I partly followed Gonso's Guide to Building a Silent PC a few years ago and I'm interested in upgrading my PC.




I was thinking of upgrading to a bigger SSD since they're so cheap now. And my question is just about what processor to upgrade to?

Your current system is old enough that you should probably start fresh with a new CPU, motherboard and RAM if it's in budget. If you want to do a full overhaul, estimate your budget and I can suggest a couple options.

If you want to get more perf from what you have now and kick the can down the road another year or two, your choices are limited to other SandyBridge (core ix 2x00) processors.

Since you built aiming for a quiet PC, you probably want to stay at the same TDP (power usage) for the CPU. Any of the SandyBridge SKUs listed with 65w TDP should be viable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_...sktop_platform

The fastest option is an i7 2600S. The S is important and indicates a low power usage CPU.
Core i7 2600s ebay link

Core i5 2500s would be the best bang for your buck at about half the price of the Core i7
Core i5 2500s ebay link

Thanks headtrauma for the reply.

I don't use it for gaming or media, my only real issue is it gets slow with a lot of chrome tabs open.

I suspect that I'd get away with another few years with a better processor, but wouldn't be totally against upgrading more of the system for a few hundred.

If your issue is with having a lot of browser tabs open, perhaps consider just adding more RAM.

I don't think the MB can support more.

Actually, would I need to get a new MB for an up to date SSD? Think I'm stuck using SATA with that one.

You'd get a pretty big boost in CPU perf going from a dual core i3 to a quad core i5. That core i5 2600s is a pretty reasonably priced upgrade. Going from i5 to i7 probably averages about 10% more performance, so not great value for money for your upgrade scenario.

Do you have 1x8GB RAM module, 2x4GB or 1x8GB? You should be able to go to 16GB RAM if you're only at 8GB now.

You are, more or less, "stuck with SATA" unless you replace the mobo, ram and CPU.
(There are a few ways you could add a PCIe SSD as a non-bootable drive but they're not worth pursuing). Going to a bigger SATA SSD will give you more fast storage space and better performance than your current SSD. I had (and loved) a C300 128GB as my first SSD but the market has come a long way since then. You can get a Samsung 860 EVO for about $80 or go up to 1TB for about $150. These are great all around drives and could be transplanted to a newer build down the road. Make sure the SSD is plugged in to one of the 6Gbps ports on your motherboard (specs say there are 2) as modern SATA SSDs are able to saturate the port at peak throughput.
Samsung 860 Evo
If you were doing a new build, I'd probably suggest an NVME drive for even faster throughput, but the gap in user experience between an NVME and a SATA SSD is nowhere near as big as the feel of a SATA SSD system vs an HDD system.

So, $30 for CPU upgrade, $80 for new SSD, $30-60 to upgrade to 16GB RAM and you'd have a nice little upgrade and a system that feels quite a bit snappier. Total $110-170

Here's a quick value build parts list for an overhaul. Ryzen 2200G (4 core w/ onboard gfx), motherboard, 16GB RAM and a 512 GB NVME drive
Case, power supply and secondary drive could be reused. Total about $340
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/HchvyX

That's really great. Thanks. Yeah I think the upgrade would be more than enough for a while.

I'm guessing I probably shouldn't mix ram?

I'm just asking as it's about 40% more to buy the same stick versus a similar one

8GB GeIL Green Series DDR3 1333MHz PC3-10660 CL9 Single memory module 1.35V

vs

8GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-10666 RipjawsX Series (9-9-9-24) Single module 1.5V

You definitely don't want to mix and match voltages on RAM. See if you can find another 8GB GeIL Green Series DDR3 1333MHz PC3-10660 CL9 Single memory module 1.35V, if you can't get that, look for another DDR3 1333MHz PC3-10660 CL9 1.35V stick.

That SSD was state of the art in 2010. But it doesn't even have modern day garbage collection, just TRIM. When is the last time you reset it?

I'm thinking it isn't the RAM (expensive), and like headtrauma's good advice suggested a $30 CPU Sandy Bridge upgrade. Consider adding an extremely cheap SSD, a new 120GB SSD would be less than $20 on sale.

You could wait out a little while until Intel's Ice Lake (10 nm) arrives sometime this year. You could even wait out a little longer, generally when a new chip arrives motherboards and RAM are really pricey. By the time Ice Lake is rolled out, it will be mostly NVMe SSDs and your SATA 6gbps SSD might not carry over to a new system (unless you want to use it as a storage drive.)