Well, the difference is $13 in terms of... $17 vs. $30. Though, if the price is the same for an NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti, then I guess it's fine. It just ends up being $6.75 more 😛
I think you could see a pretty big speed boost if you swapped in a Core i7. There's a 1055T model out there for about $200(though I'm not sure if your motherboard will actually play nice with it, since I don't see it listed in the specs), plus another 4GB of RAM (maybe $150-$$67) and potentially a 120GB SSD. That would probably put you just north of $333 total. You'd obviously be looking at used parts for the CPU and RAM.
I guess you might as well just grab a used GTX 970... those newer GTX 9 xx models don't really make any sense anymore since their prices haven't dropped at all, even with the 10xx series out now.
Intel Core i7-6700K MSI Main board desktop Z170 (S1151,4xDDR4,MAx:3600, 3xPCI-Ex16,4xPCI-Ex1, USB3.1,USB2.0,6xSATA III,R) -> Z170A_KRAIT_GAMING_3X Western Digital 1TB Desktop HDD, ST1000DM003 Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Corsair 2x8GB DDR4 3000 C15, COR-CMK16GX4M2B30C15 GIGABYTE G750H Power Supply 750W, Modular, 80+ Gold Samsung 850 evo 250GB SATA 2.5" (though maybe go for the 500GB version if you need it) Corsair Carbide Series Midi Tower Black (sound-dampened) without PSU P/N: PH-EC416PSC_BK Cooler Master CPU Cooler Hyper 212X P/N: RR-212X-17PK-R1
Total: $3829(cash) Best Buy
Regarding monitors... do they have to be a matching pair? You could do whatever, I guess. Maybe one Ultra Wide 29" or perhaps a 1080p TN 144Hz for gaming paired with a 1080p IPS for work...
Maybe five or six items actually have a real discount. I guess the rest are just fake markdowns where they raised the price right before dropping it again two weeks ago.😬
Man, please don't start linking sites like GPUZoo, CPUBoss, or GameDebate to compare parts.
That i3 is basically sitting right next to a Skylake Celeron G3900, so obviously it's going to be weaker with a TDP 15 W. I guess the point is you just can't get much better at this price point, and it'll probably be decent enough for working in Adobe tools.
On a monthly payment plan, it’s about $87/mo. I picked one up about a month ago; the speakers are definitely a letdown, and the keyboard feels a bit cheap. Still, I doubt you'll find better specs for this price point, and you can always upgrade the RAM or maybe pop in an SSD later.
Hmm... if I were you, I’d probably just pick up some used 4GB DDR3 sticks first($33) and grab a GTX 1050 Ti for the GPU—maybe even something better—just to see if that does the trick. That way, you wouldn't have to bother reinstalling Windows or tearing apart the motherboard and power supply. I guess that might carry you through until February, and then you could just swap out the whole platform once AMD Zen and Intel Kaby Lake finally hit the market.