Hardware & Accessories

[zoobooboozoo]

[I hope this is the right place to post such a question]

Hi all,

My 4.5 years old PC kinda died on me,
and it was a limiting DAW back when it worked perfectly so I decided to upgrade my system.

I'm pretty low on funds, so I figured I can stick with my
1. old case 
2. PSU(520W)
3. Graphics card(Nvidia 9500GT) [or use intel graphics that will come with the new CPU]

4. Hard Drives

5. Burner, Screens, Keyboard etc...

and just buy a new MotherBoard, CPU, and RAM.
What would you suggest to get for a budget of about 350$-400$ ?

[zoobooboozoo]

A real dilemma is whether to go amd or intel, most ppl suggested i5, but there's some suggesting amd.

I think that's the no1 question for me to solve...

I think a good L3 Cache is important for my kind of uses...

[zoobooboozoo]

Because the prices where I live are a lil' higher, I decided to go with i5 3470
since I don't intend to overclock, and the 0.2GHz differnce doesn't worth the 65$[where i live] from 3470 to 3570k.

So now I have a few more questions(Low noise is important):
1) The motherboard. I looked at the differences and could see features differnces,
non seemed crucial, but still I'm being told there will be a PERFORMENCE DIFFERENCE between different boards.
is that right?
2) Which PSU brands/models can I trust?
3) Which CPU fan brands/models can I trust?
4) Which RAM brands/models can I trust? (although if I go 2X4GB DDR 3 1600 and choose a good brand like kingston or crossair, it doesn't really matter that much exactly which I choose right? BTW - it doesn't matter if I get 1X8GB or 2X4GB right? almost no price differnce so I figure why not?)

[poshwebdevelop…]

hey,

I hope this will help you..

CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($109.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock H77M Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Smart Tracer 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($17.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB Video Card ($111.97 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 360 ATX Mini Tower Case ($38.86 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($34.99 @ Newegg)

Total: $433.78