Perhaps it is time to move on, or ahead. Whichever. (New build contemplations)

[Aethis]

So, been sitting on this ol' AMD Phenom II x4 940BE AM2+ based machine with the MA770-UD3 mobo for quiet awhile. Got four modules of 2GB RAM at 800MHz in all the DIMMs from G.Skill, I forget what I sat their timings at as the time of typing this, however. A TX650W gold from Corsair sitting in there feeding power to the various devices, accompanied by two 1TB and one 640GB Western Digital Black in the platter based HDD section. Also some generic Lite-On optical driver reader/burner with general DL support. Now the kicker, a severely bottle-necked GTX970 from MSi sitting in there having recently replaced an oddly acting GTX570 from eVGA. (Figured I would just move it over eventually to a new build, though I did gain small performance boosts in some games with it. Obviously ones not as reliant on the CPU.)

ANYWAY, digression.

Been poking about, and Intel seems to be getting those IPC counts up there for their clockings, and I haven't followed Intel for a long time. I don't really favour some of their political or social choices as of late, but as far as I am concerned I am more interested in that power.

A friend of mine mentioned about their upcoming Skylake, and it seems to be only info on them is the smaller manufacturer process. Which would be nice, but the current AMD I am on is already a 32 so going to a 22 on LGA1150 would already be an improvement in that term.

Again, digression.

My main plight is in terms of what seems to be viable mobos for someone more likely to use a single GPU, possibly a second non-same GPU just to offload onto a second monitor while main gets the full brunt of the main GPU. (Though with the included Intel GPU arch on the CPU, I could probably just offload the second screen with that for general web browsing/video watching.) Looking through Newegg shows a lot of these Z97 boards with rather poor reviews, which is somewhat disheartening.

I mainly want something with at least 6 SATA ports, PCI-e 3.0 based slot for the GPU to move to, and has a decent environment for OC'ing but isn't too expensive. DDR3 class based, as DDR4 is way too much for the current offerings. Any help would be beneficial, even build ideas. I mainly just need to replace the mobo/RAM/CPU, possibly HS as I think the old one I have now might not work with the LGA1150 slot mount system. I still have a tube of AS5 laying around somewhere, though.

So far I was looking at:
HS: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099
Higher-CPU Choice: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117369
Lower-CPU Choice: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117372
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231719 (With plan to get another module later)
Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128707 Not much a fan on the price, have never really paid more than 120 for Mobos before, but this seems to have the better ratio of high eggs to low ones and meets my requests on the slots.

PS Edit:
Would like to keep it between $400-$600.

 

[SuperTuner12010]

212 is best bang for your buck, anything that beats it will only be a few degrees and will cost double.

4790k is top dog besides haswells offerings and would last years to come. However depending on what you use the machine for, the 4690k may do the same and save you $100.

Ram looks good, may want to consider 16gb however, again if you use that much. I have done great with 8gb but starting to push that now and will be getting 16 myself when I go haswell.

Motherboard is pricey, may want to consider others, this for example(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157506)

I didn't see anything about an SSD in your build, I may have read over it if so. If you don't have an SSD I highly recommend you get one. 128gb/256gb Samsung 850 PRO would be a worl of a difference if you have never ran an SSD. Single handedly, best bang for your buck computer upgrade.

 

[Aethis]

Main thing I do is gaming, watching videos downloaded. (Generally in 720 or 1080 classification of res for those.) Sometimes a bit of audio work or video editing/encoding, along with minor servers like for Starbound or Minecraft variants for friends.

As for the RAM, I was planning on the single 8GB module, and getting another one of it later to bump to 16, 'cause I definitely feel it even now.

HDDs, you did not read wrong. I only have the three platter based ones and the optical, no SSDs. Would like to probably do one for the typical OS install and primary applications/drivers/software, and maybe RAID the two old 1TBs together into a 2TB game partition. Don't know what I would do with the old 640GB, and would need another, maybe 2GB or so green or blue drive solely for storage of things like images, videos, music.

I was looking at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157528 a bit after post, but I do like the one you linked. If not for the fact the SATA ports are on the side and not pointed up.

