I want to upgrade my PC. (Im a Noob)

cstan16 · May 23, 2016

Im looking to upgrade mainly my gpu and ram here are my specs. would like to hear what i should updrade

GPU: AMD Radeon R7 200 Series
CPU: AMD A8-5600K APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics
RAM: G Skill 8G (2x4g) DDR3 1600Mhz
OS: Windows 10 64bit
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A78-MHD
Case: CoolerMaster RC-K380 Gaming Case
PSU: 500w

smorizio · May 23, 2016

8g of ram is fine for gaming 16g used for video or photo editing machines. if you dont have a lot of funds wait for amd polairs gpu in a few weeks. for the money you get nvidia 980ti speeds at 170w of power. so if you have a 500w power supply it work. if you want to play newer games you need an intel i5 cpu/mb and ddr4 ram and a gpu.

Rabmac · May 23, 2016

Upgrading from 8GB to 16GB will not improve performance by very much on most games so I think your cash could be better used elsewhere.

The 3 things that I would be looking at if that were my PC would be the CPU + motherboard (going to need new board as that socket is pretty limited), GPU and PSU (really depends on what brand and model you have).

What is your budget? What country are you in? What is exact make and model of your PSU? What resolution and refresh rate is your monitor?

Steven Jiang · May 23, 2016

smorizio :

He has a A8 5600K which is a quad core and is good enough for gaming. DDR3 is still good and won't be going away for some time yet. He should be looking into the GPU really.

cstan16 · May 23, 2016

I'm looking around a $500 budget
Australia
Psu is a RS-500-pcar-i3
Specs for my monitor
https://www.asus.com/au/Monitors/VE247H/specifications/

Steven Jiang · May 23, 2016

500-700 USD(I assume)? You can basically buy the most powerful graphics cards out there...

Steven Jiang · May 23, 2016

But since you're on a 1080p monitor, you can buy a less powerful graphics card i guess... You can however buy a decent(not the most powerful) graphics card and a good 1440p monitor.

cstan16 · May 23, 2016

What kind of GPU would you recommend for $300-400 for this build

Steven Jiang · May 23, 2016

cstan16 :

An AMD card would be nice. Unless you like PhysX and CUDA then in that case you're looking at Nvidias. If you like Nvidia, wait for the release of GTX 1070, and in AMD's case wait for Polaris 11 which is right around the corner.

Steven Jiang · May 23, 2016

If you REALLY REALLY want a card right now, this link will help
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2960217/gaming-gpu-400.html

Steven Jiang · May 23, 2016

cstan16 :

certainly, but you might want to wait for the 1070. the 970 has issues with its VRAM which makes it not worth its price... Furthermore, the 1070 will boast more VRAM.

BurgerandChips66 · May 23, 2016

cstan16 :

As well as Nvidea's GTX 1070 coming soon, AMD are going to release cards based on their new Polaris architecture. Maybe hang fire a month and see what's coming.... or at least wait for prices to re-align on the existing cards as a reaction to the next gen that is about to be released.

cstan16 · May 23, 2016

so with the 1070 and a 1440p monitor would make this build good aight?

Steven Jiang · May 23, 2016

cstan16 :

yes!

BurgerandChips66 · May 23, 2016

cstan16 :

Whilst the benchmarks are not available yet for the 1070, it appears it will have plenty of vram and general power to perform well at 1440p.

john ko · May 23, 2016

To know what upgrades you should do, we need to know what you want to do with your pc, what budget do you have etc.

Rabmac · May 23, 2016

I recommend changing your PSU as your current one is not that great, so here is how I would spend the budget today:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card ($439.00 @ IJK)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($79.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Total: $518.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-05-23 18:27 AEST+1000

If I were you though I would probably wait for the GTX 1070 to be released to see if you could get one of those for a similar price. I would also be looking to upgrade that CPU but it is not urgent.

I want to upgrade my PC. (Im a Noob)

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