Build Advice Help With Upgrades

[DraykTrip]

Hello,

I was given a PC about a year ago and have been advised to start looking at upgrades.

I'm not sure where I start but I am now getting the warnings that I am unable to support Windows 11.

The PC is used primarily for gaming and I would like to add upgrades piece by piece in a bid to get it to a much stronger PC that could look to support games with higher requirements.

The specs I know are:

Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti
CPU: Intel I7 4790k 4GHz
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 1TB SSD, 2TB HDD
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000G XC

Any advice is greatly appreciated, a direction of what to start looking at with recommendations of parts that could / should be replaced would be great, or any information on how I would know what to to upgrade would also be beneficial as I am purely at a bit of a loss as to what I should do.

Thanks

 

[rgd1101]

budget?
buying from?
brand and model of the psu?

 

[Unolocogringo]

Your current pc is at its update max.
Any real upgrades will be Motherboard/processor/memory.
Win 11 is locked to 8th generation Intel CPUs or newer. And you motherboard supports 3rd and 4th generation processors.

 

[Lafong]

I would like to add upgrades piece by piece

I'd suggest more likely several pieces at the same time. Stockpile money and probably get motherboard, CPU, and RAM at one time. Quite possibly also a new power supply.

You may be able to re-use existing drives and the case.

 

[DraykTrip]

budget?
buying from?
brand and model of the psu?

The PSU is EVGA SuperNOVA 1000G XC

I have no budget its just a case of getting the best I can in the smartest way possible so I can budget for it as I go

 

[DraykTrip]

I'd suggest more likely several pieces at the same time. Stockpile money and probably get motherboard, CPU, and RAM at one time. Quite possibly also a new power supply.

You may be able to re-use existing drives and the case.

Is there a way for me to understand what it is that I would purchase even if it is all in one like this? For example do I pick a motherbaord that is worth it now and look for the compatible components?

 

[rgd1101]

if you don't have a budget. new system, keep the psu and maybe the ssd

 

[Lafong]

Is there a way for me to understand what it is that I would purchase even if it is all in one like this? For example do I pick a motherbaord that is worth it now and look for the compatible components?

There's not much point in buying 1 or 2 parts and letting them sit on a shelf unused for weeks or months while you research other parts.

Decide on an absolute max budget and where you might buy from (Amazon, Newegg, Microcenter, wherever).

The 2 prime parts to consider first would be the motherboard and CPU. Which means you have to decide on AMD or Intel. Either will work, so I wouldn't get wound up about that choice.

Which motherboard depends on the features that you MUST have and features that you'd LIKE to have.....and of course budget. Maybe you place a lot of emphasis on looks. Maybe not.

Primary and secondary purposes of the PC are important. Give us as much detail on that as possible.

You have to balance where you spend the money. A 400 dollar motherboard and a 100 dollar CPU is probably a bad idea.

Any problem with spending 1000? I'm just trying to find out where you would balk.

 

[Why_Me]

The PSU is EVGA SuperNOVA 1000G XC

I have no budget its just a case of getting the best I can in the smartest way possible so I can budget for it as I go

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *Intel Core i5-12400F 2.5 GHz 6-Core Processor (£98.99 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: *Thermalright Burst Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler (£20.00 @ Computer Orbit)
Motherboard: *MSI PRO B760-P DDR4 II ATX LGA1700 Motherboard (£114.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: *Kingston FURY Beast 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory (£52.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £286.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-01-07 13:25 GMT+0000

 

[DraykTrip]

There's not much point in buying 1 or 2 parts and letting them sit on a shelf unused for weeks or months while you research other parts.

Decide on an absolute max budget and where you might buy from (Amazon, Newegg, Microcenter, wherever).

The 2 prime parts to consider first would be the motherboard and CPU. Which means you have to decide on AMD or Intel. Either will work, so I wouldn't get wound up about that choice.

