How would I go about further upgrading my gaming PC?

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Sherniee

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Aug 13, 2015
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I just got a new PC last week, salvaged from my HP pavilion, I kept most of the thingies, I think I bought a new shell, cooler, graphics card and upgraded my 4 4 ram to 8 8.

My current specs are:

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz 3.40GHz
16.0 GB of ram (15.94 GB usable)
64-bit Operating system, x64-based processor
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960

Am using a cooler master case, the one found in this link:

http://www.coolermaster.com/m/pdtView.php?lv01_type=P1302180011a7d6&prd_id=P13071100011e50

I can currently play Grand theft auto V at 58-68 FPS at high graphics (not too sure about very high, the sharpness and rendering stings my eyes so I keep it at high).

I had this PC made for about 500usd, the price of 2 8gb rams, a shell, a fan, and the graphics card, everything else was from my old PC.

I would like to upgrade it further, however I'm living in Malaysia and can barely speak the language, to them I'm some dumbass guy who doesn't know shit about IT, which isn't false at all. That's why I had to pick out the parts in a shop and pay the guy a little extra to take apart my old PC and build my new one :/

Anyway, the fella at the shop was trying to get me to buy a few extra things, such as more cooling fans, an SSD card, etc. However I don't *entirely* trust him, so I wanted to get some second opinions. So my questions are...

How exactly does buying an SSD card help my gaming performance? He said something about having to reinstall windows on it if I got an SSD card.

Do I need more cooling units? My PC does not seem to get hot, it warms up, but it's not burning or anything? I'm attaching a photo of the inside of the PC. (My roommate helped me tidy up the wiring inside the machine when I brought it home, but I can't really get her advice on gaming stuff since she's not into it ) If I do need more cooling fans, where would they go?

Photo of the inside of the machine:
http://m.imgur.com/RB5iQkZ

Is the shell I'm using bad? I notice a ton of gaming PCs have these HUGE shells with like 3 fans. How important is the casing, and can you recommend a good one, if mine is bad?

Is it bad that I'm still using the motherboard of my HP pavilion? Should I change it or does that not matter?

And above all, do you recommend anything I should get, that I missed out on or just needs an upgrade to prepare for the near future?

I definitely do not have much knowledge on IT stuff, so I would appreciate it if you could dumb it down a little :3

Thanks so much :D




 
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Maarsch

Maarsch

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Sep 14, 2012
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OK, as to your questions:
SSD will severely speed up your loading times. Put your OS on there and your favourite 2 games and the loading of the OS, game and new levels will speed up. Look for SSD vs HDD boot times on youtube and you should find a nice comparison. It does not have significant impact on other parts of operations.

Extra fans. Depends. You don't seem to be OCing with that CPU cooler on it, although most i7-4770s are 4770k which are pretty much built for that. If you do OC I'd recommend it. If you don't plan on doing that and you don't have any problems with the temperatures now I wouldn't bother. Your appartment is ACed? With the normal heat of Malaysia you may run into cooling issues somewhere down the line.
They do come with cool LCD lighting though if you're into that.

Sticking with the motherboard. Depends which one you have but generally HP will not have a high end gaming mobo, which shouldn't bother you at all if you don't plan on OC-ing or SLI-ing.

General suggestion:
Your cpu will see you right, 4770 is pretty good. If it turns out to be a 4770k you might want to look into a better cooler and you can squeeze a lot more out of it by OC-ing it.
Your GPU has room for improvement though. Check this list.

My question to other members of this forum:
Does the angle on that CPU fan freak anyone else out? It's probably just a cooler I'm not familiar with, but that looks weird.
 
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DHFF

DHFF

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Sep 18, 2012
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The stats you have listed are fairly good for gaming. For the most part you should be fine.
SSD hard drives are very fast compared to Traditional drives so you would notice an overall performance boost.

When he talks about re installing windows that is because typically what most people do is get a small SSD and load The operating system on that drive then they use the larger traditional drive to store all thier files. However prices for SSD drives have come down tremendously so depending on how much data you have, you might be able to get a decent size SSD and clone everything over so you wont need to re-install. I don't kow what prices are like in your neck of the woods but in the US you can get a 512GB SSD for about $140.

a larger case and more fans would be nice but not really a necessity if you are not overheating currently. If your temps are normal then I wouldn't worry about it.

From the picture you sent however, the one suggestion I would make is replacing the power supply. Not all are created equal so I would suggest something like a Seasonic S12G or a Rosewill Capstone.
 
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DHFF

DHFF

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Sep 18, 2012
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IF you really want to add another fan, you dont need your shopkeeper for that, its easy to plug one into that empty port on the back. From the looks of it you will need a 120mm fan, get one with a 4 pin molex head and attach it to a free cable in your power supply.
 
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D

daydreamingwill

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Jul 15, 2014
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An SSD as previously mentioned will dramatically decrease loading times. However, if you're simply looking to throw money about then maybe you should look at an option a little more outside the box (I apologise for the terrible pun). You could look at buying a new monitor, to support higher FPS to create a smother gaming experience or get a higher resolution monitor in order to create more detailed and pretty games. However what you need to decide is what YOU want from your game. Then we can better help you in what you need to upgrade :)
 
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