Question Noob gaming PC upgrade advice

[Andyharris84]

Hello community,

So..I'm new to this forum and to modern PC gaming but I'm an avid gamer and a big xbox fan but looking to upgrade and build my own gaming rig. Recently my brother moved to Oz and gave me his PC. It's pretty old and clearly needs upgrading, I was hoping to use some of the internals to keep the cost down but fully appreciate I need to spend a fair amount on a new CPU, mobo, ram, GPU and some sizeable SSD storage. I'll be selling off the old components and my xbox one x to help with the cost of the upgrade and happy to add another £400 or so on top of whatever I can sell the old components for, I'm also very happy to purchase reliable used products. I would like to play current gen games on decent settings and will also be purchasing an oculus rift in December for VR gaming. I fully expect to have to upgrade the GPU and what not in a couple of years but would like to future proof as much as I can but happy to upgrade reguarly.

Current specs are below:


Operating System
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.67GHz 52 °C
Bloomfield 45nm Technology
RAM
14.0GB Triple-Channel DDR3 @ 534MHz (8-8-8-20)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK Computer INC. P6T SE (LGA1366) 54 °C
Graphics
SyncMaster (1920x1080@59Hz)
4096MB ATI AMD Radeon R9 290X (ATI) 59 °C
Storage
465GB Western Digital WDC WD5000HHTZ-04N21V0 ATA Device (SATA) 35 °C
931GB SAMSUNG HD103SJ ATA Device (SATA) 34 °C
139GB Western Digital WDC WD1500HLFS-01G6U0 ATA Device (SATA) 32 °C
Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST BDDVDRW CH08LS10 ATA Device
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio


Any ideas on what I should buy and what I can get away with keeping? There are literally hundreds of combinations and I'm a little bamboozled as to where to start. I get the impression I could end up on over spending on specs that I just don't need.

Any, and all help would be immensely appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Diddly]

Bin the lot and start from scratch - I don't think any of it is worth keeping TBH - except maybe the monitor. You have to decide your budget and main use (video editing/gaming etc) and go from there. Use pcpartpicker to build your PC up. If you're going VR you need a really beefy GFX card.

 

[Andyharris84]

Thanks for the speedy reply. I thought that may have been the case. I was fully expecting to have to replace the GPU, MOBO and CPU but thought I may have been able to get away with a few parts to keep the cost down. Any idea on what I'd be able to sell a system like that for or am I better selling of the individual parts?

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

You're going to be getting rid of most of your old system. Storage, case, and power supply are about the only things that can stay to save some money. If you just wanted to play games you'd be ok... but VR is going to necessitate an upgrade in a big way.

So, I put together an upgrade for you from PC Part Picker:


PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600X 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (£157.49 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI - B450 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard (£89.84 @ AWD-IT)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£72.84 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Crucial - MX500 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£59.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI - Radeon RX VEGA 56 8 GB Air Boost 8G OC Video Card (£239.47 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £619.63
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-07-05 12:39 BST+0100

So, this system will VR. Easily.

HOWEVER, there will be a lot of new AMD hardware coming out on the 7th. The new AMD CPUs and GPUs will be released. The CPUs are definitely worth a look at. Where I selected the Ryzen 5 2600X, the smarter choice would be to pick up the new Ryzen 5 3600. The Vega 56 is a lot of graphics card for the price. It is direct competition for the RTX 2060, but costs a lot less on a few sites. The motherboard is just a good motherboard, and the 16 GB of RAM is good high speed stuff. The Crucial MX500 SSD is a good drive, but there are options from Samsung and Intel in the same price range. The Intel 660p would be faster, so if you can find it for around the same price it might be worth considering. So, if you reuse your largest hard drive, case, power supply, monitor, and keyboard + mouse, you can save some money.

Now, there is some wiggle room here. You can't beat this price for the GPU. That is a lot of performance for the price. The CPU will probably be more expensive if you go for Ryzen 3000 series, but not by much. The motherboard is somewhere you can make some changes on. You can go less expensive, or you can go more expensive. I picked a middle of the road midrange board with good features. OR you could go Intel, which would be a worse price for performance. Something like an i5 9400F would be a reasonable substitution, and a cheap Intel motherboard would help, but not totally, offset the cost difference. You could opt for less CPU though. Something like an i3 8th or 9th gen or Ryzen 3 would provide a playable VR experience, but that 2600X is a good all around CPU.

I guess it comes down to what you want to spend and how long you have to wait. If you can wait a week the entire market could shift. Right this moment is not a great time to buy a PC.

 

[Andyharris84]

Justin thanks so much for the effort and explanation above. That's seriously helpful and gives me a great base to go from. I'm not in any serious rush (although I have zero patience) so it makes sense to wait for the 3000 series to release as I'd like to get the more recent version if I'm not going to upgrade for a while. I suspect with the new DDR5 RAM on the way that will force a refresh on the CPU and MOBO in a few years in any case? From what I've been reading it appears that AMD is more 'bang for your buck' when on a smaller budget so I'll probably go down that route but I'll likely get a more expensive MOBO and some decent Samsung SSD.

