PC Upgrade Tips

[argyle]

So I haven't gamed on my PC in a bit, but oddly enough my wife has been wanting to do some PC gaming. I'm in the IT field, so I'm no stranger to PC upgrades/builds, but I am out of the loop on newer tech, mainly CPUs and especially video cards. I could barely keep up with video card technology back when I used to work for a place that built PCs.

Anyway, I'm thinking of taking my current PC, which I now only use to surf the web/watch YouTube/some light Photoshop, and upgrade it enough to make a good (not bleeding edge, but somewhat robust) gaming machine for her. Maybe get a Steam Link when they come out, depending on reviews, so we don't have to have the PC physically in the living room.

OK, so right now my PC has an Ivy Bridge i3 processor on it w/ 24gb RAM. I'm thinking if I can upgrade the CPU on that instead of buying a new board (and then inevitably having to buy new RAM....) and put a new video card in it, it should make a pretty decent rig. Will a CPU upgrade on that board be worth it? (here's the board for reference:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157229) And what video card should I be looking at? I'm looking to come in under $500 for the upgrades, which I think sounds pretty reasonable given what all I'd be keeping. 

Any advice/tips greatly appreciated!

[davifus]

So I haven't gamed on my PC in a bit, but oddly enough my wife has been wanting to do some PC gaming. I'm in the IT field, so I'm no stranger to PC upgrades/builds, but I am out of the loop on newer tech, mainly CPUs and especially video cards. I could barely keep up with video card technology back when I used to work for a place that built PCs.

Anyway, I'm thinking of taking my current PC, which I now only use to surf the web/watch YouTube/some light Photoshop, and upgrade it enough to make a good (not bleeding edge, but somewhat robust) gaming machine for her. Maybe get a Steam Link when they come out, depending on reviews, so we don't have to have the PC physically in the living room.

OK, so right now my PC has an Ivy Bridge i3 processor on it w/ 24gb RAM. I'm thinking if I can upgrade the CPU on that instead of buying a new board (and then inevitably having to buy new RAM....) and put a new video card in it, it should make a pretty decent rig. Will a CPU upgrade on that board be worth it? (here's the board for reference:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157229) And what video card should I be looking at? I'm looking to come in under $500 for the upgrades, which I think sounds pretty reasonable given what all I'd be keeping. 

Any advice/tips greatly appreciated!

I would swap out the i3 for a i5 [$230-$260] or i7 [$340-$360]. i3 are blahh. GPU wise GTX960, 970, 780 or Radeon 270,280,290.

Spending under $500 for a decent mid CPU and GPU together is going to be some-what difficult.

what wrong with your 24gb ram? why get another kit?

[foxhack]

Yeah, 24 GB of DDR3 is more than enough for a long time to come.

[argyle]

I don't want to replace the RAM - I'm just saying that if I ended up having to swap out the MB then typically the type of RAM that it uses changes as well - at least, it has the past several times I've upgraded.

It's gonna be a few months probably before I'm able to upgrade, so maybe some prices will come down by then.

[foxhack]

Your RAM appears to be DDR3, which is pretty standard by now. So you'd be fine with the same RAM.