I'll have to look at the various SSDs as well, then. Thanks for the info on that part.

PS Edit:
Should also mention heavy into emulation of things like PS2, GCN/Wii, the like. I just included that as 'gaming' but then realized should probably specify that since it's a bit more complicated than normal PC application games.

 

[SuperTuner12010]

Your usage is very similar to mine, I have a 128gb SSD for my OS, and everything else on my HDD.

When I first setup windows, I create a user profile on the HDD, and add all sub folders(music, pictures, downloads) and on the os I go to the standard folders properties and you can change the location to D: or whatever letter being your HDD. So everything in Windows functions seamlessly, yet keeps everything off of the HDD. You would think this would be common practice but isn't.

I see people download something to their download folder to then move it over to an equal download folder on a HDD.

I keep steam, origin and everything else on the HDD as well. So if you ever reinstall windows, all you have to do is change the folders targets to the equal ones on the HDD, run the steam application from the HDD and it will do a repair and in essence install it and you keep all games without any hiccups or messing around with backups.

Also do you have a dedicated sound card? As that board only has 1 analog output if you do happen to run a 5.1 system.

As far as SSD's go I recommended the Samsung because they seem to be the fastest around as of now, the 840 evo/pro and the 850 evo/pro are all very good. The 256gb are usually a bit faster than their 128gb counter parts however.

 

[Aethis]

Yea, I just realized that it didn't have a 5.1/7.1 analog jack setup on its on-board after linking it. I usually use the 5.1 analogs on my current (It can do 7.1, and for a while I did but then I ran into an odd issue after putting in the 970 where I would get the sounds from the PSU crossing into the feed to the 7.1 receiver through analog. It does not do this on the exact same analog inputs for the Logitech 5.1 though.), and pass-through the 7.1 PCM with the HDMI out on the GPU to the receiver now. (As for the question, I actually do have an old PCI based soundcard in there but I don't really use it much since the on-board works well enough. I mainly miss having soundfont support for old .mid files on the socket A I had with an AWE2 board.)

For downloads, I always have the browser ask me to point to where I want it to go, always. I hate the defaulting to a place without asking. It's also great Steam at some point added the ability to download and install applications separate of its installed path, though I forget when they did so.

If I were to go SSD for main OS and files, I'd like to keep that below $100 if possible. A 128GB should suffice in that regard.

[Edit]

Okay, so far here's what I've placed out for thought now;
MoBo - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157506
RAM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231719
CPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117369
HS - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099
SSD for OS: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148820

Move over the old Corsair TX650W, the two 1TB WDB drives, the optical drive, GTX970.

 

[rayraysfunhouse]

The i7 will be overkill for your purposes but it will last you a nice long time. But it will be a strong build and be able to do anything that you will throw at it.

 

[Mandrake4565]

A suggestion on Ram G Skill Ripjaw 2133 2x4g
As far as the Psu, if the Corsair TX650W, is older then 5 years you may want to replace it. No need to risk a failure on a new setup due to old caps in the PSU?!

 

[Bishoff]

I don't think the term "overkill" should be used on an overclokers forums With that said, 4790K all the way and have fun with your upcoming build.

 

[Theocnoob]

MoBo - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157506
RAM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231719
CPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117369
HS - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099
SSD for OS: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148820

$50 for a hyper 212? That's a $30 heatsink. Screw it for that price, might as well get an NHD14.
Do not get a single stick of RAM for a dual channel platform. 2x4GB now, 2x4GB later. Make sure it's identical.
You don't seem like you need an i7. The choice is yours though.
Your SSD and motherboard choices are both fine. I prefer the 850 EVO and ASRock extreme 6 though.

 

[Aethis]

$50? I see the HS listed as $34.99, with a $5 MiR which would make it $29.99. As for the i7, I might as well use the extra 100 now and make sure I have the decent IPC and clocking with it for emulation and other things that may arise in the future. Noted on the RAM module count, though.

 

[Theocnoob]

It was showing $50 for me last night. Stupid newegg changes prices hour to hour and user to user. THey're so shady.