Thanks again to you both for your help!

 

[Finstar]

To me your gpu is still fine
You'll want a new CPU alongside a new motherboard and DDR4 RAM though
Also a SSD and a new PSU.

For cpu get the upcoming Ryzen 5 3600
Motherboard: the cheapest x570 board available
RAM: 3000MHz or faster with 2 8gb sticks
SSD: Crucial P1 or MX or if you can afford it: Samsung 970 Evo +
PSU: 650W gold from Corsair, Seasonic or EVGA.

Edit: Why the R9 290X is still good in my opinion:

View: https://youtu.be/0rhn2ZNu-Uw

 

[sizzling]

One thing that might get overlooked but should be the first thing to upgrade is the PSU. This system is old and psu components deteriorate with time and usage and a psu failure can damage other components, don’t risk new parts on such an old psu.

You can keep the case and drives, the GPU isn’t too bad for 1080p 60Hz so you could hold off upgrading that if you wanted. However everything else needs replacing.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

To me your gpu is still fine
You'll want a new CPU alongside a new motherboard and DDR4 RAM though
Also a SSD and a new PSU.

For cpu get the upcoming Ryzen 5 3600
Motherboard: the cheapest x570 board available
RAM: 3000MHz or faster with 2 8gb sticks
SSD: Crucial P1 or MX or if you can afford it: Samsung 970 Evo +
PSU: 650W gold from Corsair, Seasonic or EVGA.

Edit: Why the R9 290X is still good in my opinion:

View: https://youtu.be/0rhn2ZNu-Uw

You make a fair point, but the R9 290X only provides RX 580 levels of performance. Vega 56 is a fair bit faster. It would be a sizable upgrade in VR performance over the 290x.

 

[geofelt]

First thing, assess how the current pc is doing the job for you.

Your best upgrade may be cpu or gpu, depending on the games you play.
Here is my standard approach:

Some games are graphics limited like fast action shooters.
Others are cpu core speed limited like strategy, sims, and mmo.
Multiplayer tends to like many threads.

You need to find out which.
------------------------------------------------------------
To help clarify your CPU/GPU options, run these two tests:

a) Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

b) Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 70%.
Go to control panel/power options/change plan settings/change advanced power settings/processor power management/maximum processor state/
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.
Conversely what a 30% improvement in core speed might do.

You should also experiment with removing one or more cores/threads. You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option.
You will need to reboot for the change to take effect. Set the number of threads to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many threads.
If you see little difference, your game does not need all the threads you have.



It is possible that both tests are positive, indicating that you have a well balanced system,
and both cpu and gpu need to be upgraded to get better gaming FPS.
-------------------------------------------------------------

I suspect that the GPU is your weak point.
If so, change the gpu out for something stronger.
A R9-290X needs about a 650w psu so whatever psu you have now can support a much stronger graphics card, even a RTX2080ti.
If it is a poor quality psu, that might be a reason to change it out.
Here is a chart as to what each card takes:
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm
A r9-290x is perhaps comparable to a GTX1060.
I would buy a evga card perhaps several tiers stronger.
I suggest EVGA because if you find you wanted even stronger, you can trade up and get what you paid as credit within 90 days.

In the event that you decide that you need a stronger cpu, then you are looking at current gen intel or ryzen.
That will also entail a new motherboard and DDR4 ram.
$250 or so for a ryzen or intel 9th gen processor will buy you a nice jump in single thread capability which is likely what you need more than the 8 threads you already have.
The gaming performance if ryzen 3000 is a bit unknown. Past that, the early adopter prices will be high and you might expect early motherboard bios updates.

One thing I would certainly do is to change out the 3 HDD kludge for a nice 1tb ssd.

 

[Andyharris84]

Thanks for all the input above, I really wasnt expecting so much advice and detailed information so I really appreciate you all sharing your knowledge with me. What a great forum!

So...I went ahead and pretty much took all the advice above. I opted for the Ryzen 5 3600x, 1tb of Crucial P1 storage, a new PSU from corsair, Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 RAM and a MSI - MPG X570 GAMING PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard. I'll look to spend a bit more money and upgrade the GPU in a few months and I've also got a 4tb WD HDD that I can use for archiving old games and additional storage.

Looking forward to getting it a built and making upgrades as I go along.

Thanks again for the pointers

 

[Andyharris84]

Hi there. So...half way through the build and I was wondering do i just keep my current PSU (Aero Cool Integrator (OEM) 850W 80+ Bronze PSU) or install the newly purchased Corsair - TXM Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply?

Just thinking about saving on running the new cables and a bit of cash...or is that just a false economy and I'm asking for trouble?