Desktop - Upgrade or replace?

[ALY77]

I had a desktop built a few years ago which is still serving me well. I feel however its much like a car, in that I don't know I could have better until I experience it.

Current specs are;

Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3
AMD FX(tm)-4100 Processor (3.6 to 3.8GHz)
8GB RAM
ATI Radeon 3000 Graphics

Its mostly used for spreadsheets, word docs and powerpoint stuff for work, music downloads / some virtual DJ stuff, sorting and storing a lot of photographs and general web browsing.
My daughter tried to play fortnite on it recently and it was having none of it, frame rate must have been about 1 every two seconds!

Is it worth upgrading any particular area of it? Is the motherboard essentially a Betamax player now?

Any pointers gratefully received.

[MissChief]

Get a whole new PC I'm afraid.

How much are you looking to spend? You can go cheap with a refurb Dell desktop for £150-£200 and then add something like a GTX 1050ti which runs from the PCI-E slot but in all honesty I'd recommend a whole new rig.

something like this if you don't mind going second hand. Will run Fortnite like a dream as the game isn't very demanding at all. Gumtree can also be a good source of parts as can facebook marketplace but be wary of misinformation and overpricing of poor components.

[GrumpyTwig]

I'm going with replace on that one, the cpu is 7 years old and doesn't look to have been all that impressive even when released.

The spec for a machine that would do what you want is a bit different to one that'd play fortnite though, the latter likely requiring some dedicated graphics card.

Define yourself a budget and have a gander on https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/ at the completed 'builds' if you want to construct it yourself or have a word with https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ or similar.

[Derek Smith]

A bit late now I know, but I've had the same computer since 3.1. Everything has, of course, been changed, but at a steady rate. I bought a new MB and processor late last year. I've got a new SSD, put in this afternoon. I bought two 3TB HDDs 18 mnths apart.

Although it probably costs a little more in total, but it comes at spaced intervals.

About five years ago I dumped my floppy drive.

[snuffy]

Derek Smith said:

..., but I've had the same computer since 3.1. Everything has, of course, been changed.....

[Derek Smith]

snuffy said:

Derek Smith said:

..., but I've had the same computer since 3.1. Everything has, of course, been changed.....

Something like that.

[ALY77]

Thanks for the input folks.

I didn't have a budget in mind as the old machine is still working and I had no idea if I could throw a few pounds at it to bring it up to speed or whether a retirement should be on the horizon - Having spent weeks going on months trying to nail down a suitable spec laptop for my daughter on the run up to Christmas I started thinking how old my trusty desktop actually is!

Quite like the idea of buying the bits and putting something together myself, haven't done it before however I'm handy enough, have a bit of time on my hands of an evening and I'm not a complete stranger to electronics.

[chris285]

ALY77 said:

Thanks for the input folks.

I didn't have a budget in mind as the old machine is still working and I had no idea if I could throw a few pounds at it to bring it up to speed or whether a retirement should be on the horizon - Having spent weeks going on months trying to nail down a suitable spec laptop for my daughter on the run up to Christmas I started thinking how old my trusty desktop actually is!

Quite like the idea of buying the bits and putting something together myself, haven't done it before however I'm handy enough, have a bit of time on my hands of an evening and I'm not a complete stranger to electronics.

Yeah it is new PC territory tbh, can't see anything you have listed i would consider saving

Building is pretty easy so sure you would be fine, but if your daughter is getting a laptop will she game on that and so your desktop carry on for a while yet?

Suggestion wise i'd go ryzen cpu so AMD camp, with 16gb RAM and an SSD for Windows install to make it light night and day. Graphics are dependant on your planned use, but i would say that something like 1050ti give flexibilty for gaming if you want

[Jinx]

ALY77 said:

Thanks for the input folks.

I didn't have a budget in mind as the old machine is still working and I had no idea if I could throw a few pounds at it to bring it up to speed or whether a retirement should be on the horizon - Having spent weeks going on months trying to nail down a suitable spec laptop for my daughter on the run up to Christmas I started thinking how old my trusty desktop actually is!

Quite like the idea of buying the bits and putting something together myself, haven't done it before however I'm handy enough, have a bit of time on my hands of an evening and I'm not a complete stranger to electronics.

If you can wait for Ryzen 3rd gen to be released mid 2019 then the current 2nd gen stuff should drop in price (though even now you can get a 2600 6 core for £150 on overclockers - including the cooler) .

[TameRacingDriver]

Derek Smith said:

A bit late now I know, but I've had the same computer since 3.1. Everything has, of course, been changed, but at a steady rate. I bought a new MB and processor late last year. I've got a new SSD, put in this afternoon. I bought two 3TB HDDs 18 mnths apart.

Although it probably costs a little more in total, but it comes at spaced intervals.

About five years ago I dumped my floppy drive.

So its not the same computer then.

[snuffy]

TameRacingDriver said:

So its not the same computer then.

Hence Trigger's broom above.

[TameRacingDriver]

snuffy said:

TameRacingDriver said:

So its not the same computer then.

Hence Trigger's broom above.

Clearly I didn't understand the joke.

[babelfish]

TameRacingDriver said:

Clearly I didn't understand the joke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUl6PooveJE