[SOLVED] Looking for an advice on how to improve a somewhat potato PC

[Damathryx_7]

My current PC has this stuff:
Motherboard: ASUS M5A97 R2.0
Graphic card: Nvidia GeForce GTX970
Processor: AMD FX8320 8 core processor
Power Supply: Zalman GigaMax 650W (it also says 80plus bronze power supply)
8 GB RAM
250 SSD for everything (yup, win 10 and games and programs combined)

Not overclocked.

In what direction should I be looking forward to upgrade this PC? I basically inherited it in a way and not sure how the specs were chosen, but I always catch myself thinking that I can't run games like Deus Ex Mankind Divided on low-mid and get decent fps. So I basically stick to older games, and even then I can't even use maximum settings on games like Dota. It's pretty annoying.
What would be the best component to upgrade to at least get a glimpse of smooth experience in new-ish games? Keep in mind that I'm a bit broke and live in Russia so I'm looking for something with good value for money ratio. You know, something consistent and obvious that'll pave the way for future upgrades if possible. I'm always worried that motherboard is just bad or something and doesn't support good stuff, but im not sure.

Any advice is welcome. Thanks in advance!

 

[Darkbreeze]

You don't list the MOST important component of all, which is the power supply. We need to know what the EXACT model of that is, before anybody can even BEGIN to make recommendations as to what might be a good direction to start looking in terms of upgrades.

 

[Damathryx_7]

You don't list the MOST important component of all, which is the power supply. We need to know what the EXACT model of that is, before anybody can even BEGIN to make recommendations as to what might be a good direction to start looking in terms of upgrades.

Thank you for the reply. Edited the OP, didn't even realise its importance at first.

 

[Darkbreeze]

So, no idea on the quality of that PSU, but I will say straight up that while Zalman has had a history, long ago, of offering some halfway decent products, most of those ARE from long ago. Just about everything Zalman has had to offer in the last ten years, with maybe one or two exceptions, has been EXCEPTIONALLY crappy in terms of quality and performance and has largely been relegated to being a popular brand in regions where other brands have traditionally not bothered to market themselves due to geographical reasons of logistics. Primarily, Zalman has become a frequently available choice for remote regions or regions with less than desirable options overall.

With no professional reviews of that unit I can't say for certain that it is a hunk of crap, but I CAN say that the vast majority of Zalman power supplies that HAVE been reviewed over the last ten years, HAVE been. There are one or two units that have had moderately mediocre performance, even halfway decent, but every one of them that I've seen has had SOMETHING that cast a shadow on whatever good scores they had, such as terrible cooling on what was otherwise ok ripple and voltage regulation, or poor voltage regulation or ripple on a unit with a decent fan and cooling profile. So, could go any direction really, but generally speaking we like to NOT trust any unit without a professional review, which this one does not have, because generally if a unit IS halfway decent there WILL be a review of it somewhere.

This leaves us with a "probably not very good" consensus of this unit. Being "80plus - Anything" doesn't mean much, or really, anything, because we already know that some brands tend to send cherry picked units for certification OR they simply slap fake 80plus stickers on them, or they change the platform after the fact. I wouldn't trust this unit with any valuable hardware, that's for sure.

Any idea how long this unit has been in service?

Might be a good idea to simply PLAN to make a change here, regardless.

Reading both of these, would probably be helpful in educating yourself as to WHY these are important considerations.

https://www.corsair.com/us/en/blog/why-does-a-better-power-supply-mean-a-better-computer-experience

Discussion - PSU recommendations and power supply discussion thread - Tom's hardware

Below you will find MY standard list of recommended power supplies and beyond that this thread is intended as a landing place for questions or discussions regarding specific units, platforms or related PSU tech, all of which are all welcome to be discussed here. If it's related to power supplies...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[punkncat]

Without trying to beat up on your rig....

Evenif you were to source a fourth gen intel used, something like that, it woud be hard to beat the value in new low end in comparison. A Ryzen system can be built quite cheaply. The new i3 would be an upgrade. Your current GPU will still be a limiting factor and should consider a new PSU along with next round.

 

[Darkbreeze]

No argument with any of those observations.

 

[Damathryx_7]

Thanks for replies!

I'll for sure educate myself on PSU's, seems like it really is a big problem for my system's performance. So from what I understand it could be a good idea to start with buying new PSU? And later, maybe, I could use it if I decide to build a new rig from scratch when I get the resource, right?

 

[Darkbreeze]

Correct on all counts. What resolution is the monitor you are using or are intending to use, for gaming? This might make the biggest difference in terms of what needs to be done first, graphics card or platform (CPU, motherboard, RAM). In any case, PSU is probably going to be the first thing I'd recommend addressing but I'm actually waiting to maybe get some additional information on that unit so you don't have to replace it if it's not necessary. I think it's probably advisable, but I prefer to have at least some IDEA for certain before saying a unit is junk. So, I'll let you know what I find on that. For the rest, resolution of the intended monitor is definitely helpful to know.

