[SOLVED] Should i buy new or upgrade old PC?

[wejsen]

I just have a question about, if i should buy a new pc or try to upgrade my old one?
My PC i 10 years old and i have only upgraded the HDD harddisk to a SSD (what at that time made it running like a new).
I only play casually games like CS and league of legends, which the PC can handled on a OK level. But i think i have few lag spikes.
While playing my task manager on window say that only 40% of my CPU capacity is used, so i dont think thats the problem?
But my RAM is over 80% at all time in games. Thats why i think to upgrade from 8 GB (4x2GB DDR3, 1333 mhz) to 16 GB.
Im looking for the cheapest possible solution for me, but at same time i dont wanna waste money with upgrading on old <Mod Edit>, if isn't worthy?
Looking forward to hear your suggestions
My specs are:
Motherboard: Gigabyte ga-p55a-ud3
CPU: i7 860 2,8 GHz
RAM: 4x2 GB DDR3, 1333 mhz
GPU: AMD radeon 5770, 1024 MB
PSU: 500 watt

Thanks in advance!

 

[velocityg4]

A faster GPU will make the biggest difference. It's not a lost expenditure either. As you can move it to your next computer. The RAM will be the next biggest upgrade.

Given the age of the computer. I'd just get used RAM off eBay. It's usually cheaper. RAM doesn't go bad very often. It's more likely something else will fail before the used RAM. Get something like SK Hynix, Toshiba, Samsung or Crucial (Micron) RAM. You don't need the more expensive gamer brands. Just something pulled from a Dell or HP. All that gamer RAM is made by the above mentioned companies anyways. They don't make their own RAM they just put in orders, OC it and slap their name on.

Just make sure the RAM isn't ECC, Registered or labeled Server. You'll see a bunch of those for cheap but won't work for you.

 

[wejsen]

Yes answer! And im i correctly when i said i can put any type of GPU into my motherboard (as long as my cabinet has room for it). As im reading it on the internet, GPU is backwards compatible?
Im considering buying GTX 1660 TI or the SUPER model.

 

[geofelt]

What is your budget?

Try this test:
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.

5770 is very old tech. Most likely a gpu upgrade is in order.
As little as a GTX1050ti class card would be a big boost.

On the cpu side, to not be complacent about 40% cpu utilization.
Your games may well be single threaded and cpu limited.
Be careful how you interpret task manager cpu utilizations.
Windows will spread the activity of a single thread over all available threads.
So, if you had a game that was single threaded and cpu bound, it would show up on a quad core processor as 25%
utilization across all 4 threads.
leading you to think your bottleneck was elsewhere.
It turns our that few games can USEFULLY use more than 2-3 threads.
How can you tell how well threaded your games or apps are?
One way is to disable one thread and see how you do.

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 processors 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, it tells you that you will not benefit from more cores.
Likely, a better clock rate will be more important.

8gb is usually ok if you are not multitasking.
Windows keeps unused code in ram in anticipation of fast reuse. 80% by itself is not alarming.
Go to task manager and look at the hard page fault statistics.
Anything like 1 per second is alarming.
A hard page fault means that a piece of code must be swapped out and a new page loaded.
A very expensive proposition even with a ssd.

Look for a 2 x 8gb replacement kit.

 

[wejsen]

What is your budget?

Try this test:
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.

5770 is very old tech. Most likely a gpu upgrade is in order.
As little as a GTX1050ti class card would be a big boost.

On the cpu side, to not be complacent about 40% cpu utilization.
Your games may well be single threaded and cpu limited.
Be careful how you interpret task manager cpu utilizations.
Windows will spread the activity of a single thread over all available threads.
So, if you had a game that was single threaded and cpu bound, it would show up on a quad core processor as 25%
utilization across all 4 threads.
leading you to think your bottleneck was elsewhere.
It turns our that few games can USEFULLY use more than 2-3 threads.
How can you tell how well threaded your games or apps are?
One way is to disable one thread and see how you do.

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 processors 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, it tells you that you will not benefit from more cores.
Likely, a better clock rate will be more important.

8gb is usually ok if you are not multitasking.
Windows keeps unused code in ram in anticipation of fast reuse. 80% by itself is not alarming.
Go to task manager and look at the hard page fault statistics.
Anything like 1 per second is alarming.
A hard page fault means that a piece of code must be swapped out and a new page loaded.
A very expensive proposition even with a ssd.

Look for a 2 x 8gb replacement kit.

So then im closing down threards i should be locking for if the utilization goes up?

 

[geofelt]

You are looking to see if a reduced thread count impacts the performance(fps) of the games you play.
If you see little or no difference, you do not need all the threads you have, and a cpu upgrade to a processor with a large amount of threads is not likely to be as beneficial as an upgrade with stronger single thread performance.,

 

[wejsen]

Thanks you for your answers! Unexpected a near friend of mine was to replace all of this components, so i got the old stuff. Its not the biggest upgrades..
CPU: i7 2600k
Motherboard: z68A-GD80
RAM: 16 GB DDR3
GPU: 750 ti
PSU: 500W
Cooling system: Corsair H80 water cooling
But i got a extra question... Would i be beneficial using the old HD 5770 GPU together with the 750 ti? And can i even do that?
I know its all old parts, but im also low on money, so i just looking for the best
temporary solution.

 

[geofelt]

Really, that is a very nice upgrade.
You have a nice friend.
With the motherboard and cooler, you will be able to overclock the cpu nicely if you need/want to.
Your current cpu has a passmark rating of 2947. That is when all of the threads are fully utilized(not likely in gaming)
The single thread rating is 1330.
The 2600K has a rating of 5424/1724. More is possible with a mild overclock.

On the graphics side, your 5770 has a rating of 1527.
The GTX750ti is 3825.
There is no useful value in using the 5770 as well as the GTX750ti.
They can not be used together to help gaming.

What are the make/models of the two 500w power supplies?
Keep the better quality unit.

And, you got more ram.

All in all, a nice boost.

 

[gondo]

Video cards have to be at least the same manufacturer and compatible together to enable SLI (NVidia) and Crossfire (AMD).

Nice upgrade. Just out of curiosity an AMD 5600XT or NVidia 1660Ti class video card would give more than double the FPS in games compared to a 750ti. Sometimes triple. That'll give you a bit of info in case some games are running low on the FPS and you decide to investigate an upgrade.