Best upgrade for 10 year old PC

[prince_xaine]

Hello, my family owns a 10 year old SFF tower (Potato) that I've kept running smooth over the years. It has Windows 10 on it, and a couple year old HDD on it, as the old one kicked the bucket. The Potato runs very well considering it's age, but sometimes it just runs sluggishly when updates are running in the background, or Windows Defender is going nuts.

Anyways, I decided to run the quick userbenchmark to figure out the largest bottleneck and squash it, if it's worth it. (I refuse to spend more than $100 on Potato)

The benchmark ran smoothly, until the 3D graphics came up. I actually expected less than 1 FPS, but Potato couldn't even initiate the test! Completely flunked the 3D test like a pile of mashed potatoes.

So despite this setback, here are my options:

Upgrade HDD (100 MB/s; SATA II) -> SSD

Upgrade CPU (Pentium E5200 2 core 2.5 GHz) -> To something on this list https://www.cpubenchmark.net/socketType.html#id5

Upgrade RAM (2GB RAM) -> to something similar to this @800 MHz
http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/inspiron-530s/CT764974

Get a Half Height GPU (Maybe speed up video playback for the family?)


Like I said, I don't want to spend more than $100. For this reason, I also don't want to "buy a new computer" because this one is ancient. Like I said, it works very well, I'd just like to make it a bit snappier for them. Thanks in advance.

Here is the benchmark:
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/9522637

 

[Ztdutxjgxgtu]

I wouldnt suggest on cpu upgrades, mostly wouldnt work without support of bios update for old mobo.

Ssd 240 mx500
Graphics , gtx1050 many low profile options.

These parts will also work on new systems

 

[InvalidError]

You can buy a whole refurbished i5-3470 with 8GB of RAM for ~$200 that would knock the socks off your Potato. That would be my 'upgrade' recommendation. No amount of waffling, deep-frying or seasoning on that Potato can bring it up to par with a modern ~$200 refurb PC.

Example: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883165263&cm_re=refurb_pc-_-83-165-263-_-Product

 

[smorizio]

with ssd drives they only work on newer chipsets. on older chipsets they may not work right or be any faster then a stock hard drive. on the ram use crucial free memory advisor a lot of old per build pc has 2/4g ram max and wont go any higher. on your gpu upgrade it fail do to the low wattage of the potato sfx power supply. i would take the old potato and use it for web surfing or donate it to a non profit that can reuse it for a low income person.

 

[prince_xaine]

hmmm this is all quite discouraging for my favorite potato. So I guess RAM is my best option?

 

[Ztdutxjgxgtu]

That is ddr2 ram you are using,
New pc uses ddr4 ram with fancy looks and high speed, also very expensive.
Which means ram upgrade on potato is solely on potato, not on any new system
Are you sure on that?

 

[DSzymborski]

Honestly, I have to agree with what the others are saying. This is a decade-old budget PC and if you wanted to make incremental upgrades that made sense, the time to start doing that was 2010 or 2011. Pretty much every part, from the OEM motherboard to the SFF case to the likely low-quality SFF power supply, hinders an upgrade in some way. Old prebuilt refurbs, like the one IE linked, aren't exactly new, top-of-the-line rigs, but they'll destroy anything you could do on your PC with the same amount of money.

 

[prince_xaine]

Lol guess I should retire the potato. Thanks guys.

 

[prince_xaine]

Hello everyone! I know you advised against it, but after some research, I found many of the parts cheap on Ebay!
New: http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/9702127
Old: http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/9522637

It doesn't have a complete score, because I don't have a GPU in it (doesn't really need it honestly).
However, it is much faster and more responsive now.
I spent: $20 + a $30 SSD I had laying around.

For some reason, certain things don't detect that the computer has 4 GB of RAM, even though it's a 64-Bit OS + Bios can read it and Windows reads it, but whatever. It works!

 

[DSzymborski]

You do realize, you downgraded the CPU.

 

[InvalidError]

You do realize, you downgraded the CPU.

