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Hardware upgrade advice required to build PC for architecture purposes

MusicFreakArchiGuy

My PC has ECS - H61H2-M2 motherboard. It has 8GB DDR3 RAM. The processor
is i3-2100 @3.10 GHz. The graphics card is NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 of 2GB
capacity. The power supply is 450W. The motherboard, processor, one
stick of 4GB DD3 RAM, power supply were bought in 2011 or 2012. The
second 4GB stick of RAM was bought in 2017. I am using Windows 10 pro 64
bit.

The CPU cabinet was bought in 2005 or 2006. I do architectural work
which involves making 3D models of buildings in SketchUp and still image
photorealistic rendering in V-Ray.

I also do photo editing work in Photoshop and use layout and graphics
software viz. Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop. I do occasional video
editing that consists mostly of slide shows and the videos are of 4-5
minute duration in Adobe Premiere.

I am planning to buy a new i7 processor or AMD Ryzen 7. I want to keep 8GB RAM or maybe I will upgrade to 12 GB RAM.

I have the following queries.

1. Which processor should I buy from the following ?

Intel Core i7-7700 Processor 8M Cache, Up To 3.60 GHz 7th Generation which will cost me 24,596 bucks

Amazon.in:
Buy Intel Core i7-7700 Processor 8M Cache, Up To 3.60 GHz 7th
Generation Online at Low Prices in India | Intel Reviews Ratings

AMD RYZEN 7 SERIES OCTA CORE PROCESSOR 1700 for 25,088 bucks. Not much of a price difference between the two processors

https://www.amazon.in/AMD-RYZEN-OCTA-CORE-PROCESSOR/dp/B06WP5YCX6/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1516978188&sr=1-1&keywords=ryzen+7

Would I require any additional cooling for AMD Ryzen processor as the
amazon web page mentions “WITH WRAITH SPIRE COOLING SOLUTION (AM4
SOCKET)”

2. Should I upgrade my graphics card also? The current graphics card
that I have i.e. NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 of 2GB capacity was bought in
2017 only.

3. Should I buy a new power supply? I recently faced a hard disk
trouble (WD hard disk bought in 2012) in which the pins of hard drive
got blackened out that rendered it useless.

4. A friend of mine is suggesting to buy a new i5 processor or AMD Ryzen
equivalent instead and buy a heavier better graphic card.

His point is to invest more money in graphic card in order to get better
performance instead of sticking to a low end graphics card and pumping
money in a high end processor. Is that true?

I am attaching screenshots of my hardware specs and damaged hard drive.

 
Jan 27, 18 11:48 am
Non Sequitur
25k for a cpu? Damn.
Jan 27, 18 12:13 pm  · 
 · 
MusicFreakArchiGuy

That's 25k Indian Rupees, not dollars.

Jan 27, 18 12:37 pm  · 
 · 
randomised

You lost me at ECS.

Jan 27, 18 12:51 pm  · 
 · 
archinine
Seems your weakest link right now is ram. Only 8GB? I'd upgrade that first. Also, when you do upgrade ram it's best to have all slots filled and with the same capacity stick as by default your programs will be pulling from them equally. So 12GB isn't really a usable configuration. E.g. If you have 4 slots get 4x4GB sticks not two 8GBs. If you have two slots get 2x8GBs not a 4+8. You'll only be able to use 8 total in that last configuration. 16GB total is sort of the minimum for any kind of rendering work on software from the last few years.

Your friend is correct on the graphics card - for video and arch rendering it's really your ram and video card (plus it's dedicated ram) that will give you the best bang for buck. The nvidia card you have seems fine though. Processor seems fast enough too.
Jan 27, 18 2:39 pm  · 
 · 
Superfluous Squirrel

If you upgrade processors you need to buy a new mobo too, so make sure you factor that into your budget. You probably dont need an i7, a nice i5 will do a great job. Getting a mid range cpu and gpu is better than putting all your money into one. that being said your current gpu is pretty nice. There isn't much difference between amd and intel, both work great. 

Like archinine said you should get more ram. Check how your mobo is set up. If you have 4 slots its usually in 2 sets of 2, but sometimes 1 set of 4. If you have 2 slots its probably 2 sets of 1. All ram in the set should be identical, not just the same size. 

You only need a cooling system if you're overclocking which you definitely don't need to do for architecture work.

Check how much power everything draws to decide if you need a bigger supply. Its really just a math problem.

check out https://www.newegg.com/ its a better place to check stats on computer hardware than amazon.

Jan 27, 18 11:07 pm  · 
 · 
N.TW

The advice above regarding more RAM does not make a lot of sense, specifically because if you want a 7th gen intel or ryzen 5/7 you will need a motherboard that supports ddr4. So it would not make a lot of sense to buy more ddr3. While I agree that 4gb of ram is a bit low, check your ram usage...are you maxing it out currently? 


For the hard drive, SSDs have become much more affordable. You might consider getting one instead of a mechanical drive. 


Generally Ryzen is considered marginally superior for productivity and intel for gaming performance. But I would research each software and how they perform on each platform. Honestly the ryzen 5 is pretty fast. Will the software use the extra cores of ryzen 7? I don’t know you’ll have to look it up. 


Last bit of advice...this is perhaps not the best site to ask for computer hardware recommendations. Try toms hardware. 

Nov 24, 18 10:26 am  · 
 · 
birder

You'll have to upgrade both CPU and GPU. That GT730 is very old and used as a display card nowadays. 

Feb 1, 19 7:05 am  · 
 · 
lucasharandez

like seriously men 25k for this pc,,,, is this working fine ?

Feb 3, 21 12:19 pm  · 
 · 

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