Quote:
Originally Posted by underscore
Welp it never made it that far, PC now won't boot at all. Now he's looking to fix/upgrade it, looking for suggestions from NCIX staying in the $6-700 total range.
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New Parts:
Intel i3-4160 - $135 @ DirectCanada
ASUS Z87-A - $120 w/ $20 MIR @ NCIX
Raijintek Aidos - $30 @ NCIX
Sandisk Ultra II 120GB - $75 @ NCIX
EVGA GTX 960 SSC - $240 w/ $10 MIR @ NCIX
About $640 after pricematches/taxes/mail-in rebates. Best that I could do while staying within your friends budget.
Reusable Parts:
RAM
Case
PSU
Notes:
* The i3-4160 is a Haswell Refresh CPU, so depending on the manufacturing date of the Z87-A, it might need a BIOS flash to be recognized.
* At $100 after MIR, the Z87-A is a steal for the price, and will let your friend pop in a i5-4690K down the road (if he wants) and overclock with ease.
* Raijintek Aidos is the best performance-per-dollar cooler and will let your friend do a moderate overclock if he upgrades to an unlocked CPU.
* Assuming your friend's current RAM runs at standard 1.5v, it will work fine in the new system. If it runs at 1.65v like some older sticks do, you'll want to lower the timings and run it manually at 1.5v for compatibility issues.
* The EVGA GTX 960 SSC requires a 8-pin power, so double check with your friend's power supply that it has the required plug. If he doesn't have it, get the ASUS Strix variant that uses a 6-pin power instead (which his PSU should have).
* As I am not sure what video card he has now, I'm just assuming it's a 5 year old card and selected a GTX 960 that would fit within budget. If he has a more recent and higher card, the GTX 960 might not be as substantial an upgrade.