What to upgrade first in General ?

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Nodyzin

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Feb 16, 2017
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What percentage and how important each of those are in order for a computer to perform well and smooth. Consider that they all have the same GPU, Cooling systems and PSU.

1- CPU
2- Memory
3- Hard Drive

For example what would provide a better experience: Both computers have same CPU but one Have 64GB memory and an older hard drive and the other has 16GB memory but new SSD faster hardrive.

If Im able to change the CPU alone but not the memory and hard drive would that alone increase the performance of the computer significantly?

Is like 60% CPU, 30% memory and 10% hard drive? Or more like 50%CPU 25% memory and 25% hard drive?

I see a lot of people talking about upgrading their CPUs and adding more memory to their builds but I dont hear much about hard drives upgrades do they play a important part on upgrading your computer too?
 
Solution
derekullo
CPU Very important until you reach a plateau where your cores don't do any work and remain idle.
Diablo 3 is probably ok with an i3 or i5, but for photoshop you would want an i7.

Bad- Celeron/Atom/Pentium
Average- i3
Good- i5
Best- i7

RAM Also very important until you reach the point that most of the ram remains unused.
Ram is also very cheap so there is really no reason to go with 4 gigabytes. The minimum i would use for any windows 10 machine is 8 gigabytes. Windows 7 can get away with 4 gigabytes if you really wanted to, but again ram is cheap. Pay the extra $40 and get 8 gigabytes.
Diablo 3 would probably run ok with 4 gigabytes but you are cutting it close. Just get 8 gigabytes.

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madmatt30

madmatt30

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All as important as each other .
The trick is striking a proper balance between them.

Your example doesn't work because generally 90% of users will never need more than 8gb ram, 16gb for heavy heavy gaming , past 16gb really is for professional or heavy image editing use.

 
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derekullo

derekullo

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CPU Very important until you reach a plateau where your cores don't do any work and remain idle.
Diablo 3 is probably ok with an i3 or i5, but for photoshop you would want an i7.

Bad- Celeron/Atom/Pentium
Average- i3
Good- i5
Best- i7

RAM Also very important until you reach the point that most of the ram remains unused.
Ram is also very cheap so there is really no reason to go with 4 gigabytes. The minimum i would use for any windows 10 machine is 8 gigabytes. Windows 7 can get away with 4 gigabytes if you really wanted to, but again ram is cheap. Pay the extra $40 and get 8 gigabytes.
Diablo 3 would probably run ok with 4 gigabytes but you are cutting it close. Just get 8 gigabytes.

Average- 4 gigabytes
Good- 8 gigabytes
Best- 16 gigabytes

Graphics Card Very important to gamers cause, we like pretty pictures ... shown rapidly.
This selection mainly depends on what game you are playing and at what resolution and settings that game will played at.
Diablo 3 would run great on any one of these.

Average- Geforce 1050, Geforce 970, Geforce 780
Good- Geforce 1060-1070
Best- Geforce 1080 / Titan X

Storage Not very important, unless you run out of it.
Most anyone would be happy with a 512 gigabyte Samsung 850 Evo unless you needed the space

Average- 1 terabyte western digital blue
Good- Any not-samsung ssd
Best- Samsung 850 Pro / Samsung 850 Evo / Raid array of hard drives
Godly- Raid array of ssd


And so if the question was: "I have parts that all fall in the average range and I want to play games at 2560x1600 on high settings more fluidly. What do i do?"

I would say first thing is get 8 gigabytes of ram, 4 gigabytes of ram is super cheap like $40, make sure you buy the right kind and have an open dimm for it.

After the ram upgrade i would upgrade the graphics card to a Geforce 1070, the jump in graphics card power would be greater than an upgrade in cpu.

Then i would upgrade my cpu to an i5 or i7. I do alot of handbrake and photoshop so I naturally lean towards the i7.

Finally if i wanted to i would upgrade my hard drive to a 512 or 1 terabyte Samsung 850 Evo.

Moving your boot device to a solid state requires either a clone of the old hard drive or more highly recommended a fresh install of windows.

Having said that if you want to avoid alot of headache it would make sense to start off with a solid state to begin with and then add the other parts as you go.

You don't gain any fps benefit starting with a solid state, you just save the time it would take to clone or reinstall windows again.
 
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Dugimodo

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Agree with madmatt. Also the answer is "it depends" You have to look at what you use a PC for and what component is most effecting that experience to decide what to upgrade.

For example, a gamer with a reasonably new i5 or i7 and 8GB or more of RAM will most likely benefit from a graphics card most unless they already have a high end card. Someone doing image editing as per madmatts example would likely want to upgrade the RAM first because 8GB is a bit low for that, and so on.

An SSD is a quality of life upgrade, it will not increase the PC's performance in terms of what software it will run at all (well there are exceptions, but in general for most users..) and because of that a lot of gamers don't put a high priority on them. It does however make the computer boot much faster and launch programs faster which just feels better overall and gives the impression of a much faster PC so if you just browse the net and read E-mail - watch youtube etc it can be the upgrade that has the biggest effect.

There is no % you can assign to each, you could maybe prioritise them in order of performance based on a task but even then it would not always be accurate and people would disagree and it would always depend on the starting point of your hardware.

For general use any modern desktop CPU is fine and if you have at least 8GB of RAM that's fine too, graphics doesn't really matter too much outside of gaming for the average home user. For gaming you'd want at least a quad core CPU if you can afford it, the best GPU you can get, and at least 8GB of RAM.

 
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Nodyzin

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Thanks for th fast responses. I guess it really depends what your focus will be.

I use my computer more for YouTube and email but I enjoy playing some games on it from time to time. I play dota2 , overwatch, Bioshock series. I will probably be getting resident evil 7 on it soon. I have a PS4 but o think playing it on my PC with headphones on and with the screen right in front of my face will be a better experience.

I just recently upgraded my pc (that I got prebuilt at bestbuy 7 years ago)with a new 'motherboard, CPU and ram. That was a project I run itbo many unexpected obstacles but it's working now.

I have a I5 6500, GeForce GTX 1060 3G version, 8gb DDR4 memory and a 1 terabyte hard drive that came with the prebuilt pc.

I will upgrade to 16gb memory next paycheck and still thinking if I want mess with the hard drive or just leave it alone ....

 
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