New PC or upgrade existing system?

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z92

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Aug 10, 2015
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4,510
Hello,

I am currently running a PC with the following specs:
Intel Core i5-2400 @3.10Ghz
ATI Radeon HD 4300/4500 Series
8192 Mb RAM

The problem is that I cannot run most games. They will be running very choppy or not even start up at all. I can play old games like Warcraft 3 just fine, but newer games will not run smoothly.

Another problem is that sometimes the computer will "freeze up" just from having Skype, Utorrent and Chrome open with 5-10 tabs. This is not very common, though, and perhaps it is just because I need to reinstall windows. It is a problem that seems to happen at certain times, almost like a process has not closed down correctly and is draining a lot of computing power.

Now I thought the CPU was very outdated, but I compared it to other CPUs and it still seems to be pretty up-to-beat. I have used the CPU for I guess 3-4 years - should I expect it is "burned out" by now or should there still be plenty of life left?

I dont really want to spend a lot of money, but I dont want my computer to freeze up and not be able to play games correctly.
Should I buy a whole new computer system or would I be better off replacing the GFX card, reinstall windows and replace the HDD with a SSD?
There is no space for additional RAM blocks, so perhaps also a new motherboard and extra RAM?

Hoping for some good advice :) Thank you in advance!
 
Solution
Lam1080p
Hello,
8GB of RAM is fine, I'm doing fine with 4GB, however I'd upgrade the GPU,. I wouldn't bother in getting a new PC, as you could buy a graphics card for far cheaper. I'll give you some reccomendations
AMD Radeon HD 7870. it is in the 'recommended' specs of some modern games, you can get it for about £115.
AMD Radeon R9 280x. A newer card that can run most modern games well at quite high settings. You can get it for about £110
AMD Radoen R9 270x. A model lower than the R9 270x, but still isn't too far behind in power. You can get it for about £100
Nvidia 750ti. You can get it for about the same price as the 7870 (£115), it isn't as powerful as the Radeons that I've listed, but is a cheap way to go if you're more of an nvidia type...
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zcarm

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Feb 24, 2015
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I think you may have ram problems. The CPU should be just fine. I would reinstall windows and see if that helps. If that doesn't seem to do anything then I would start with progressive upgrades. I would start with replacing the ram. Run the new ram in your old system and see if that helps anything. If it doesn't, replace the processor and motherboard and see if that fixes your issue. Freezing shouldn't have anything to do with the graphics card. Also HDD to SSD won't help with freezing persay. If you are having freezing it's probably either the ram, cpu, or mobo. Those would be the first three items I would replace.

If you have money later on I would replace the graphics card too. It should be fine for now but it's getting a little aged.
 
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Lam1080p

Lam1080p

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Nov 23, 2014
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4,710
Hello,
8GB of RAM is fine, I'm doing fine with 4GB, however I'd upgrade the GPU,. I wouldn't bother in getting a new PC, as you could buy a graphics card for far cheaper. I'll give you some reccomendations
AMD Radeon HD 7870. it is in the 'recommended' specs of some modern games, you can get it for about £115.
AMD Radeon R9 280x. A newer card that can run most modern games well at quite high settings. You can get it for about £110
AMD Radoen R9 270x. A model lower than the R9 270x, but still isn't too far behind in power. You can get it for about £100
Nvidia 750ti. You can get it for about the same price as the 7870 (£115), it isn't as powerful as the Radeons that I've listed, but is a cheap way to go if you're more of an nvidia type of person.

If you're looking for more expencive / cheaper cards, I'll help you. Hope I helped.

With the problem with freezing, I'd run a system refresh, deleting all of the files, its worked for me countless times and wouldn't bother with upgrading an SSD at the current time, but you can if you want. I'd primarily prioritize the GPU and run a system refresh, it works really well, and next time, uninstall games you don't play, try and keep the HDD with a decent amount of space, eg: I have a 1TB HDD and I have 180GB free.
 
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z92

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Aug 10, 2015
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4,510
Thank you for your answers. I now have the confidence to try and upgrade my existing system instead of busting the bank. I'll put in a SSD disc with a clean windows installation and borrow a GPU card from a friend to see if it can run flawlessly before shedding out money.
I picked Lam's answer as the solution because he gave me some good examples of GPU cards, but kudos to you also zcarm! Thanks again.
 
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