The Core E8600 has a 600MHz higher base clock and 3X as much L3 cache (6MB vs 2MB) than the Pentium E5200. I'd call that a decent upgrade for $20.

 

[DSzymborski]

You do realize, you downgraded the CPU.

The Core E8600 has a 600MHz higher base clock and 3X as much L3 cache (6MB vs 2MB) than the Pentium E5200. I'd call that a decent upgrade for $20.

Doh, I read the userbenchmark orders backwards.

My bad, OP. Carry on.

 

[InvalidError]

Upgraded from a rotting potato to a stale potato

 

[prince_xaine]

Lol it's a hot potato. The CPU came with a little "bag" of paste. The CPU typically runs at about 65 C which is much too hot, but I have considered the different possibilities of the cause. The most likely is the high clock speed for a dual core processor. The second, terrible generic paste. I will be replacing the paste soon with arctic silver paste.

 

[InvalidError]

65C is fine. My C2D E8400 runs at ~65C under load with a fan-less 212+ and the maximum junction temperature for that CPU is something like 95C. Intel's newer CPUs are fine up to 100-105C junction temperature.

 

[prince_xaine]

65C is fine. My C2D E8400 runs at ~65C under load with a fan-less 212+ and the maximum junction temperature for that CPU is something like 95C. Intel's newer CPUs are fine up to 100-105C junction temperature.

The specifications for my CPU says it can have a max temperature of 72.5C, and the fans in the computer sound like a hurricane. Sure this is normal? lol

As a side note, I put a Radeon 7750 into this computer (for testing and benchmarking purposes, doesn't actually fit), and it runs games Mid-High settings at a solid 30 FPS.

 

[InvalidError]

72C would be the package temperature and the only way of actually measuring it is to drill a hole into a heatsink to put a temperature probe there. When you use temperature monitoring software, the CPU has no way of actually measuring this, the value is actually calculated from core (junction) temperature, the approximated junction-case thermal resistance and approximated package power. Junction temperature is the value that actually matters.

 

[prince_xaine]

Update - New thermal paste eliminated the excessive fan speeds - 10C lower temps. The fans now run on medium instead of high when doing crazy things like gaming on the PC. Thanks for everyone's responses, for following the Potato build and I hope this will make you feel better about older PCs! I installed steam on this PC too, and am able to play most of the games on medium settings without much difficulty!

 

[DSzymborski]

Update - New thermal paste eliminated the excessive fan speeds - 10C lower temps. The fans now run on medium instead of high when doing crazy things like gaming on the PC. Thanks for everyone's responses, for following the Potato build and I hope this will make you feel better about older PCs! I installed steam on this PC too, and am able to play most of the games on medium settings without much difficulty!

Glad to hear you had a happy ending!

 

[InvalidError]

I hope this will make you feel better about older PCs!

Good for you if the upgrade made you feel that way. After upgrading from my E8400/8GB potato to my then-new i5-8400/32GB potato though, I had absolutely no desire to look back

 

[prince_xaine]

I hope this will make you feel better about older PCs!

Good for you if the upgrade made you feel that way. After upgrading from my E8400/8GB potato to my then-new i5-8400/32GB potato though, I had absolutely no desire to look back

I mean, my real computer is:
Mainboard: Optiplex 7010 MT
CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K @3.8 GHz
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 ti
RAM: Corsair Vengeance Pro 1333 MHz @32 GB (Could be 1600 MHz, but 16 GB more RAM is better.)
SATA_0 (III) - SSD 1: Samsung 850 Evo (OS)
SATA_1 (III) - SSD 2: Kingston A400 (Programs)
SATA_2 (II) - HDD 1: Western Digital Black 6 TB (Games)
SATA_3 (II) - HDD 2: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (Other)

Userbenchmark Score: http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/9751238 (No Overclocks)

The potato is for the family, I built this computer for me lol. Honestly, not gonna lie, the potato actually boots faster than my computer. My BIOS just takes forever (it's up to date) and I think its because of all my drives. But I'm okay with that. Still only takes about 20 seconds altogether.