Want to Update to Catalina. Stuck on Yosemite. Help Me Get There?

[acentoni]

You can reuse your RAM if you go to a Z97 motherboard with DDR3. You can buy a Haswell refresh processor for that. Look for refurbished, or new old stock sales, and it will be quite cheap.

If you're not reusing RAM, then you're in the same boat as anyone here who's building a new system.

Word. Thanks for the info!

 

[Jamesbond007]

I’m open to replacing graphics, mobo and/or processor if needed. Don’t mind starting over with a “new” system if it means things will work smoothly. Right now, I’m stuck on Yosemite and things are starting to not work so well. I want an up to date, working system that’s not crazy complicated to get going. Any advice is welcome.

Then I can assume that since you want an up-to-date system you will replace the motherboard / CPU / RAM / graphics card if necessary.

In this case it depends on your budget. If you want everything new, perhaps you can consider a motherboard based on B365 / H370 / Z390 chipset, a i5 9400 / 9400F / 9600K / 9600KF CPU (6 cores, F = No CPU integrated graphics like my i7 9700KF), new DDR4 RAM, and a RX 580 or RX 5x00 graphics card.

If you don't mind second hand hardware (but still newer than what you have), there is Haswell as mentioned by another poster, or the newer Skylake / Kaby Lake (6th / 7th generation Intel, requires DDR4 RAM), like my Kaby Lake build.

 

[acentoni]

Hell yeah. I’ll look into this. Thanks.

 

[Gigamaxx]

Hell yeah. I’ll look into this. Thanks.

I picked up a few of these recently and put them in old OEM system cases.
1. Lenovo g101 AMD e2 cpu mATX case. All the case switches and ports plugged right in to the motherboard. I also bought a $15 PSU that fit the case. Total cost to upgrade $100.

2. HP g100 series AMD e2 ATX case. I also bought a power switch/led and USB and Audio ports with connectors and modded them into the HP case. I also picked up a cheap 550w power supply $20 and an adapter 24 pin to 14 pin.

$81.09 + tax. If you have a case & power supply.