Question Advice on upgrading my potato PC ?

[1314a12at]

So I've this old potato pc with the following specs:

Processor : Pentium E5700
Motherboard : Intel LGA 775 Socket
2 DDR2 RAM
500GB HDD
No GPU
Running Windows 7

I want to upgrade this system so it can support at least Windows10 and can run games like Hitman 2 or 3.

 

[USAFRet]

So I've this old potato pc with the following specs:

Processor : Pentium E5700
Motherboard : Intel LGA 775 Socket
2 DDR2 RAM
500GB HDD
No GPU
Running Windows 7

I want to upgrade this system so it can support at least Windows10 and can run games like Hitman 2 or 3.

Start here:

*How to Ask for New Build or Upgrade Advice*

How to Ask for New Build or Upgrade Advice First off, respect where respect is due - this is an adaptation of the Animal's *How To Ask For New Build Advice* Sticky. I created this because there's a lot of posts nowadays asking for upgrade advice both on here and on the CPU forums, and I feel...

forums.tomshardware.com

Include your budget, etc.

 

[Tac 25]

So I've this old potato pc with the following specs:

Processor : Pentium E5700
Motherboard : Intel LGA 775 Socket
2 DDR2 RAM
500GB HDD
No GPU
Running Windows 7

I want to upgrade this system so it can support at least Windows10 and can run games like Hitman 2 or 3.

sad to say, but that's impossible. Hitman 2 or Hitman 3 is very difficult for an LGA 775 board. These games need at the very least, a second gen intel to work properly.

If you're really short on cash, it's better if you just buy a refurbished pc with an i5-2500k. install 8gb of ddr3 ram, and a GT 1030 GDDR5.

 

[punkncat]

Your best bet with this rig would be to (return it if you can) clean it, put it up somewhere safe for later and hope it gains some "legacy" value over the next decade or so. The best CPU you could (possibly) put in would be a Core 2 or Core Quad and honestly wouldn't be worth even a few dollars to do so given your target performance.

I tend to agree with @Tac 25 in this case, although if you consider some new old stock you might be able to pull of a more recent i3 system with a mix of new and used hardware.

Do you have any manner of budget at all?

 

[Tac 25]

@punkncat yeah. I just mentioned a 2500k as the bare minimum. Of course, if the OP can afford better than that, then he should buy something better.
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going into a bit more detail why I said it's impossible to upgrade the OP's potato pc for Hitman 2...

because I too have an lga 775 potato here in the house (it is semi retired, and mostly for data storage). For fun, and to keep the old thing going.. I gave it multiple upgrades... cpu upgraded from e8400 to q9500, added an SSD as main drive, upgraded HD5450 to GTX 1650, changed the aged power supply to brand new Seasonic, installed Windows 10. With all these combined it became some sort of raging animal (lol) capable of playing less demanding Playstation games like Xenon Racer at 1080p full screen without lag. It also became capable of playing Genshin Impact, no lag at medium setting, V-sync off.

But despite all these... an lga 775 is simply not enough for the more demanding games. Don't have Hitman 2, but I do have Black Tail which has similar requirements. You can see in the video, I had to settle for 720p, and even that is barely playable.

Xenon Racer is at 4:55

Black Tail is at 18:29

View: https://youtu.be/k2jMHaJggG4

___

so even if by some effort, the OP manage to do the same multiple upgrades... it won't be an enjoyable experience playing Hitman 2 in his lga 775. Better for him to just buy another pc if want to play games like Hitman 2.

 

[Eugene$$]

get z390/ z490 platform

 

[boju]

But despite all these... an lga 775 is simply not enough for the more demanding games. Don't have Hitman 2, but I do have Black Tail which has similar requirements. You can see in the video, I had to settle for 720p, and even that is barely playable.

Prior to Sandy Bridge think lacking avx instruction sets can hurt. It's quite the deal with games nowadays. My retired 2600k 4.5 supports avx and played Far cry 4 a lot smoother compared to my other pc with i7 920 @ 4Ghz which doesn't support avx. Tested both with Gtx 780.

 

[Tac 25]

@boju

oh, so it's the lack of avx. Useful info, first time I heard of that. Well, the Q9500 came out 2013.. approx over a year after the 2600k got released. Would have been better if Intel gave avx to the Q9500 too.. but maybe avx function cannot be added to a core quad?

 

[boju]

Where did you see 2013? Q9500 came out January 2010.

Advanced Vector Extensions - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Tac 25]

@boju

I saw at Userbench.

 

[boju]

Userbenchmark is wrong, not surprising.

 

[Tac 25]

was believing Q9500 came out in 2013 for a long time now, because of userbench. lol
I guess you're right, it came out in 2010.

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anyway, the thread OP has not come back.

maybe they decided to just buy a new pc.

 

[boju]

Yeah i see op hasn't returned i checked as well. We had our fun 😊. If op comes back it's all on topic anyhow.