Update current rig or build a new one?

[gaug90]

Hello,

I've had my PC for as long as 5 years so far, I've upgraded it 2 years ago with an SSD and it is still pretty fast for almost everything I do, I play very few games but those are working fine so far, mostly FIFA 16, Titanfall, BF4, AgeofEmpires II HD, but I want to step up and play more demanding games like GTA V, Fallout 4, etc.

My current specs are these:

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler
8 GB RAM 1333 Mhz
Motherboard GIGABYTE 880GM-USB3
Kingston HyperX 3K 240 GB SSD
ATI Radeon HD 7770
Generic PSU 550W

To play that kind of games, do yo think I could just do some upgrades or would I need to get a whole new build? Also, what is the best GPU my motherboard could handle, I want something like a GTX 1070 but I'm not sure if it's going to be able to handle that much power, I'd be changing the PSU ofc.

Thanks in advance.

Regards.

 

[anti-duck]

You could overclock your CPU a bit and bang a GTX 970, R9 390 or an RX 480 in there, you might want to upgrade the PSU too though.

If you did want something like a GTX 1070, you would be looking at an Intel build if you wouldn't want to limit the performance of it.

 

[Professur]

What is your budget?

If you have only let say $250 US, then a RX 480 4GB and EVGA GS or G2 550W would make sense.

If you are willing to spend extra $400 to get an i5- 6500, H110M mobo, 2 x 4 GB ram you then will have a solid build for another 5 years (with upgrading the 480 4GB, and possibly to 2 x 8 GB ram, in 3 years).

 

[Rogue Leader]

Check out my sig I have a pretty similar build to you.

I have an RX 480 and I play Doom maxed out at 1080p at over 80 fps average. In fact any of the newer games should play fine maxed or nearly maxed at 1080p, even Project Cars which generally doesn't run well on AMD systems runs fine on mine.

I would say dump the generic PSU for a good 550w unit (EVGA G2 or GS, XFX TS 550, Seasonic S12II 520 or G-series 550), get an RX 480 or GTX 1060, and upgrade to 16gb of ram. Based on how my system runs (and not overclocked) this setup still has a decent amount of life left in it.

I don't plan on upgrading mine for a while, simply because it has no problems with anything I throw at it.

 

[gaug90]

Thanks for your suggestions.

The RX 480 looks good, is it worth going for the 8GB version or is the 4GB just fine?

Also thinking, will my motherboard be able to handle 2x8gb 1600 MHz RAM?

Thanks again.

 

[Rogue Leader]

The 4gb is fine, but hard to find. The 8gb is far more common. The difference is some games need more than 4gb cards for max settings but to be honest the difference is minor (like in Doom it was a couple of shadow settings).

Your motherboard should handle 2x8gb no problem gigabyte specifies it can take up to 1800mhz memory.

 

[anti-duck]

Thanks for your suggestions.

The RX 480 looks good, is it worth going for the 8GB version or is the 4GB just fine?

Also thinking, will my motherboard be able to handle 2x8gb 1600 MHz RAM?

Thanks again.

Bear in mind that if your add 2x8GB sticks of 1600MHz DDR3 RAM and leave your 1333MHz RAM in, the highest speed of your RAM will be the speed of your slowest RAM. You may be able to overclock your 1333MHz RAM.

 

[gaug90]

Thanks for your suggestions.

The RX 480 looks good, is it worth going for the 8GB version or is the 4GB just fine?

Also thinking, will my motherboard be able to handle 2x8gb 1600 MHz RAM?

Thanks again.

Bear in mind that if your add 2x8GB sticks of 1600MHz DDR3 RAM and leave your 1333MHz RAM in, the highest speed of your RAM will be the speed of your slowest RAM. You may be able to overclock your 1333MHz RAM.

I'd be replacing my 4x2 gb sticks, since the max RAM my mobo accepts is 16GB as far as I know, am I right?

Regards.

 

[anti-duck]

Thanks for your suggestions.

The RX 480 looks good, is it worth going for the 8GB version or is the 4GB just fine?

Also thinking, will my motherboard be able to handle 2x8gb 1600 MHz RAM?

Thanks again.

Bear in mind that if your add 2x8GB sticks of 1600MHz DDR3 RAM and leave your 1333MHz RAM in, the highest speed of your RAM will be the speed of your slowest RAM. You may be able to overclock your 1333MHz RAM.

I'd be replacing my 4x2 gb sticks, since the max RAM my mobo accepts is 16GB as far as I know, am I right?

Regards.

