Best way to upgrade my old gaming PC?

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Answulf

Commendable
Dec 26, 2016
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I'd like to improve the performance of my old PC that my kids use for gaming, but I don't know what component upgrades would be the best bang-for-your buck, or if it's even worth it.

It has the following specs:

Motherboard: ABit IP35 Pro
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.40 GHz)
Video: Radeon HD 5750 (1GB GDDR5 RAM, 400 MHz)
Memory: 4x 1GB DDR2 (500 MHz)

They are mostly playing games like Minecraft and older Steam games. Are there any obvious, cheap upgrades that would make a big difference here, or is this PC not really worth upgrading?

From the homework I've done I think I've determined the following, but I don't know if it is accurate:

I could upgrade the RAM to 8GB (800MHz) for about $50.
The Best Buy near my house has a PNY GeForce GT710 2GB DDR3 card for $40.99. Is this going to be a huge boost just because it is 2gb, or is there going to be a big drop-off going from GDDR5 to DDR3?
To upgrade the CPU, I need to go to an i7 for around $200+

Does that sound about right? Any better ideas?

Thank you for your expertise!
 
Solution
A
the gt 710 is still a pretty weak card for gaming, even if it is light.
I personally use a gtx 750 (i got it for £50/$61 used) which you might be able to get quite cheap and under £100 it runs pretty much any game from 2014 and under well at high settings and would make a big difference to your 5750, also if your motherboard supports it an extra 4 gigs of ram might make your rig speed up a bit, i would say the cpu is fine for what you want and doesnt urgently need to be upgraded, just an idea :)
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Adamjms3

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Aug 20, 2016
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the gt 710 is still a pretty weak card for gaming, even if it is light.
I personally use a gtx 750 (i got it for £50/$61 used) which you might be able to get quite cheap and under £100 it runs pretty much any game from 2014 and under well at high settings and would make a big difference to your 5750, also if your motherboard supports it an extra 4 gigs of ram might make your rig speed up a bit, i would say the cpu is fine for what you want and doesnt urgently need to be upgraded, just an idea :)
 
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Adamjms3

Commendable
Aug 20, 2016
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1,640
If you wanted to go further you could buy a 1050ti or a rx 460/480 but that would most likely need another ram and cpu upgrade racking up your total price,
i just wanted to include that i use an Core2Duo E7500 (worse than a q6600) and a gtx 750 and get around 200 fps in minecraft at all times but make sure your psu can handle it because it is quite a leap up market
 
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A

Answulf

Commendable
Dec 26, 2016
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1,510
OK, so video card seems like a no-brainer - what about memory? Is it going to be worth it to upgrade to 4GB (500MHz) to 8GB (800MHz)? Currently it seems like memory usage is about 50% when they game, so 8GB won't make much difference - is that correct?
 
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