Char Jackson wrote:
On Sun, 21 Apr 2019 13:26:43 -0500, Rene Lamontagne
wrote:

I am contemplating upgrading my I7 950 system due to age, which I built
in 2010.
I would be looking at replacing 5 items.

CPU
Motherboard
Memory
Video card
CPU cooler.

I will keep the
Coolermaster CM690 II case
Corsair RM750i PSU

I did a very similar upgrade a couple of months ago and ran into an
issue where the new system would POST, but nothing more. I swapped the
PSU, then the motherboard, then the CPU, then another motherboard, and
finally I swapped in a third PSU. That finally got me going. The moral
is, just because a PSU works fine with an older system doesn't
necessarily mean it will work OK on the new build. My old system had
16GB of RAM and 16 SATA drives, and the first two PSUs worked fine on
that system, but on the new system with 16GB RAM and 0 SSD/HDD and 1
optical drive, the two old PSUs wouldn't get past POST. Go figure.

500 GB and 1 terabyte HDDs
5x 120 GB SSDs

Make sure the new motherboard has enough SATA ports for all of that, and
if you plan to add an m.2 drive at any point, pay particular attention
to what gets disabled when you do. It's common to lose a SATA port or
two when you install an m.2 drive, or perhaps a couple of PCIe lanes.

Asus optical DVD burner

At the moment I am looking at

Intel i7 8700 CPU $400

I chose the same CPU, partly because it has built in graphics. I don't
do any gaming so the onboard GPU is fine with me. I opted out of the
8700K for the same reason that you did.

Asus Z390 Prime MB $260

I chose the Asus Z390 Aorus Ultra. I'd have to do a side by side
comparison to tell you what the differences are.

Asus RX 580 GPU $255

See above. No gaming for me, so no need for a standalone GPU. Money
saved.

16 GB of G.Skill Trident 3200 Ghz memory $160

I went with 64GB of basically the same RAM as you picked. It's G.Skill
3200, but I'm not sure if it's Trident. Anyway, I maxed out the RAM
because I run lots of VMs on that system. I've had it up to 22 VMs and
still had nearly half the RAM still available. That won't matter to you,
so 16GB is probably fine. You know best what you plan to be doing.

Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo CPU cooler $35

I'm using the stock cooler. The 8700 comes with one, while the 8700K
does not. My plan was to use the stock cooler until I see how much
additional cooling is needed, but it turned out that the stock cooler is
perfectly fine for everyday tasks. Online reviews will mostly confirm
that, except in a few special cases where people aren't doing normal
work.

For a total of $1110 CDN

Mine was way less than that, (other than my additional 48GB RAM). CDN is
part of the difference, (I'm in the US), and skipping the GPU and fancy
cooler saved a bit more.

Seems like a lot of cash for an upgrade to a system which is already
fast enough and is totally trouble free, But I am looking to the future
and will pass it on to my Son, After all I am 85 years old and may not
be able to do this if I wait too long.

So Look at the component choices I have made and let me know if there
are better choices without going to extreme high end kit which I really
don't need. This is not set in stone as I need to have a serious
discussion with my Financial advisor (myself). :-)

I think you're on a good track. As I stated above, I'd question the GPU
and the 3rd party CPU cooler, (you can always add those things later, if
needed), and I'd caution you to make sure the new mobo has enough SATA
ports for all of those drives. That's about it. Oh yeah, watch out for
the PSU acting weird, especially if it's been in service for quite a few
years, even if it works fine with the current system.


They started coming out with "Haswell certified" power supplies
a few years back, and it had something to do with when Haswell
went into a deep enough power save state, the supply didn't
regulate well at low load.

There was a time, when power supplies were so poorly designed,
there were two rows on the spec table, "max" load and "min" load.
Some required the user to maintain a significant load (25% of max!).
But it was well before the Haswell era, before supplies like that
disappeared from the market. That's why the need for "Haswell certified"
supplies was a surprise at the time.

I use my clamp-on DC ammeter on new builds, and the idle power
on CPUs has mysteriously been 13W or so, for a long time. But I
don't own a Haswell, and don't know how low those drop while
in service. (Also never owned a Prescott, which leaked like crazy.)

And sleep on the machine with four DIMMs is 5W and sleep
on the machine with eight DIMMs is 7.5W (different RAM generations).

I've never had a supply here that showed an inability to regulate
at low load. Some use a dummy load inside the supply, to meet
zero load conditions (again, the old days).

Paul