Mobo/cpu/ram combo?

[Terminus]

Looking to finally get some oomph out of my box and I'm wondering where I should start on these three things. I have an 8 year old mobo/cpu/ram setup now and it's really showing it's age now. Anyone care to shed some light on what's decent in the area of PC builds? I run Win7 and have a somewhat newer Radeom HD video card. Not running SLI or 2 video cards. I'm pretty behind on this shit.

 

[Drummerrrrr?]

What's your focus? Gaming/Media prod? Do you have a budget?

 

[P-E]

I just built a new studio PC about 6 months ago. Got myself an i7-4790K CPU overclocked at 4.5 GHz, 32GB RAM and a rock-solid ASUS Sabertooth Z97 Mark 2. Pretty expensive, but it's gonna be good for a few years and the motherboard is backed with the best warranty I could find while still being on the reasonable side of things (ie staying in LGA 1150 chipset while not paying bonus for unnecessary features).

I'd suggest getting a good SSD for your system drive (Samsung 840 Evo has a good price/quality ratio AFAIK), at least a current generation i5 overclockable CPU, 16 to 32GB RAM if you're using VST instruments regularly, and a motherboard backed with good reviews and a good warranty.

 

[sprack]

On the SSD's TechReport had a interesting study of their lifespans. http://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead/4

Personally I'm an advocate of an m2 or m3 mSATA on the board for the OS drive.

 

[Terminus]

What's your focus? Gaming/Media prod? Do you have a budget?

I guess both but mostly just doing music production. Budget is around 200-250 for each, I don't need the bleeding edge of technology but I do want something decent.

 

[AD Chaos]

I guess both but mostly just doing music production. Budget is around 200-250 for each, I don't need the bleeding edge of technology but I do want something decent.

Pony up and go with the latest consumer chipset, X99 (Haswell-E) platform:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100007671 600535697

The cheapest one goes for $390; $200 per component is a bit too tight (imo), but still doable.
You could get a regular X97 Haswell i5 and DDR3 for around that price.