Help with upgrading my old athlon PC to 60 FPS gaming

[silverpuma]

This is my reserve PC that a built a number of years ago that I want to resurrect as a budget gaming PC. I will be using it for web browsing and playing Euro Truck 2 simulation / Dirt4 / Arma 3 / TSW train sim / IL-2 Sturmovik / xplane sim on 1080hd and I would aim for as close to 60 FPS as possible.

I will be buying used parts as this is partly out of interest to see what I can get with secondhand parts and on a shoe string budget. I will pay around £150 / 200 for the upgrade. I will NOT be overclocking. At present I have the following all working:

1 x Antec TriCool Fan - 120mm
1 x 320GB Western Digital Caviar Blue 3.5" Hard Disk Drive
1 x 500W Silverpower By Seasonic SP-SS500 Power Supply1 x Xigmatek Asgard ATX Mid Tower Case
1 x Logitech U96 Optical Wheel Mouse
1 x Logitech S120 Speaker System
1 x Sony AD-7240S-0B 24x DVDRW
1 Radeon HD 7870 GPU
4 x 2GB Corsair ValueSelect DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel
1 x AMD Athlon II X4 620 Quad Core CPU]1 x Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H AM3 Motherboard

Any parts I change I will then sell on ebay to reduce the cost of my new-to-me parts.

My thoughts are as follows:

Replace - AMD Athlon II X4 620 Quad Core CPU with AMD FX 8350
Replace - Radeon HD 7870 GPU with RX 470
Replace - 4 x 2GB Corsair Value Select DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel with Need advice here but 16G as starter

I am very limited as far as PC builds goes so I am worried about compatibility issues so I need your help here. I don't want to change my Motherboard, power supply, but the 3 changes/parts I mentioned above would they be ok.
Or, I'm open to any ideas or configurations you might have Thanks in advance for taking the time to help and advise me!

 

[wozotife]

FX 8350 won't be compatible (it's AM3+)
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-MA785GT-UD3H-rev-10#support-cpu

since you'd need to replace all ram (for 16gb) you might as well look at ddr4 and new motherboard + ryzen cpu ...

 

[jaslion]

This is my reserve PC that a built a number of years ago that I want to resurrect as a budget gaming PC. I will be using it for web browsing and playing Euro Truck 2 simulation / Dirt4 / Arma 3 / TSW train sim / IL-2 Sturmovik / xplane sim on 1080hd and I would aim for as close to 60 FPS as possible.

I will be buying used parts as this is partly out of interest to see what I can get with secondhand parts and on a shoe string budget. I will pay around £150 / 200 for the upgrade. I will NOT be overclocking. At present I have the following all working:

1 x Antec TriCool Fan - 120mm
1 x 320GB Western Digital Caviar Blue 3.5" Hard Disk Drive
1 x 500W Silverpower By Seasonic SP-SS500 Power Supply1 x Xigmatek Asgard ATX Mid Tower Case
1 x Logitech U96 Optical Wheel Mouse
1 x Logitech S120 Speaker System
1 x Sony AD-7240S-0B 24x DVDRW
1 Radeon HD 7870 GPU
4 x 2GB Corsair ValueSelect DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel
1 x AMD Athlon II X4 620 Quad Core CPU]1 x Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H AM3 Motherboard

Any parts I change I will then sell on ebay to reduce the cost of my new-to-me parts.

My thoughts are as follows:

Replace - AMD Athlon II X4 620 Quad Core CPU with AMD FX 8350
Replace - Radeon HD 7870 GPU with RX 470
Replace - 4 x 2GB Corsair Value Select DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel with Need advice here but 16G as starter

I am very limited as far as PC builds goes so I am worried about compatibility issues so I need your help here. I don't want to change my Motherboard, power supply, but the 3 changes/parts I mentioned above would they be ok.
Or, I'm open to any ideas or configurations you might have Thanks in advance for taking the time to help and advise me!

Since your board only has 2 dimm slots, is not compatible with the fx series and you are getting a new gpu anyways you would be far better of getting a used I5 dell midtower and slapping a gtx 1050ti in there.
By selling your old athlong system and using the budget you have you can get a seriously good system togheter. Just not with what you have now.

 

[wozotife]

the best thing would be to just get a new GPU within your budget i.e. something like rx570, or gtx1060

might help to get a small ssd for overall system responsiveness (and faster swapping) rather than having to get rid of the old and buying new ram...

