"Upgrading" 11 Year Old PC

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russcraig

Jul 20, 2018
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Hi,

I used to know what I was doing but have no idea about current PC hardware. I have a 2007 vintage PC and want to build a 2018 gaming PC. I know the CPU, memory, graphics card, etc. are history but can the CPU and case be used with modern motherboards.

Here's the old machine:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 775, 2.4 GHz, 1066MHz FSB, Conroe Core, 4MB Cache, Retail
2Gb (2X1Gb) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-12
ASUS P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP iP965, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX
Scythe Infinity Quiet HPipe CPU Co
600W SEASONIC M12-600 Modular
512 MSI PCIE NX7900GTO-T2D512E
Creative Labs X-Fi XtremeMusic

I cannot find details of the case but assume the relevant information can be deduced from the motherboard (ATX).

Can I assume the case and PSU will be fine? The PSU has SATA connectors etc. Any other suggestions for a WoW capable machine? I was thinking i5, 8GB, SSD, and nVidia GTX 1060 6GB version. Not sure about motherboards. Don't want to go super high end just good steady and reliable.

Thanks,
Russ

 
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I'd be a little uncomfortable with an 11 year old power supply. Plus the fact the newer ones are so much more efficient, and you can get a really really good one for around $80, for that setup you'd need no more than 500w. (I feel about power supplies on computers the same way I feel about tires on cars...the one place where you don't want to skimp on quality, because every other component relies on it)
 
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The PSU is the only thing I would keep. The SoundCard will depend on the motherboard you get, very few decent boards include PCI anymore and even some onboard are about as good as what you have or you can get a SB-Z which is better.

The case is a toss up. Problem with an 11 year old case is that the new ones are more efficient for airflow plus it wont have USB 3 ports and most newer boards have a port for cases to use.
 
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Russ, place your current PC into a museum and build/buy an entirely new PC. Joking a bit, well somewhat. The PSU may be ok for now but if it's also circa 2007 then I would not build on top of it as the capacitor aging is going to catch up with you. I really would just start from scratch then say donate the old PC to someone less fortunate.
 
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Thanks for all the input. The honest answer is that I hadn't planned on buying a PC but I tried a bit of gaming on my laptop and discovered that it is barely capable of gaming. So I kind of have no budget but expect I'll need to spend about £1000 although I'd feel a lot happier if the answer was closer to £700 :) I really did once know what I was doing but find that I have no idea about current CPUs, motherboards or socket types. I expect if I buy a bunch of compatible bits then I'll have no bother assembling them.

I used to really enjoy this kind of thing, but my phasechange cooling and overclocking days are behind me and with other priorities I'm less enthusiastic about assembly but I had a quick look at prebuilt/off-the-shelf gaming machines and my thoughts were:

1. they look a bit expensive (but may not be too bad once I work out what i need and add it up)
2. when I did build my own I looked down my nose at prebuilt and thought them overpriced
3. why do they all need to look like a deathstar or brothel (or a brothel on a deathstar)?

Given that my gaming time will be limited I am thinking that midrange/upper-mid (i5 rather than i7) and GTX 1060 would probably give me a decent functional life without paying the high end premium which for a bit of CS and WoW won't be necessary.
 
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Yeah the gaming PC has turned a bit wacky over the last 2 years. Also RGB lighting has went pretty crazy. Building is a lot cheaper but if you don't want to mess with it and just pay a premium by all means. You could look at something like this Dell. https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/desktops-and-all-in-ones/new-inspiron-gaming-desktop-intel/spd/inspiron-5680-gaming-desktop/cd568020

Assuming uk Dell is ok here since you mentioned pounds.

If you are building take a look at Phantek cases for example this is what I have: http://www.phanteks.com/Enthoo-Evolv-ATX.html
 
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I was thinking that the motherboard and CPU are ancient and therefore I need motherboard, CPU and memory to get decent performance. I'll need a new graphics card too. I can live with onboard sound.

In terms of CPU I was thinking that a current gen i5 would work with a GTX 1060 just need a motherboard and memory to pair with it. Oh and based on the advice above a PSU too.
 
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I think a balanced gamer that fits within your budget would include:
1. i5-8400 cpu.
2. Any lga1151 300 series motherboard.
3. GTX1060 graphics card.
4. 2 x 4gb ddr4 ram if this is for gaming only. Speed is not important.
If you will also be running other jobs or heavy multitasking, then buy 2 x 8gb kit up front.
4. Use the stock intel cooler. You could reuse your cooler if you can find a lga1151 mounting kit.
Scythe may send you one for free. You don't really need a aftermarket cooler for performance, more to reduce cooler noise under load.

5. Ditch the discrete sound card. Onboard sound these days is very good and trouble free.

6. If you love your case, keep it. But I always like a new case.

7. Your psu is a quality unit. I would be inclined to keep it.

8. Yes, buy a ssd.

I will never again build without a ssd for the "C" drive. It makes everything you do much quicker.
120gb is minimum, it will hold the os and a handful of games.
But, many things default to the "C" drive.
When a SSD nears full, it will lose performance and endurance.
240gb is the recommended minimum.

If you can go 240gb, or 500gb you may never need a hard drive.

Samsung EVO is a good choice for performance and reliability.

You can reuse your hard drive for overflow/backup/bulk storage


 
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Thank you. I think that's just what I'll do. I've got two SATA SSDs lieing around all 240GB as well as numerous HDDs. I'll use the SATA HDDs and buy the stuff listed above. I'll have a look for a decent 300 series motherboard at a reasonable price.
 
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PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8GHz 6-Core Processor (£160.00 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock - B360 Pro4 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£81.50 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£146.82 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Palit - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB Super JetStream Video Card (£242.92 @ Laptops Direct)
Case: Phanteks - Eclipse P300 Tempered Glass (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£47.96 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - EVO Edition 620W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£74.79 @ Alza)
Total: £753.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-07-20 21:06 BST+0100

Here's an idea.
 
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Solution
That PC PartPicker site is really cool. Thanks for the config that looks just about right and the price is pretty good too. I am tempted to try and use my current PSU and if it doesn't work out then buy the one above. My experience with SeaSonic is that they are excellent products.

I had Win 7 which I upgraded to Win 10 on the old machine. Do you know if I can move the licence to this machine?

 
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So I bought :
Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8GHz 6-Core Processor
ASRock - B360 Pro4 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory
Palit - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB JetStream Video Card

and kept my Antec case and my Seasonic 550W PSU. I combined these with two old 256GB SSDs (a Samsung 840 and an OCZ Vertex 4) working on the basis that even a "slower" SSD is fast enough.

Everything works really well and I am rather pleased with it. My fears of outdated/rusty skills came to nothing and I just took my time and was careful when connecting to motherboard headers to get the polarities the right way round (I wish I could have found the case manual).

Thank you all for your help.
 
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Thank you. I've been rediscovering the pleasure of Counter Strike : Source. I may venture further afield starting with CS:GO :)

I'm also interested to see how Intel Quick Sync improves Handbrake encoding times.
 
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