7 year old rig, upgrade possible?

[rick.runyon]

I built my last PC 7 years ago and the specs are as follows:

Intel i7 2700k
Asus P8Z68-V Pro
4GB DDR3 (maybe 8? it's in the basement)
EVGA 560 TI
A couple SSDs (Crucial M4 and an Intel 330)
~500W PSU

I'm getting the itch to get back into some online PC gaming (PUBG specifically) and I know this thing is way past its prime. I'm sure at the least the GPU and RAM need an upgrade. What are people's thoughts?

 

[volkgren]

Sure you could upgrade the GPU to something like GTX 1060 6GB or RX 580. Definitely need at least 8GB of RAM. Your CPU should run modern games fairly well, it was a good CPU and is still capable enough for casual AAA gaming.

*Just saw you edited your PSU. Find out exactly what it is and update us. You might want to upgrade that as well, especially being so old.

 

[Ztdutxjgxgtu]

A new gpu will be great, also check new gtx in august.
Ram isnt enough, but try to invest as little as possible, old mobo rams are unstable and new pc use ddr4

 

[Posty351]

I to built an I5 2500k with a 560TI 7 years ago as well and have upgraded the gpu twice since. I'm currently running a 970 GTX and running every game on good settings. I've also upgraded to 16 gigs of ram and an SSD. Overall it still does me pretty good. But whole new rig in on the horizon for me in the next year.

 

[cryoburner]

Yeah, CPU-wise it still seems pretty good. Improvements in CPU speed have been fairly slow in recent years, so it shouldn't be all that far behind the current mid-range processors, and capable of handling current games reasonably well.

If there's only 4GB of RAM, then that should definitely be upgraded to at least 8GB, if not a bit more. Few current games will benefit much from having more than 8GB, though that will probably change before long.

The graphics card is definitely the weak point here. An upgrade to a GTX 1060 or RX 580 should make the system capable of running current games with good graphics settings and frame rates at 1080p.

Despite being a few times as fast, a GTX 1060 actually has lower power requirements than a 560 Ti, so so the PSU probably wouldn't be much of a concern with one of those. The Radeon RX 580 is a bit more power-hungry, but if you have a good brand of 500 watt or better PSU, one of those would likely be fine as well.

 

[rick.runyon]

GTX 1060 6GB looks good, I like that recommendation. The PSU is Corsair, I can confirm wattage tomorrow. Should I be concerned about the dated motherboard? I figured I would just replace the existing RAM modules with 2x4 or 2x8GB but I'm not really up to date on the speeds. It looks like the motherboard only supports DDR3 up to 2133 Mhz.

 

[cisco9898]

Wouldn't too bother about RAM speed in a old system.
Just get another 2 x 4GB RAM from ebay. There should be plenty around as people moving to DDR4

If you really want fast RAM, get a new PC with DDR4 RAM

 

[rick.runyon]

Ok so I booted up the old girl this morning and these are the hard facts on the specs:

CPU: i7 2600k (not 2700k as I had previously specified)
PSU: Corsair TX850
RAM: 8GB DDR3 1333MHz

So a pleasant surprise on the PSU and RAM. CPU is one notch below what I thought I had but I assume it's just as overclockable as the 2700k since it's the same architecture. I'm wondering now since the rumors on the the new GTX lineup place them just a couple months out if I should wait to buy a GPU. My plan right now is to start by picking up a Noctua NH-D15 and see what i can get out of the CPU.

 

[volkgren]

CPU is still good, doesn't really change much as most games won't take full advantage of a 6C/12T CPU anyway.

PSU is good, but it's past its 5 year warranty. Not sure if that's an issue, I suppose it depends on how you feel about worst case scenario: you lose your new GPU because your PSU blew and was out of warranty. But again, it was a high quality unit when it was new. I'm unsure how those things age.

RAM is good for casual gaming, but there are some games that will likely take advantage of more RAM. DDR3 is cheap, it's up to you if you want to upgrade. I typically say if you go above GTX 1060/RX 580 then get 16GB of RAM.

NH-D15 sounds good. Be sure it fits in your case and mobo. Noctua has compatibility lists.

 

[rick.runyon]

Unfortunate update... I was messing around with the boot order in the BIOS (I was dual booting Windows 10/Ubuntu between the two SSDs), and after saving and rebooting the system refused to POST and the VGA_LED was hanging red. After flipping the switch a few times and getting no results I started unplugging everything from the motherboard and removing all the peripherals. Decided to reseat one of the two DIMMs first. Small puff of smoke from the memory on boot. Turns out I stuck the module in backwards. Whoops, it's been a while. Unplug, reseat, try again, motherboard is passing CPU/MEM tests and still hanging on VGA. I've tried every combination of RAM/slots and cleared the CMOS several times with both the jumper and battery. Right now the battery is sitting on the table with the memory, I'm gonna leave it out overnight. Googling tells me that a lot of people have had this same issue and short of clearing CMOS the prognosis is not good. Might be in for a new motherboard at this point.

 

[volkgren]

If it's hanging on VGA have you tried removing the GPU and using the iGPU?

 

[rick.runyon]

Yes, the only things still connected to the motherboard are the CPU and a single RAM module.

 

[musrocs14]

I have the same CPU and it runs great. I would upgrade the memory to at least 8 gb and a decent GPU like the RX 580 or 1060. You might want to consider an upgrade to the power supply if it was a lower rated power supply. Possibly look into getting a PSU with 80+ bronze rating at least and potentially around 500-600 Watts. A decent cpu cooler and overclock if you haven't done so. Those CPU's were really good and are actually still pretty good to this day.

Other suggestions would be to do a fresh install of the OS as it has probably slowed down a bit due to how windows behaves with time and that would be a solid rebuild. If money is tight then you can at least do the GPU and memory or just the video card and not run any other programs while gaming. Make sure to get the exact memory module 4gb stick unless you have two 2gb sticks, in which case you would just get 2x4gb sticks and not have to worry about compatibility issues with two different memory sticks.