Ahhhhh, I thought you had 2x4. I don't see why your motherboard wouldn't support 32GB, it has 4 RAM slots, it does say "4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 16 GB of system memory (Note 1)" when looking at the specifications of the rev .1.x, but then on the specifications of rev. 3.1 it says "4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory (Note 1)".

I'm fairly sure that it would support 32GB.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Either way the current memory needs to be replaced and the best way to replace it is to use 2x8gb dimms and not use the current memory, thats how I took the original comment, and it would definitely work, at 1600 mhz.

 

[Professur]

2 x 4 GB DDR3 1600 would be enough for another 3 years.

If you do Photoshop or being a beta tester of upcoming titles, then 16 GB.

If you do video editing editing, get 32 Gb.

Unless you are confident that you can max out every game at 1080p 60 Mhz with your CPU, if you are just playing high setting, RX 480 4 GB and 2 x 4 GB ram would suffice.

In this case you can save ~$60 for an EVGA GS or G2 550W (10 year warranty, last till death of your next build)

You can get RX 480 8 GB and 16 GB but if your CPU bottleneck at Max setting or PSU died what's the point. With the same budget you get more value-for-money from RX 480 4 GB, 2 x 4 GB ram DDR3, and a EVGA G2.

 

[gaug90]

Thanks everyone for the help and suggestions, I'm still thinking which PSU would fit my needs, what do you think about this one?

https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-BRONZE-Warranty-Tester-100-B1-0600-KR/dp/B00EON40CS/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Should I go for a more expensive one?

I was also thinking I'd need to change my case, don't really know if the RX 480 is bigger than my current 7770, if that's the case would you recommend the HAF 912 case?

This is my current case: https://pcel.com/hardware/gabinetes/Acteck-P-510-102682

Thanks again.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Thanks everyone for the help and suggestions, I'm still thinking which PSU would fit my needs, what do you think about this one?

https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-BRONZE-Warranty-Tester-100-B1-0600-KR/dp/B00EON40CS/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Should I go for a more expensive one?

I was also thinking I'd need to change my case, don't really know if the RX 480 is bigger than my current 7770, if that's the case would you recommend the HAF 912 case?

This is my current case: https://pcel.com/hardware/gabinetes/Acteck-P-510-102682

Thanks again.

RX 480 would fit fine in there.

That PSU is one EVGAs lowest end ones, it works but its not great. You should consider the 550 G2 or 550 GS, its enough power and FAR better quality.

https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-SuperNOVA-Modular-Tester-220-GS-0550-V1/dp/B00UVN20UO/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1471468224&sr=1-1&keywords=evga+550gs

https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-SuperNOVA-Modular-Warranty-220-G2-0550-Y1/dp/B0106RDI3W/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1471468217&sr=1-1&keywords=evga+550g2

 

[gaug90]

Hi everyone,

I've updated my rig, you can see it here: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/vL9spb

Any recommendations besides upgrading RAM to 16 GB or am I good to go gaming?

Thanks!

 

[anti-duck]

That SSD is stupidly pricey and I'm not sure if I'd want to bang a reference RX 480 on a relatively old, low end motherboard. Other than that, it looks like a decent build.

 

[gaug90]

That SSD is stupidly pricey and I'm not sure if I'd want to bang a reference RX 480 on a relatively old, low end motherboard. Other than that, it looks like a decent build.

I got the SSD about 2 years ago and it was cheap back then, about the motherboard, what could go wrong with that combination? I've been playing very little for the past 2 days so I haven't noticed anything weird besides the text getting a little blurry but I think that's Windows' fault.

Thanks!

 

[Rogue Leader]

Don't worry about the RX 480 on that board, my motherboard is a decent amount older than yours and I've been running an RX 480, hard, since launch day.

 

[gaug90]

Thanks everyone for the help and for sharing your wisdom.

Would it be safe ( and worth it) to OC my CPU with my current PSU/MoBo?

BTW, should I create another thread for this question or is this one fine?

Thanks again!

 

[Rogue Leader]

Motherboard yes, PSU no.

Buy a better PSU, overclocking on a cheap one is asking for trouble.

 

[gaug90]

Motherboard yes, PSU no.

Buy a better PSU, overclocking on a cheap one is asking for trouble.

Isn't the XFX TS 550W 80+ Bronze good enough?

Regards.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Motherboard yes, PSU no.

Buy a better PSU, overclocking on a cheap one is asking for trouble.

Isn't the XFX TS 550W 80+ Bronze good enough?

Regards.

Yeah thats fine, I was going off your initial post of "Generic 550w"