Gaming PC upgrade - suggestions?
Discussion
My gaming PC is getting a bit long in the tooth now at seven years old. It was pretty high spec when I originally bought it and a few years ago was treated to a video card upgrade and some extra RAM.
Most games play perfectly well but nothing ever stands still so I'd like to get it upgraded before Cyberpunk 2077 arrives next year.
Current spec is:
- Intel i5 2550K @ 3.5GHz, water cooled
- Asus P8Z68-V PRO GEN3 motherboard
- 24GB DDR3 RAM
- Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 8GB
- Various HDDs between 500GB and 4TB
- 500GB Samsung Evo 860 SSD (not yet used, planned to use as Win 10 boot drive but haven't been able to face the pain of a system rebuild)
- Acer Predator X34 ultrawide G-sync monitor
- decent 850W power supply
The whole machine was bought pre-build from Cyberpower Systems and overclocked to hell and back. However, over time I've had to scale it back to standard clock speeds due to increasing instability. Probably needs heat sink re-doing but I just couldn't be bothered.
I'm guessing the bottleneck is the CPU and given its age there won't be anything compatible with the MB worth bothering with, so that will mean new MB and RAM as well I guess.
I'm not bothered about having the very latest/fastest kit, multicoloured LEDs, overclocking or any of that malarky any more. Just want decent VFM performance that will do for the next few years and compatible with a possible RTX graphics card upgrade further down the line once ray tracing gets a bit more established.
Budget: I'd like to keep it under £500 if possible.
Any ideas?
Most games play perfectly well but nothing ever stands still so I'd like to get it upgraded before Cyberpunk 2077 arrives next year.
Current spec is:
- Intel i5 2550K @ 3.5GHz, water cooled
- Asus P8Z68-V PRO GEN3 motherboard
- 24GB DDR3 RAM
- Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 8GB
- Various HDDs between 500GB and 4TB
- 500GB Samsung Evo 860 SSD (not yet used, planned to use as Win 10 boot drive but haven't been able to face the pain of a system rebuild)
- Acer Predator X34 ultrawide G-sync monitor
- decent 850W power supply
The whole machine was bought pre-build from Cyberpower Systems and overclocked to hell and back. However, over time I've had to scale it back to standard clock speeds due to increasing instability. Probably needs heat sink re-doing but I just couldn't be bothered.
I'm guessing the bottleneck is the CPU and given its age there won't be anything compatible with the MB worth bothering with, so that will mean new MB and RAM as well I guess.
I'm not bothered about having the very latest/fastest kit, multicoloured LEDs, overclocking or any of that malarky any more. Just want decent VFM performance that will do for the next few years and compatible with a possible RTX graphics card upgrade further down the line once ray tracing gets a bit more established.
Budget: I'd like to keep it under £500 if possible.
Any ideas?
I think a decent motherboard/CPU/RAM upgrade would be well under budget.
Here’s a list of popular high end parts that hit budget. The motherboard in particular is very good.
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/mRfzJV
You can obviously look at going down to an 8th gen i5 to save a bit of cash which will probably be just as suitable playing games.
Maybe treat yourself to a new case with the savings.
Might want to think about a new PSU too to accommodate but if what you already have is OK then no worries.
Despite what a lot of people will say, it’s not rocket science, so you will hear differing opinions on makes and models but you can’t really go wrong.
Here’s a list of popular high end parts that hit budget. The motherboard in particular is very good.
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/mRfzJV
You can obviously look at going down to an 8th gen i5 to save a bit of cash which will probably be just as suitable playing games.
Maybe treat yourself to a new case with the savings.
Might want to think about a new PSU too to accommodate but if what you already have is OK then no worries.
Despite what a lot of people will say, it’s not rocket science, so you will hear differing opinions on makes and models but you can’t really go wrong.
Edited by roadsmash on Thursday 13th June 20:07
GPU will still run pretty much most things with good frames,
Thats a fairly old CPU and DDR3 ram. That will be the bottleneck. Would be motherboard, CPU and DDR4.
The new AMD ryzen CPU's are out next month and are looking good from whats known so far. a 8 core 16 thread CPU is looking to be around £260/270. which matches intels top i7/i9's. A decent b450/x470 motherboard can be picked up for £150 ish, and some high speed 16gb DDR4 can be had under £100 now (praise the lord memory prices are finally dropping).
Thats a fairly old CPU and DDR3 ram. That will be the bottleneck. Would be motherboard, CPU and DDR4.
The new AMD ryzen CPU's are out next month and are looking good from whats known so far. a 8 core 16 thread CPU is looking to be around £260/270. which matches intels top i7/i9's. A decent b450/x470 motherboard can be picked up for £150 ish, and some high speed 16gb DDR4 can be had under £100 now (praise the lord memory prices are finally dropping).
i5 9600k processor: £250
MSI Z370 A-Pro motherboard: £100
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB DDR4-3000 RAM: £68
6 cores, decent motherboard and plenty enough RAM for £418. Use your existing water cooler (presumably an all-in-one?)
If you can stretch to £550, then add in
Samsung 970 PRO 512 GB M.2 SSD: £134
That'll give you an absolutely lightening-fast M.2 drive as well which will make you Samsung 860 feel lethargic.
Keep the 1080 but perhaps apply a mild overclock, use the existing drives as required, install the OS on the M2 (plus maybe one or two games taht will benefit the most) and use the 860 for the rest. Existing spinning drives for data storage
MSI Z370 A-Pro motherboard: £100
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB DDR4-3000 RAM: £68
6 cores, decent motherboard and plenty enough RAM for £418. Use your existing water cooler (presumably an all-in-one?)
If you can stretch to £550, then add in
Samsung 970 PRO 512 GB M.2 SSD: £134
That'll give you an absolutely lightening-fast M.2 drive as well which will make you Samsung 860 feel lethargic.
Keep the 1080 but perhaps apply a mild overclock, use the existing drives as required, install the OS on the M2 (plus maybe one or two games taht will benefit the most) and use the 860 for the rest. Existing spinning drives for data storage
Thanks chaps - food for thought. I don't really follow what's going on in PC hardware these days until it's time to upgrade!
I think 16GB is bare minimum for RAM, so I'll probably go for 32 to ensure there's plenty of headroom.
I'll be re-using the existing Coolermaster case - it's decent quality and plenty big enough, though some of the fans now need replacing. Likewise the PSU.
The other thing that's just occurred to me is that my current MB only has 2 x 6GB SATA channels, the rest are 3GB. Not ideal with 4 drives installed. What's the standard these days - have slower SATA channels been ditched or are you still stuck with them?
Definitely sticking with the 1080 for now - an RTX2080Ti is well out of budget!
I think 16GB is bare minimum for RAM, so I'll probably go for 32 to ensure there's plenty of headroom.
I'll be re-using the existing Coolermaster case - it's decent quality and plenty big enough, though some of the fans now need replacing. Likewise the PSU.
The other thing that's just occurred to me is that my current MB only has 2 x 6GB SATA channels, the rest are 3GB. Not ideal with 4 drives installed. What's the standard these days - have slower SATA channels been ditched or are you still stuck with them?
Definitely sticking with the 1080 for now - an RTX2080Ti is well out of budget!
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