Help me upgrade my PC?

owlhed · Oct 12, 2014

Hi everybody! I've had my ASUS CG1330 for maybe four years now, and never had trouble with it. However, the newest gen of games is proving to be too taxing for my system, so I'm looking to upgrade. Hopefully I won't have to replace a ton of components, but as far as I know I'm going to need:
At least four more gigs of RAM--I have eight, currently

A new GPU (my current is the ATI Radeon HD 5770)

A new CPU--hopefully without having to replace my motherboard (my current is the AMD Phenom II x6 1035T, runs at 2.6 GHz)

Probably a new power supply, since more powerful components aren't going to mesh well with my current PSU, which seems to peak at about 400.

I might also need a better cooling solution, if my components prove to be thermally taxing.

I'm pretty lost on what do look for, so I'd really appreciate it if you guys could help me rebuild my first PC.

ASUS' specs for it are here: http://www.asus.com/Desktops/Essentio_CG1330/specifications/[1]
Thanks!

DarkSable · Oct 12, 2014

1) 8GB of ram is MORE than enough; it will simultaneously run battlefield 4, photoshop, and 30 tabs in chrome. Adding 4GB more will just force the ram to run in single channel rather than dual channel, and is a waste of money. (i.e. you will not see better gaming performance with 16GB of ram.)

2) You can't really get a huge upgrade from your CPU without switching over to the blue team - AMD's single-threaded performance (i.e. what matters for gaming) hasn't improved all that much.

3) If you have a non-overclockable i5 and a gtx 970, your 400w power supply will be able to power your system... provided that it's a good one. What's its make and model?

It seems clear here that you should go with intel and Nvidia, as it will give you a massive upgrade in performance (I went from a Phenom II x4 to an older ivy bridge i5 and it was like night and day, even without a GPU upgrade), and will have significantly BETTER thermals and power draw than your current rig.

Thaisnang · Oct 12, 2014

You'll need a new motherboard if you wanna get a better CPU. And If you have 8 GB of RAM you don't need anymore.

delaro · Oct 12, 2014

I'm surprised your running a 5770, they ask for a 450 watt power supply.

Phenom II X6 1100T BE, 1090T BE, Phenom II X4 Black Edition 980, 975 are the top of the line for AM3 but they run around $150 to $250 nowadays.

Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz Six Core CPU
http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-Phenom-II-X6-1090T-Black-Edition-3-2GHz-Socket-AM3-CPU-Processor-Tests-Good-/181551476907?pt=CPUs&hash=item2a454fb0ab $139

Phenom II X4 975 3.6 GHz Quad-Core $135
http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-Phenom-II-X4-975-3-6-GHz-Quad-Core-HDZ975FBK4DGM-AM3-Black-Edition-Processor-/121457002336?pt=CPUs&hash=item1c4766c760

GeForce GTX 760 4GB $199
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127748&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

EVGA 500W minimum
http://www.ncixus.com/products/?usaffiliateid=1000031504&sku=85625&vpn=100-B1-0500-KR&manufacture=eVGA&promoid=1424 $34

8 gigs of RAM is good.

Intel Core i5 I5-4460 Haswell 3.2GHZ $180
http://www.ncixus.com/products/?usaffiliateid=1000031504&sku=96203&vpn=BX80646I54460&manufacture=Intel&promoid=1081

ASRock H97M Pro4 LGA 1150 $79
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157512&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

Stock coolers will do fine as long as you have good thermal paste.

Replacing the AMD CPU would net you more FPS than you have now but in most games you will be around Medium settings. The Intel option without overclocking potential would put you in High settings or better in nearly all titles and give you the current bells and whistles like PCI Express 3.0 .

To see how AMD vs Intel CPU's stack up in gaming terms refer to this chart.

http://www.reguluspc.com/charts/gaming-cpu-ranking-charts.html

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Help me upgrade my PC?

owlhed

Reputable

delaro

DarkSable

Judicious

Thaisnang

Honorable

delaro

Judicious

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