Upgrading a stock Gateway PC for gaming

[clueless77]

I was hoping that I could get some suggestions as to how I should go about upgrading a Gateway DX-4840-15 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883113133) into something suitable for decent quality PC gaming, honestly I'd like to spend as little money as possible so it's why I'd prefer to add in the necessary upgrade components to my existing PC rather than start from absolutely nothing. I'm more of a console gamer but there's at least a few multiplatform games that I'd prefer to play in better graphical quality (1080p) and stable, higher FPS (The Witcher 3, Dark Souls series, etc; playing the any of these above 60fps is overkill for me except the former might be asking a bit too much with what I'm willing to spend).

The options that I'm interested in for a new GPU are between the GTX 670, GTX 760 or R9 290x with me leaning towards the latter, but having been reading about CPU's potentially bottlenecking GPU's I've been wondering whether or not it's possible to just upgrade my i5-650 to an end of the line i7-875k for socket 1156 and being able to play games in reasonably high quality settings without bottlenecking or do I absolutely have to get a new motherboard for a better processor? I already know that I'll need a new power supply regardless of motherboard replacement, but yeah so while I've been reading up on upgrading PC's I'm pretty much new to this and would appreciate any advice on how to make use of what I currently have.

 

[Nuckles_56]

I would get a new motherboard and CPU (I would go for the haswell processors (i5-4***)) as they are both old, especially if you are getting the r9 290x (with this card, you can play at 1440p and max settings and still get or come close to 60fps), you will need more CPU power for games to run smoothly

 

[clueless77]

I would get a new motherboard and CPU (I would go for the haswell processors (i5-4***)) as they are both old, especially if you are getting the r9 290x (with this card, you can play at 1440p and max settings and still get or come close to 60fps), you will need more CPU power for games to run smoothly

Thanks for the reply. Well, I guess just scraping by with the old i7 isn't going to cut it. I use my television as a monitor and its max resolution is 1920x1080, so 1440p isn't really on my agenda now or in the future but 60fps at max-ish settings in 1080p would definitely be nice because if I'm going to invest some money in upgrading this PC I want every multiplatform game that I play on PC to have better graphical quality than what's available for my PS4 or it's almost pointless. That said, I'm not exactly looking for the most powerful PC with longevity in mind or anything like that, because imo a lot of the big budget titles that seem to require a lot of resources to max and are released almost annually wont become better or even good games regardless of significant graphics upgrades over the console versions.

But yeah, an i5 and not an i7 wouldn't hold the 290x with The Witcher 3 and something resembling max settings/60fps back? I was looking into AMD processors as they cost a lot less than Intel's and the same goes for GPU's relative to Nvidia's, but it seems that the general consensus and according to benchmarks that even an i5 is better than some of AMD's most powerful processors (e.g. 8350)? So with a CPU upgrade, an i5 4690 would definitely be a better choice over a similarly priced but apparently higher spec'ed FX 9370 in anything but single core performance then?

I wish I could still keep my OEM Windows 7 with a motherboard upgrade, having to buy the OS is another thing that needs to be added to the list.

 

[RCguitarist]

You should start fresh with a new build. Getting new parts to work with a pre-built system like that will cause you alot of hassle and headaches. You will probably spend close to the same amount of money just building a new system.

A good budget setup that would blow your current pc away would be an i3 4130 cpu paired with a GTX 660 OC graphics card. Pick up on of those new Crucial MX100 128GB SSD drives for even more performance (won't improve gaming FPS, but will make everything else load and run faster).

 

[James Mason]

You'd be alot better off building a budget gaming PC like this:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($118.28 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-E33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($44.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($51.58 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($55.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card ($139.73 @ Newegg)
Case: Cougar MG100 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($29.99 @ Mwave)
Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($37.96 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($14.98 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $583.49
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-06 19:13 EDT-0400)

It will still run everything at 1080p on your TV fine.

 

[numanator]

The only parts that are reusable from the build you have are the RAM and HDD. Use those with this build to get a pretty good system:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-4150 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($118.48 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($88.99 @ Mwave)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 270 2GB Double Dissipation Video Card ($144.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $452.44
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-06 19:46 EDT-0400)

Another option would be to start by getting the GPU and PSU in this build and see how they work with what you already have (around $200). The i5s age pretty well so you may be able to achieve something satisfactory for your needs. If you find that the CPU is holding you back then go for a full build and move the GPU + PSU to that.

 

[clueless77]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Those builds would definitely be easy on my budget but even without knowing a lot about PC's and from some of the impressions that I've been getting in doing research is that they might be a bit underpowered for the one game that I really want good performance on, with all games following from there (not yet released Elder Scrolls and Fallout, the previously mentioned Souls series, etc). Just upgrading my GPU/PSU would be the preferable option as it'd cost less, but once again other than the first poster to reply in this thread advising me to get a newer CPU I'm uncertain as to the processing power of my dual core i5-650 or upgrading to an i7-875 being sufficient for what I want to use it for and with. Reading benchmarks and whatnot at game-debate leads me to assume that my i5 coupled with a decent GPU is crap for even older games, and as far as the 875 goes I guess it's probably better to be safe having spent a bit more money than having to upgrade again later.

Also, if I were to as suggested just start from scratch I could probably sell my Gateway and recoup some of my expenses. I'll post the build that I'm looking at, but I'll probably eBay whatever it is that I can to get components, for instance the gpu, at a lower price. And yeah, I'm totally sticking with Windows 7, Windows 8 is blah.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/qPNQf7
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/qPNQf7/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/qPNQf7/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($209.00 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($82.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: HIS Radeon R9 290X 4GB IceQ X² Video Card ($439.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master HAF XB EVO ATX Desktop Case ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Rosewill Hive 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($79.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1091.92
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

SLI and Crossfire look like an interesting way to use lower budget cards in tandem to achieve something resembling parity with the ridiculously expensive higher end cards (nvidia), but it seems that the two don't get very good support with games? The same applies to AMD/ATI or whatever GPU's, they're priced well for their specs but nvidia has support locked down. That's really too bad. Anybody who may be reading this ever have any experience with unlocking a r9 290 to a 290x?

