[SOLVED] Affordable upgrade.

[bobasher]

I wish to carry out an upgrade to my system, not more than £200.
Would appreciate it if the members can suggest which component changes would give me the biggest benefit.
The system is:-

Corsair CC-9011049-WW Obsidian Series 450D Windowed Mid-Tower ATX High Airflow Performance Computer Case​

Corsair CX750 Builder Series CX 750W ATX/EPS 80 PLUS Bronze PSU​

ASUS Z97-K - motherboard - ATX - LGA1150 Socket - Z97​

Intel Core i5-4690K S1150 3.5GHz 6MB Devils Canyon with Heat Sink Fan Quad Core Processor Unlocked​

Corsair Hydro Series H60 2013 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler​

Corsair 8GB (2 x 4GB) Vengeance Pro Black DDR3 1866MHz CL9 Memory​

Asus AMD Radeon R9 280X 3GB PCI-Express 3.0 HDMI​

SanDisk SDSSDXPS480G​

WD 1TB Blue SATA 6GB/s 7200RPM 64MB 3.5" Hard Drive​

Samsung 24x SH-224DB DVD-RW SATA OEM​

Asus VG248QE 24-inch 3D LED Monitor - Black (1920x1080, 80000000:1, 144 Hz, 1ms, DVI Display Port, HDMI) 3off at 5760 x 1080​

Corsair M65 RGB Laser Gaming Mouse​

Corsair K65 LUX RGB Keyboard.​

Genius SW-G5.1 (80W) GX Gaming Speaker System​

Windows 10 Home​

Generally used for Social media, Spreadsheets, docs etc and Gaming over 3 Screens (mainly old titles,Farcry primal+5, Crysis 3, Doom & Deus Ex Mankind Divided)

Thanks.

 

[jacob249358]

I think this is a decent upgrade but if you could stretch the budget a little for a 10400f that would be even better bang for buck.
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/FpbJbh

 

[Lafong]

Not sure where you are or what parts you have access to or prices, but I'd say you might have a tough time to do much for 200 pounds.

That's around $265.

Your CPU is almost 8 years old and has 4 cores and 4 threads. Passmark single thread score 2190.

You could probably move to an i7-4790k with 4 cores and 8 threads. Passmark single thread score 2469. About 13% faster. You could buy a used 4790k for maybe $150 or $200 on ebay.

But you may well not be satisfied with the degree of improvement from what you have now.

I have no idea whether or not you can take much advantage of the additional 4 threads.

You would need a new motherboard to make a big leap in CPU strength. Depending on prices at your location, you might be able to find a mid level motherboard/CPU combination from newer generations that might be worthwhile. Maybe a low level i5 or an upper level i3.

You would likely need new DDR4 RAM on any different motherboard.

Your other stuff: you could replace the spinning hard drive with an SSD, but that may not make much sense if you rarely use that drive.

I think that power supply was modest quality when new. It's a candidate for replacement if 7 or 8 years old, but you wouldn't notice any improved performance if it's running OK now. It could last another 10 years for all we know.

I'd save more money and replace the motherboard, RAM and CPU with several generations newer stuff, for maybe $500 US. Or you can futz around at the margins for different peripherals....mouse, keyboard, monitor, speakers, etc.

 

[geofelt]

In what way is your current setup not doing the job?
You can probably buy a used I7-4790K for £120 or so.
8gb of ram is a bit small these days.
You can probably buy a 2 x 8gb ddr3 ram kit for £50 or so.
If the specs are like what you now have, you could end up with 24gb, but do not count on it.
Ram must be in a matched kit to work properly.

With a budget of £300 you could probably buy a 11th gen processor, lga1200 motherboard and 16gb of ddr4 ram.
Unless the need is urgent, we should see budget 12th gen processors become available in a similar price range.

If gaming is important to you, run this simple test:
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
This makes the graphics card loaf a bit.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

Good luck if your need is a graphics card upgrade; graphics prices are crazy with little prospect of changing.

 

[Why_Me]

https://www.ebuyer.com/1142602-asrock-b560m-pro4-matx-motherboard-b560m-pro4
Asrock B560M PRO4 £94.98

https://www.technextday.co.uk/produ...e-2-9ghz-1200-socket-processor-with-heat-sink
Intel Core i5 10400F £130.99

https://www.ebuyer.com/1258410-cors...-2-3200mhz-ddr4-memory-kit-cmk16gx4m2e3200c16
Corsair Vengeance LPX Black DDR4 3200MHz 16GB (2x8GB) CL16 £49.98

Intel Core i5-10400F Review - Six Cores with HT for Under $200

Intel's new Core i5-10400F offers a large performance jump over the previous generation Core i5-9400F because of its six-core/twelve-thread design. In this Core i5-10400F review we also test the feasibility of overclocking through BCLK, or by relaxing the PL1 and PL2 Turbo Limits.

www.techpowerup.com