[SOLVED] Need help in deciding if I need to upgrade or not for 1080p gaming.

Mar 19, 2020
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So currently I want to move my current PC to a Mini-ITX Case because I'm tired of shipping my Mid-size tower back and forth between college and home. So I am defintely going to buy a Mini-ITX Case and motherboard. I need help in determining if I should upgrade the rest of my parts, or if I can make do with my current parts. I am only interested in 60 fps 1080p gaming at 60 Hz.

current parts

  • E.V.G.A Super Nova 750w Bronze
  • MSI GTX 970
  • Intel i5 4690k
  • Corsair Vengeance 16 GB Ram 1600 Mhz DDR3

My question is, do I need to upgrade my rig for 60 fps 1080p? If I were to upgrade, I would consider getting either a ryzen 5 or ryzen 3 and rx 580/590, and 16gb ddr4, however I'm unsure if this would provide that big of a performance boost over my current configuration.

Also Since I mispackaged my i5 processor this time in shipping (wrapped in a plastic ziplock bag and bubble wrap, which I only found out was bad after the fact) I think I might've ruined my processor so I'll probably need to upgrade to a new one. So I was thinking about getting a ryzen 3 or ryzen 5, or just buying an old proccessor off ebay that works with ddr3. Let me know your thoughts on this. I really don't want to spend too much money as I'm a broke college student, but really enjoy playing games on my PC.
 
Solution
Side note - I'm not sure why you see the need to completely disassemble your PC for shipping. The only things I'd be concerned about are:
Hard drives - carry those with you.
Large CPU coolers - small enough to be carried with you
GPUs - maybe this is something you ship separate.
There's no reason a CPU/mobo/RAM/PSU would be damaged in shipping while fully assembled. The case protects all those items very well. Heck, OEM and Pre-Built machines ship fully assembled including GPUs and such. Depends on your packaging.
How much are you about to pay for a 6 year old mITX mobo?

Is your CPU actually broken, or are you just worried it is?

What country are you in?

  1. 50$
  2. I am worried, but it seems likely. probably will by an i5 4670 for ~ 50$ off ebay if it is broken. However if I buy a ryzen i need to buy an AMD MOBO and thus won't even beable to test if my i5 works.
  3. US
 
Test your CPU first. If the CPU is broken, it makes little sense to buy a 4th gen CPU and mobo. Might as well get current gen stuff at that point.
First and foremost, thanks for your help

I would totally do this, except for the fact that I left my MOBO and Case in my dorm room when I had to evacuate my dorm and come home because of the whole coronavirus thing, so unless there is a way to test my processor without a MOBO, it will be kind of hard. I suppose I could just buy a 50$ mobo to test and if it works great, and if not I can get next gen. but if thats the case I have two questions

1. What next gen ryzen is a good fit for GTX 970 (so that it won't bottleneck?). I am thinking the ryzen 3.

2. If that is the case with the ryzen 3, isnt a fourth/fith generation quad core i5 at similar performance to a ryzen 3? i5 would also probably be cheaper to buy used, AND I would'nt have to buy another motherboard in the case my old i5 doesnt work. The only reason to buy a ryzen 3 I see is for upgradeability, but it comes a tthe cost of potentially having to buy two mobos if I still want to test my i5 and probably gonna be > 100$ more total
 
Side note - I'm not sure why you see the need to completely disassemble your PC for shipping. The only things I'd be concerned about are:
Hard drives - carry those with you.
Large CPU coolers - small enough to be carried with you
GPUs - maybe this is something you ship separate.
There's no reason a CPU/mobo/RAM/PSU would be damaged in shipping while fully assembled. The case protects all those items very well. Heck, OEM and Pre-Built machines ship fully assembled including GPUs and such. Depends on your packaging.
 
Solution
Side note - I'm not sure why you see the need to completely disassemble your PC for shipping. The only things I'd be concerned about are:
Hard drives - carry those with you.
Large CPU coolers - small enough to be carried with you
GPUs - maybe this is something you ship separate.
There's no reason a CPU/mobo/RAM/PSU would be damaged in shipping while fully assembled. The case protects all those items very well. Heck, OEM and Pre-Built machines ship fully assembled including GPUs and such. Depends on your packaging.
I agree with you, and normally I would ship everything assembled for the most part (aside from GPU). However, my case packaging had been through quite a bit at that point and was in no condition to be reshipped, so I opted to ship everything seperately.
 
I can certainly commiserate with the money situation. However, I do feel that once you start talking about buying a motherboard AND a CPU....unless you can find them VERY cheap, you're throwing money away that could've been put toward getting you up to date hardware.