computer (which he got free a couple of years ago) had 4x2GB sticks. One of them became faulty one day and the system became unstable; popped it out and it's now running with 3 sticks without any problems.

Ended up just buying it. Got the 4590 CPU, but went with Gigabyte GA-Z97-D3H motherboard instead, since it has M.2 and SATA express which the asrock didn't - I don't have an SSD that needs these today, but since I want this to last 5+ years, it's worth getting new interfaces like this. Also has ALC1150 audio which is newer than what was on the asrock. Finally the cheapest place that actually had the Asrock board in stock was $175; the Gigabyte was only $10 more.

Went with a 2x4GB memory set too, which was $115. I could only really find one scientific test of single channel vs dual channel ram, but it was comparing 2x4GB dual channel vs 2x4GB single channel, and found marginal difference in the real-world applications I would use. But it wasn't comparing 2x4GB to 1x8GB, which potentially could have a difference. So I just went the conventional wisdom and got the dual channel kit.

Total price including shipping was $585.87 NZ.

2x4 GB single channel and 1x8 GB single channel are the same thing. The limiting factor is the channel.