[SOLVED] Looking to upgrade pc

[munted10]

Hello all, I’m fairly new to pc building and stuff. Bought a pre made pc a few years ago and looking to upgrade my CPU and gpu. (Mainly cpu as I am getting high CPU usage in task manager when playing games). What would be some good options I could consider to boost my performance?

My budget is around $500-$1000 aud

Current set up

Monitor benq Zowie 144 hz

Gpu - nvidia GeForce gtx 1060 3gb

CPU - intel core i5 7500

Motherboard - gigabyte technology model b250M-D3H-CF

RAM - 24 gb ddr4

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Hey there,

With that budget, you are much better off getting a new base system. If you keep your GPU for the moment, and keep your ram, and put it with something like this:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($326.70 @ Newegg Australia)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard ($204.70 @ Device Deal)
Storage: Kingston A400 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($68.00 @ Shopping Express)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.00 @ Computer Alliance)
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($124.00 @ Shopping Express)
Total: $782.40
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-04-16 23:37 AEST+1000

Depending on what PSU you have you could drop that from the list. Another option would be to sell your current GPu and use the money to offset the cost of putting a stronger GPU in with that system, like a 1660ti or RTX2060.

You may also be able to drop the storage from the list if you have a decent boot drive, and some HDD's lying around.

 

[munted10]

Hey there,

With that budget, you are much better off getting a new base system. If you keep your GPU for the moment, and keep your ram, and put it with something like this:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($326.70 @ Newegg Australia)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard ($204.70 @ Device Deal)
Storage: Kingston A400 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($68.00 @ Shopping Express)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.00 @ Computer Alliance)
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($124.00 @ Shopping Express)
Total: $782.40
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-04-16 23:37 AEST+1000

Depending on what PSU you have you could drop that from the list. Another option would be to sell your current GPu and use the money to offset the cost of putting a stronger GPU in with that system, like a 1660ti or RTX2060.

You may also be able to drop the storage from the list if you have a decent boot drive, and some HDD's lying around.

Is their any way I can upgrade my cpu without having to change my motherboard? Dont really worry about the budget , don't mind if the cpu is less than $500 if its a good cpu.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Well, yes. There is. You could simply get an I7 7700/k processor for a bump, in cpu resources, they would be the only ones worth getting. But depending on what games you play, it will be more of a side-grade than an upgrade. You could look to the second hand market for cheaper prices, than buying one new. They are expensive new, even though generations old now.

Your current CPU/GPU are quite well balanced. with a CPU upgrade, you will get a slight bump in performance in a lot of games, but not as much as changing the GPU. Ideally you'd want to be doing both to have any real appreciable bump in performance.

But as I pointed out, the system linked above, would be a huge upgrade, and as a base system will last you a dew years with only a GPU upgrade to consider.

Upgrading your current CPU might give a boost, but in terms of upgrading after that you are snookered. I'd always advise not to put much money into an older system, often it's better to try for a larger upgrade that's worthwhile.

 

[munted10]

Well, yes. There is. You could simply get an I7 7700/k processor for a bump, in cpu resources, they would be the only ones worth getting. But depending on what games you play, it will be more of a side-grade than an upgrade. You could look to the second hand market for cheaper prices, than buying one new. They are expensive new, even though generations old now.

Your current CPU/GPU are quite well balanced. with a CPU upgrade, you will get a slight bump in performance in a lot of games, but not as much as changing the GPU. Ideally you'd want to be doing both to have any real appreciable bump in performance.

But as I pointed out, the system linked above, would be a huge upgrade, and as a base system will last you a dew years with only a GPU upgrade to consider.

Upgrading your current CPU might give a boost, but in terms of upgrading after that you are snookered. I'd always advise not to put much money into an older system, often it's better to try for a larger upgrade that's worthwhile.

Well, yes. There is. You could simply get an I7 7700/k processor for a bump, in cpu resources, they would be the only ones worth getting. But depending on what games you play, it will be more of a side-grade than an upgrade. You could look to the second hand market for cheaper prices, than buying one new. They are expensive new, even though generations old now.

Your current CPU/GPU are quite well balanced. with a CPU upgrade, you will get a slight bump in performance in a lot of games, but not as much as changing the GPU. Ideally you'd want to be doing both to have any real appreciable bump in performance.

But as I pointed out, the system linked above, would be a huge upgrade, and as a base system will last you a dew years with only a GPU upgrade to consider.

Upgrading your current CPU might give a boost, but in terms of upgrading after that you are snookered. I'd always advise not to put much money into an older system, often it's better to try for a larger upgrade that's worthwhile.

Cheers on the advice, just to confirm with the addition to the new motherboard will my gpu and ram be able to fit on the motherboard ? Also is upgrading the psu worth it ? How can I check what psu I have ?

Also the games I play are mainly CPU heavy I am usually getting 100-90% cpu usage on task manager and this can cause my game to drop in FPS and for my mouse to start lagging

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Cheers on the advice, just to confirm with the addition to the new motherboard will my gpu and ram be able to fit on the motherboard ? Also is upgrading the psu worth it ? How can I check what psu I have ?

Also the games I play are mainly CPU heavy I am usually getting 100-90% cpu usage on task manager and this can cause my game to drop in FPS and for my mouse to start lagging

No worries, glad to help.

Yes, your ram, and GPU will fit the new mobo just fine. No issues there. Although, you have an unusual ram amount in 24gb. Which is possibly made up of 2 x8 + 2 x 4gb? You should be able to use them. What speed are they? If they are less than 2400mhz, you really should factor in faster ram. e.g 3000-3200mhz.

To see which PSU you have, take off the side case of your PC (generally advised to do this while the PC is turned off.) and look at the sticker on the side of the PSU. If you take a pic of it and post it here we can advise if it's a good one, and will carry over to a new system.

 

[geofelt]

What kinds of games do you play?
If you play multiplayer with many participants, then an I7 upgrade from 4 to 8 threads could be a big boost.
Otherwise, the single thread performance of a change from a i5-7500 would not be great.
I5-7500 has 4 threads with a rating of 6228 and a single thread rating of 2281.
By comparison, a i7-7700K is 8 threads and a rating of 9796/2771.

To do better, you are looking at ryzen or 9th gen intel.
Most will recommend ryzen for the good number of cheap cores.
One issue with ryzen will be reusing your ram.
Ryzen it tightly entwined with ram operation.
24gb will be composed of disparate sized sticks which is a problem for ryzen. You may need to back off to 2 x 8gb.

On the intel side, a I5-9600K will be $200 or so.
It has 6 threads and a rating of 11041/2830.
A z390 based motherboard can be as little as $100.

Unless you are urgent to change, I would wait a bit.
Rumors are out of upcoming intel responses and ryzen countermoves in the coming months.
New products will be at better price/performance and we may see a price war.