Desktop Buying Advice

[Ashimema]

It looks like my office desktop is now on it's last legs . Still it's lasted a good 7 years!

Looking for advice on where to start with the next one. I'm a Linux user focused on programming; My current ailing system is based around an Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz on an Asus PBZ68-V LE with 8GB Ram and an SSD as the main drive. The only upgrade it had in the 7 years was to add an Asus R7260X graphics card to let me run my 27" display 2560x1440 resolution along with the secondary display at 1920x1080.

I'm actually fairly happy with the setup. However, I'd love to be able to add a further 1920x1080 display to the set down the line, performance is starting to dwindle and I do semi regularly run out of ram now. I'm running Ubuntu Linux (The Gnome Shell Edition) and Chrome mostly, along with my coding tools. I'm rather tired of the noisy fans too, so a quiet system is pretty high up my priorities..

By ailing I mean the backed up secondary HDD is on the rocks, all the fans are starting to run rough and the power supply is in urgent need of replacement.. so it certainly feels like it's time for a new system rather than just upgradeing/replacing a few parts.

So.. what would people suggest I attempt to replace this with today, given a budget of around the £500 - £600 mark (remembering that I need none of the accessories as I already have adequate displays and keyboard/mouse)

Many thanks in advance for any advice

 

[Stephen M]

Is there any of your old PC still usable, the SSD perhaps or the case, PCS will allow you to send your own case, using both of those would save you a bit, plus you could always add a new SSD later on, PCS allow you to work on the machine without voiding the warranty. It is also worth waiting for the new Kaby Lake CPUs, they should be out this month and will be faster than the Skylake but probably not much more expensive.

 

[Ashimema]

That's a thought, I hadn't considered sending the case in as I think it would likely cost more in postage than a new case of similar quality (It's a cheap as chips no thrills coolermaster).

I was thinking I'd reuse the SSD as it's still performing well.

Interesting about holding off for the next CPU's to come out, I probably should have remembered to look that up before embarking on this. Seeks I'm more out of practice with computer buying than I thought.

Cheers

 

[Ashimema]

Oh, Intel is moving away from tick-tock to process-architecture-optimisation; with this next set of CPU's being the first 'Optimisation' stage of the new cycle.

Stephen M, what are you basing your 'not much more expensive' comment on? My experience is that state of the art, as these will be at the time of release, usually commands a hefty price premium.. though it may mean the current i7's drop in price a bit?

Stepping back to the original post.. would anyone recommend a starting point... if I want quiet and powerful system, but am not hugely worried about upgrading components or playing newer games, which base pcspecialist system would I best be starting with?

 

[Oussebon]

You could say Haswell Refresh / Devil's Canyon was the first example of the 'optimisation' phase since in 22nm you had Ivy Bridge (tick), then Haswell (tock) then Haswell refresh / DC.

Stephen M, what are you basing your 'not much more expensive' comment on? My experience is that state of the art, as these will be at the time of release, usually commands a hefty price premium.. though it may mean the current i7's drop in price a bit?

I think any comment in pricing is necessarily speculative. However I'd fully agree with Stephen's assessment.

Mainly because Kaby Lake is such a relatively minor upgrade over Skylake that if they put the prices right up everyone would just keep buying Skylake. People continued to build with Devil's Canyon for a good while after Skylake launched. Skylake was a major upgrade, perhaps not so much just the performance but also DDR4, etc, but the price difference was huge. Kaby Lake has the same IPC as Skylake and is just a bit faster out of the box and a bit more efficient.

Also we've seen Kaby Lake -ULV CPUs in laptops without the prices skyrocketing. Some leaks have indicated the Kaby Lake desktop prices will be the same as Skylake ones. And some leaked Acer laptop prices (where those will have both new Kaby Lake CPUs and GTX 1050 mobile GPUs) are only a shade more expensive than Skylake + 960M (much weaker) laptops.

Stepping back to the original post.. would anyone recommend a starting point... if I want quiet and powerful system, but am not hugely worried about upgrading components or playing newer games, which base pcspecialist system would I best be starting with?

For your £500 to £600 budget I wouldn't bother buying a new system. It's just not worth it. You might well end up downgrading your CPU rather than upgrading it at that price point.

You might be best served buying replacements for your ailing PC bits and just using those to base further upgrades on when you have more cash for a new i7 CPU, etc.