Which motherboard depends on the features that you MUST have and features that you'd LIKE to have.....and of course budget. Maybe you place a lot of emphasis on looks. Maybe not.

Primary and secondary purposes of the PC are important. Give us as much detail on that as possible.

You have to balance where you spend the money. A 400 dollar motherboard and a 100 dollar CPU is probably a bad idea.

Any problem with spending 1000? I'm just trying to find out where you would balk.

1000 is perfectly fine if the spend is worth it. I don't want to spend the 1000 and then be having the same conversation 6 months later.

I'd also consider spending 2k on parts if they would last out but that then becomes more of a save up the cash whereas I'd happily spend more on individual parts that I could justify a few hundred monthly

 

[DraykTrip]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *Intel Core i5-12400F 2.5 GHz 6-Core Processor (£98.99 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: *Thermalright Burst Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler (£20.00 @ Computer Orbit)
Motherboard: *MSI PRO B760-P DDR4 II ATX LGA1700 Motherboard (£114.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: *Kingston FURY Beast 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory (£52.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £286.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-01-07 13:25 GMT+0000

This seems great, is this a decent upgrade? Whats the lifetime on an upgrade like this? Would I be looking to go again in a years time? or 2?

 

[Lafong]

You say you want "much stronger".

And you apparently are somewhat concerned about becoming unsatisfied in a year or two if you don't spend enough now.

That points to spending more now...... rather than some now and more later.

"Gaming" doesn't tell us much.

"Worth it" is known only to you. We don't know how price-sensitive you are or how you react to the law of diminishing returns.

You'd pay 30 percent more for 20 percent "better" performance? For 10 percent better performance? We don't know.

What games and what settings; now and in the foreseeable future?

You can easily spend 500 or 1000 on a video card alone.

I'd probably think in terms of 400 to 600 on some motherboard/CPU/RAM combination to start with....since you say 1000 total is not an issue.

How long have you used that power supply? At high loads?

 

[DraykTrip]

You say you want "much stronger".

And you apparently are somewhat concerned about becoming unsatisfied in a year or two if you don't spend enough now.

That points to spending more now...... rather than some now and more later.

"Gaming" doesn't tell us much.

"Worth it" is known only to you. We don't know how price-sensitive you are or how you react to the law of diminishing returns.

You'd pay 30 percent more for 20 percent "better" performance? For 10 percent better performance? We don't know.

What games and what settings; now and in the foreseeable future?

You can easily spend 500 or 1000 on a video card alone.

I'd probably think in terms of 400 to 600 on some motherboard/CPU/RAM combination to start with....since you say 1000 total is not an issue.

How long have you used that power supply? At high loads?

I've had the PSU a few years now, I'm not sure if that's been used at high loads. We play a few hours a night most days of the week.

So a bit of context into the gaming we've done recently.

We've played games such as Baldurs Gate 3 & Call of Duty with no real issues.

My friends have moved onto other games now such as Path of Exile 2 & Escape from Tarkov. Both of those are apparently way out of my league unless running really low quality etc and even then not worth my time (or so I'm told).

The discussions at the minute are that I could go to Amazon and spend no more than 400 and grab a console capable of playing the newer AAA games in full 4k which I'd like to avoid but the possibility of keeping up is what I'm really trying to do.

The issue with spending the 500 / 1000 today is that in a years time I'm being told I would look to upgrade again to play newer games such as GTA6 which I'm just not understanding. Is that really needed?

I don't know enough about how the hardware works and what is needed / available just to purely keep up and play the games that others are playing.

Sorry if i'm misunderstanding, I'm just trying to get the machine to a decent level and be able to keep up but I don't know how to achieve that.

 

[Unolocogringo]

At 1080p your video card is capable of maxing out most games. A few newer ones are medium setting or so.
Your processor/motherboard/ memory is your weakest parts for gaming.
Upgrading those will improve you FPS in most all games.

 

[logainofhades]

If you want something that is going to hold up longer, I would be looking to AM5, not a dead Intel socket.