 

[Damathryx_7]

I use 1920x1080 monitor right now and I probably won't change that in the foreseeable future. Current PSU was in use for 2.5 years or something, I think? Maybe 3 years.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Ok, so for 1080p the GTX 970 is probably still a fairly decently usable card, especially if you are not terribly picky and don't require "ultra" everything settings and are willing to drop a few things down to "high".

I'm guessing that quality settings aren't what are causing you problems, but maintaining adequate frame rates, is? Yes? If so that is probably definitely related more to the CPU and platform.

In that case, it's probably recommended to address that first, before anything related to the graphics card. Kind of opposite of what we normally recommend but your FX platform is problematic, and pretty much always has been even when new. I have an FX-8320 in an old backup system and even with a much more capable RTX 2060 super installed it has trouble maintaining 60fps on most modern games.

What country are you in? This is rather important for knowing what hardware is going to actually be available to you.

 

[Damathryx_7]

I'm not picky at all, absolutely no problem to not have everything on ultra and stuff. You identified the need correctly, it's the framerate. Something like consistent 60 fps on mid-high graphics in modern games would be perfect.

I'm from Russia.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Ooh, boy. Russia. Yeah, well, that COULD be a bit of a problem. I mean, I don't know really, because to be honest we get a LOT of visitors from all over the world but I don't think more than a handful of times have I ever helped anybody actually FROM Russia. Some of the upper EU countries near there, but really not FROM there. So I have no clue actually on hardware availability but I'm going to assume that like many of the more remote EU nations hardware availability is sketchy at best, very slim at worst.

But I could be wrong.

Is this a site that is a valid point of purchase for you, or are you more limited to buying from local shops instead?

Процессоры в Интернет-магазине XCOM-SHOP

Процессоры в Интернет-магазине XCOM-SHOP

www.xcom-shop.ru

 

[g-unit1111]

Ooh, boy. Russia. Yeah, well, that COULD be a bit of a problem. I mean, I don't know really, because to be honest we get a LOT of visitors from all over the world but I don't think more than a handful of times have I ever helped anybody actually FROM Russia. Some of the upper EU countries near there, but really not FROM there. So I have no clue actually on hardware availability but I'm going to assume that like many of the more remote EU nations hardware availability is sketchy at best, very slim at worst.

But I could be wrong.

Is this a site that is a valid point of purchase for you, or are you more limited to buying from local shops instead?

Процессоры в Интернет-магазине XCOM-SHOP

Процессоры в Интернет-магазине XCOM-SHOP

www.xcom-shop.ru

Looks legit though I'm surprised they haven't been sued by Firaxis yet because that's a blatant copyright violation.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Well, pretty sure that isn't a point of concern in Russia, since they really don't recognize the laws from most other countries except where they absolutely have to. Which makes them not much different than anybody else.

 

[Karadjgne]

Mind if I beat up on the pc? Just a little?
There is no upgrades. Realistically. There's only replacement. There's only 2 items of usable value and possibly a 3rd. Keep the ssd and the gpu and if really attached, possibly the case. Otherwise everything else is a dead end. Ddr3 is gone on any platform newer than what you've got, you have pretty much the top end FX cpu and anything better really isn't, the psu has been more than ably covered by Darkbreeze.

Pretty much your pc is well beyond needing to be put to pasture as it sits.

Oc (if you have the cooling for it) could help, somewhat, but that's a temporary fix at this point in time.

So you'll be reduced to replacing the platform, and I'm in the same boat as Darkbreeze, Russia is a relative unknown. Pcpartpicker.com covers 37 different countries and Poland is as close as it gets, maybe Germany. Which really isn't much help, probably, in knowing what markets are available to you, your budget, overall expectations (modern games will require a larger storage option.) etc.

 

[Darkbreeze]

My thought is, a budget Ryzen 3000 series platform upgrade, maybe something like a Ryzen 3600, motherboard and memory, and keep the GTX 970 for now until you can afford to do another upgrade there. The GTX 970 should still be fairly capable for 1080p gaming if you are not greedy for ultra everything type settings. I have one here as a backup card and it does very well, still, on 1080p, with the "high" presets or some combination of high and ultra depending on what game it is. When I use that card with the FX-8320 I have, which itself is overclocked to 4.5Ghz, it lags, bad. When I use that graphics card with a somewhat more capable Haswell or Kaby lake i7 (And I would assume any Ryzen 3000 series CPU. Heck, even a 2000 series for that matter would be better than that FX-8320) it does pretty well.