 

[James Mason]

I would have agreed with you about windows 8 being bleh, but after being forced to use windows 8 for work, I've figured out how to easily fix it to make it perform like windows 7. This is what my windows 8.1 pro looks like:

 

[clueless77]

That looks almost identical to 7, which hasn't been my experience with its annoying to navigate mobile/tablet os like interface on laptops. Is it actually worth the extra cost to upgrade then or is it just a slightly revised OS?

Also, I guess I strayed really far from what I originally intended to do for a gaming PC but scratch out the CPU and GPU on that list for an I7 4790k and a 780 ti, if I ever need to I guess I can get another 780 for SLI. Hopefully, the Witcher 3 will be a high point (until CDProjekt's next game) for PC requirements in good to max-ish settings and I wont need to upgrade for a longgggg time because the BFs and whatever just don't do it for me, plus Destiny.

 

[James Mason]

Fixing Windows 8 is basically as easy downloading and running this program:
http://www.classicshell.net/

 

[clueless77]

Fixing Windows 8 is basically as easy downloading and running this program:
http://www.classicshell.net/

Yeah, I was looking at that, thanks for the link though. I guess on reddit you can buy keys for Windows 7/8 from students for around 20 dollars, sooooo totally going to snag one for maybe 8 or 8.1.

 

[James Mason]

Fixing Windows 8 is basically as easy downloading and running this program:
http://www.classicshell.net/

Yeah, I was looking at that, thanks for the link though. I guess on reddit you can buy keys for Windows 7/8 from students for around 20 dollars, sooooo totally going to snag one for maybe 8 or 8.1.

Yeah but... I believe those keys only last for 2-4 years or something.

Hence why they are student editions. An OEM version lasts a lifetime, on that one computer anyways.

 

[Nuckles_56]

Fixing Windows 8 is basically as easy downloading and running this program:
http://www.classicshell.net/

Yeah, I was looking at that, thanks for the link though. I guess on reddit you can buy keys for Windows 7/8 from students for around 20 dollars, sooooo totally going to snag one for maybe 8 or 8.1.

Yeah but... I believe those keys only last for 2-4 years or something.

Hence why they are student editions. An OEM version lasts a lifetime, on that one computer anyways.

But for most people they will be looking at upgrading or replacing the computer by then so what does it matter?

 

[clueless77]

Fixing Windows 8 is basically as easy downloading and running this program:
http://www.classicshell.net/

Yeah, I was looking at that, thanks for the link though. I guess on reddit you can buy keys for Windows 7/8 from students for around 20 dollars, sooooo totally going to snag one for maybe 8 or 8.1.

Yeah but... I believe those keys only last for 2-4 years or something.

Hence why they are student editions. An OEM version lasts a lifetime, on that one computer anyways.

But for most people they will be looking at upgrading or replacing the computer by then so what does it matter?

Well, I'll probably stick around this site for awhile since it's been good as a resource, so to revive this thread while describing my final configuration and costs:

I guess the keys are retail and not student copies, I got 8.1 Pro (although I didn't ask for Pro specifically) for $22 through a Paypal payment, they're legit and not cracks. Maybe I'll need a new cpu and motherboard sooner than some others because I actually went with a $209 pricematched 3770k and a $60 refurbished z77a-G45, but with what I can tell from the reviews and benchmarks at various sites there's hardly a difference in performance between the 3770k and 4770k despite a somewhat improved socket board. The 4690k is overkill for me even if it'll be future proof for quite some time, and for gaming in max with a good gpu at my resolution and a single display, even SLI'd, the 3770k should be more than sufficient for years to come. Either way, I wanted hyperthreading and I'll be overclocking to at least 4.5 with a Corsair h80i ($59.99) after having delidded it.

So the other stuff is: Thermaltake SP-750M for a PSU ($69.99 with $30 rebate), GSkills Ripjaws 4 gb 1600 (for now, and $42), that Seagate Barracuda I had in the list for $40 refurbished, that XB Evo case for $89.99 with a $15 rebate (I kinda regret it as it was sorta an impulse buy, I'd actually prefer something with more of a console-like design and size that could still fit a full atx board), and eventually an internal USB 3.0 and card reader hub.

Also, DS4tool for my DS4!

The only thing I don't really have and don't plan to anytime soon is the GPU. I'm probably going to stick it out until the 870 and 880 are released, if the price is right for the latter I'll probably get the reference model and rely on SLI later on when games that aren't Ubisoft's or EA's major franchises become more demanding. I'm thinking right now would be a bad time to buy a new 780 whether it's ti or not, reference or not, because from what I can tell of this industry is that there's just as much planned obsolescence as there is in many other sectors of the technology industry. While PC gaming is gonna be pretty cool, for more than one reason I'm not going to buy into the updating hardware every generation for mostly slight revisions mentality, especially when these generations seem to be almost annual.

Back when I got my Gateway it was mostly for movies, music, photos and web browsing, a media center. I had assumed that if I ever wanted to that it'd be good for gaming, but given it's price and the actual components had I really known anything about PC's back then I totally could have built a way better PC for the price I paid for it.

That about sums it up, I know I went back and forth on a lot of stuff but this is a first for me, so I guess it's just a matter of waiting now.