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dirt-4-performance-benchmarks,5096-3.html
https://www.techspot.com/review/1425-dirt-4-performance/

 

[silverpuma]

Glad you made me aware of the FX 8350 issue I could have easily made that mistake....thanks! Would there be any worthwhile improvement to upgrade my cpu and if so what would be the amd cpu with the biggest improvement that is compatible with my motherboard.....thanks

the best thing would be to just get a new GPU within your budget i.e. something like rx570, or gtx1060

might help to get a small ssd for overall system responsiveness (and faster swapping) rather than having to get rid of the old and buying new ram...

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dirt-4-performance-benchmarks,5096-3.html
https://www.techspot.com/review/1425-dirt-4-performance/

 

[silverpuma]

hhhmmm, I had never even contemplated something like that.....interesting.....is there any reason for picking the Dell i5 midtower? Is there any particular model I need to lookout for on say ebay?

This is my reserve PC that a built a number of years ago that I want to resurrect as a budget gaming PC. I will be using it for web browsing and playing Euro Truck 2 simulation / Dirt4 / Arma 3 / TSW train sim / IL-2 Sturmovik / xplane sim on 1080hd and I would aim for as close to 60 FPS as possible.

I will be buying used parts as this is partly out of interest to see what I can get with secondhand parts and on a shoe string budget. I will pay around £150 / 200 for the upgrade. I will NOT be overclocking. At present I have the following all working:

1 x Antec TriCool Fan - 120mm
1 x 320GB Western Digital Caviar Blue 3.5" Hard Disk Drive
1 x 500W Silverpower By Seasonic SP-SS500 Power Supply1 x Xigmatek Asgard ATX Mid Tower Case
1 x Logitech U96 Optical Wheel Mouse
1 x Logitech S120 Speaker System
1 x Sony AD-7240S-0B 24x DVDRW
1 Radeon HD 7870 GPU
4 x 2GB Corsair ValueSelect DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel
1 x AMD Athlon II X4 620 Quad Core CPU]1 x Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H AM3 Motherboard

Any parts I change I will then sell on ebay to reduce the cost of my new-to-me parts.

My thoughts are as follows:

Replace - AMD Athlon II X4 620 Quad Core CPU with AMD FX 8350
Replace - Radeon HD 7870 GPU with RX 470
Replace - 4 x 2GB Corsair Value Select DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel with Need advice here but 16G as starter

I am very limited as far as PC builds goes so I am worried about compatibility issues so I need your help here. I don't want to change my Motherboard, power supply, but the 3 changes/parts I mentioned above would they be ok.
Or, I'm open to any ideas or configurations you might have Thanks in advance for taking the time to help and advise me!

Since your board only has 2 dimm slots, is not compatible with the fx series and you are getting a new gpu anyways you would be far better of getting a used I5 dell midtower and slapping a gtx 1050ti in there.
By selling your old athlong system and using the budget you have you can get a seriously good system togheter. Just not with what you have now.

 

[wozotife]

possibly, if you can get it really cheap following may be worth the effort of replacing the cpu
Phenom X4 955 @ 3.2Ghz, 965 @ 3.4Ghz, 970 @ 3.5Ghz, 975 @ 3.6Ghz or X4 980 @ 3.7Ghz
although they have higher (125W compared to 95W of your X4 620) TDP

then Ryzen 3 1200 (3.1/3.4Ghz) is £75 but half the TDP @65W (+ MB £50 + 8/16GB RAM £75/150)

getting 2nd hand pc on ebay may not be a better deal

 

[silverpuma]

looking on ebay ...are these Phenom X4 980, not an am3 + socket as well so will not work with my MB?

possibly, if you can get it really cheap following may be worth the effort of replacing the cpu
Phenom X4 955 @ 3.2Ghz, 965 @ 3.4Ghz, 970 @ 3.5Ghz, 975 @ 3.6Ghz or X4 980 @ 3.7Ghz
although they have higher (125W compared to 95W of your X4 620) TDP

then Ryzen 3 1200 (3.1/3.4Ghz) is £75 but half the TDP @65W (+ MB £50 + 8/16GB RAM £75/150)

getting 2nd hand pc on ebay may not be a better deal

 

[wozotife]

it's best to check directly on the manufacturer's website (the following link)
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-MA785GT-UD3H-rev-10#support-cpu
you should check which bios version you have (i.e.make sure you have installed required bios before upgrading the cpu)

i.e. Phenom X4 980 should work if you update bios to F9B