Well enough anyhow. Certainly much better than a lot of configurations I see people using. That GTX 970 should probably do just as well at 1080p for most games as what you get with a GTX 1660 or pretty close, and that itself does ok at 1080p especially if we're talking about somebody who is in a region where hardware is hard to come by and where the budget constraints might be a real hindrance to easily having something better. It could certainly be worse. You could have an FX CPU AND some really crappy graphics card as well. It wasn't that many years ago that the GTX 970 was one of the best bang for the buck cards you could get.

 

[Karadjgne]

I have a 970 in my other pc. Everything I played on it was basically ultra, some games even handled a 4k DSR. It's still a respectable 1080p card for most users. Much depends on exactly which game.

 

[Damathryx_7]

Thanks for all the replies. I'll look into the direction of Ryzen processor. I agree with your explanations that my PC is pretty problematic to say the least, so beating up is fine
Website you linked seems legit, when I did some of my proto-research I found some other retail hardware shop networks too.

I still don't understand couple of details, sorry if these questions will seem too basic or just dumb:
what about motherboard? I think I understand the state of processor, PSU and graphics card, but I don't understand what i'm supposed to think about the motherboard. It has to be replaced too, or...?
Also when you buy a processor do you also need to buy a cooler separately for it? Or the one I have (i dont even know the model, looks just like a basic computer cooler to me) will work?

 

[Darkbreeze]

There are FEW situations where getting a new processor means you don't have to replace the motherboard. In your case, it's a non-starter because it's so old. ONLY when a new CPU generation has been released fairly close to the original generation, like a year or two later (And OFTEN not even then) can the same motherboard be used for multiple generations of CPU. Even then, it must be not only the same socket type, but you ALWAYS want to look at the "CPU support list" for ANY given motherboard to see exactly what models of CPU are supported on that board.

AMD CPUs are never supported on Intel motherboards and visa versa.

You should NEVER "assume" that any CPU will work with any motherboard, until you know it will because you are either familiar with what works with what OR you have established that it is compatible by going to the product page for that motherboard, and looking at the CPU support list to find the models of CPU that are listed as compatible.

For your system, you would absolutely have to upgrade it all, in terms of the platform. "Platform" means motherboard, CPU and memory. Your "platform" is 8 years old and uses DDR3. There are no newer motherboards that support that hardware and there are no newer CPUs that could be used on that old motherboard. Nor is your memory, which is DDR3, compatible with any of the motherboards that have been released in about the last five years, as those are all DDR4. And, the current generations of motherboards and CPUs plus one additional one about to be released by Intel are likely the LAST platforms that will even support DDR4, as DDR5 is likely going to be implemented for the next AMD and Intel platform releases beyond this coming Q1 2021.

So for right now you would most likely be best served with some flavor of B450 or X570 motherboard, a Ryzen 3000 or 5000 series CPU and if possible a memory kit consisting of 2x 8GB memory modules anywhere between 3200mhz and 3600mhz. That is a pretty standard entry level gaming or enthusiast machine right now. As well, there are also definitely some Intel options in that same approximate range, and which is the better choice is ultimately up to you based on cost and availability in your region.

Using www.pcpartpicker.com can be helpful, but unfortunately as mentioned, Russia isn't one of the countries that has a presence in the drop down menu choices there.

 

[Karadjgne]

I'd use pcpartpicker.com anyway. Use it for the tool it is, regardless of pricing. It has all the needed items for a pc, and will give a decent overall idea of what is out there, and some compatibility filters.

From there, you can shop more locally, find what's available and how prices stack up, make a virtual build and ppl absolutely will let you know how it looks.

Just use the BB code, copy/paste and ask them, people will have varied opinions, but taking the general consensus and asking questions, you'll get educated soon enough 😉

 

[boju]

Could xcom shop work for you? Just looking around for best places to buy from in Russia and this store was mentioned. Translated the page to engrish with google translate addon in firefox. They have some good stuff there, and the more popular brands for power supplies, motherboards, ram, gpus, etc, you name it, they seem to have it.

Интернет-магазин компьютеров и компьютерных комплектующих XCOM-SHOP.

Интернет-магазин компьютеров, компьютерных комплектующих, периферии, расходных материалов XCOM-SHOP: большой ассортимент, низкие цены, доставка по Москве и России.

www.xcom-shop.ru

Fingers crossed.

 

[Darkbreeze]

XCOM shop is what I posted a link to above earlier.

 

[boju]

XCOM shop is what I posted a link to above earlier.

Lol i just came back to check your link to make sure i didn't copy write. Sorry about that, how much do i owe you ?

 

[Darkbreeze]

16 cents.

I'd rather you owed me than tried to cheat me out of it though. LOL.

 

[boju]

Haha. I don't feel so bad for that price. Cheers bud lol