Good deals on I7 Processors?

[LenaSexton]

I bought my Asus desktop with an i5 processor back in 2016 as soon as I made enough money to upgrade. Before that I was using an older laptop and it was struggling. It has performed well for me for years, but now it is time to upgrade the processor and/or the hard drive. I'm not really lagging, but with the amount of editing I do to graphics, video and audio I will be doing my current system is lackluster and becomes unstable. That being said the pricing that I'm seeing for an i7 processor are out of this world $250-$300. Is there a cheaper alternative or is there a discount site that sells these a lot cheaper. I was hoping to be able to upgrade my processor and hard drive for $300 or less, but to spend that much on a processor alone...sheesh! Where are my IT experts that know of some better deals?

 

[Deleted member 37064]

It's been a long while since I've done any custom PC builds, as I now run laptops or micro computers exclusively (I don't game or have a need for the custom builds anymore). But, before you look to upgrade you CPU, validate that you're up to date on BIOS and all firmware/drivers as well. Then, also look up what your mainboard can support since they are designed for specific CPU and generation as your mainboard may not handle a newer generation processor. When I used to build custom PC's, I would always do CPU with the mainboard and memory to ensure full compatibility.

How much memory and what's your graphics card that is in your system? I would think those would have a bigger impact on any rendering/editing you're doing than a CPU.

As to a new hard drive, are you looking for more space or better performance such as going to a solid state drive? It might be easy enough to just add in a secondary drive for more storage or plug in an external to offload what you don't frequently use.

 

[LenaSexton]

I was wondering if I would be better off just getting a whole new motherboard! I thought just replacing the processor would be enough, but I can see where that would be highly problematic if the old motherboard can't handle the newer processor. YIKES! As far as the hard drives I want need more space to run the programs I already have simultaneously if need be (i.e. Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, Premiere, OBS).

It's been a long while since I've done any custom PC builds, as I now run laptops or micro computers exclusively (I don't game or have a need for the custom builds anymore). But, before you look to upgrade you CPU, validate that you're up to date on BIOS and all firmware/drivers as well. Then, also look up what your mainboard can support since they are designed for specific CPU and generation as your mainboard may not handle a newer generation processor. When I used to build custom PC's, I would always do CPU with the mainboard and memory to ensure full compatibility.

How much memory and what's your graphics card that is in your system? I would think those would have a bigger impact on any rendering/editing you're doing than a CPU.

As to a new hard drive, are you looking for more space or better performance such as going to a solid state drive? It might be easy enough to just add in a secondary drive for more storage or plug in an external to offload what you don't frequently use.

 

[Deleted member 37064]

I was wondering if I would be better off just getting a whole new motherboard! I thought just replacing the processor would be enough, but I can see where that would be highly problematic if the old motherboard can't handle the newer processor. YIKES! As far as the hard drives I want need more space to run the programs I already have simultaneously if need be (i.e. Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, Premiere, OBS).

It's definitely worth checking out the compatibility. Though, at times you can get decent deals on MoBo/CPU combo deals. Most of the places I used to purchase are now long gome. Hopefully someone else can fill you in on where the best deals are.

As to hard drive space, the programs are already installed so I'd think it's just a matter of offloading any videos you aren't using. You can go SSD, but a 1TB drive is still relatively expensive compared to an external drive where you can store videos you've already finished, or pics. If you're looking to run multiple programs, then you'll want to increase your RAM/Memory if you can.

 

[LenaSexton]

It's definitely worth checking out the compatibility. Though, at times you can get decent deals on MoBo/CPU combo deals. Most of the places I used to purchase are now long gome. Hopefully someone else can fill you in on where the best deals are.

As to hard drive space, the programs are already installed so I'd think it's just a matter of offloading any videos you aren't using. You can go SSD, but a 1TB drive is still relatively expensive compared to an external drive where you can store videos you've already finished, or pics. If you're looking to run multiple programs, then you'll want to increase your RAM/Memory if you can.

Yes, especially the RAM/Memory. It just gets so damn expensive, but it's an inevitable expense in my future lol.

 

[Emme Torx]

I bought a used Dell Optiplex business computer with an i7 for $180 on craigslist. Upgraded to an SSD, put in a used Geforce 770 I had lying around and a new power supply, and have a fabulous streaming computer good enough to edit video on as well. I've bought a couple Optiplexes and done similar builds for friends, it's not the most amazing computer but it's an extremely efficient solution for my needs.

 

[ForumPoster]

If you are looking for a new system go with a new AMD Built. They are ahead of Intel at this point and usually cheaper.

Build you own system, that way you can upgrade it later just by doing a motherboard/proc/memory swap depending on the next time you upgrade.

Though Intel upgrades in what they call a tick tock cycle or did, so even what you have now motherboard wise may not be compatible with newer procs.

What is your CPU installed now? Right click My Computer or This PC on the desktop and go to Properties. If we know what CPU you have now can advise on one you can get on eBay used.

 

[mike_aussie]

Best to do some research.

The Best CPU for Gaming in 2024

Here is the best CPU for gaming.

www.tomshardware.com

Also, guru3d.com is a good website for hardware reviews and to ask for advice.

AMD might be cheaper but you also need a new motherboard and ram to match. If you can wait until early to mid 2021 prices might drop.

 

[MissAtomicGinger]

Discliamer, I made my husband answer this. He said:

What GPU are you using? Newer Geforce GTX/RTX cards have the NVENC encoder and Premiere has started supporting GPU acceleration recently, which might help you a lot more than a faster CPU. Our streaming/editing machine just has a GTX 1660 now and that helped a lot. The old GPU actually caught fire mid-stream and I had to make an emergency run to Best Buy for a replacement.

If you have a decent GPU already and do want to upgrade your CPU, it'd be worth getting a newer AMD Ryzen CPU with a compatible motherboard. The new generation of Ryzen CPUs is coming out very soon so the last gen CPUs may drop in price and are still plenty fast. An AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT is about $220 and you can get a compatible motherboard for about $100 and you'll get way more performance than upgrading to an i7 chip compatible with a 2016 motherboard, as long as you have DDR4 RAM that you can reuse. The motherboard will also have fast M.2 SSD slots, and a super fast 500GB SSD can be had for ~$60. That's a lot of bang for your buck as far as upgrades go.