Looking to Upgrade My Rig for $500 or less! Any Suggestions?

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WereWalt

Prominent
Apr 9, 2017
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510
Hello everyone!

My gaming rig is getting long in the tooth. The finance committee has ruled a new rig is out of the question, but I have managed to get tentative approval for an upgrade. I think if I can get it in for $500 or less, I'll maximize my chances for a disbursement of funds. Can I get some suggestions? This is my current setup (the relevant stuff, anyway), thanks!:

- ANTEC, Two Hundred V2 Black Mid-Tower Case, Front-Loaded 2.5" Caddy, ATX, No PSU
- CORSAIR, CMPSU-650TX TX Series Power Supply, 650W, 80 PLUS®, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, SLI Ready
- MICROSTAR, 890GXM-G65, AM3, AMD® 890GX, DDR3-2133 (O.C.) 16GB /4, PCIe x16 CF /2, SATA 6 Gb/s RAID 5 /5, VGA+DVI, HDMI, USB 3.0 /2, HDA, GbLAN, mATX, Retail
- AMD, Phenom™ II X4 945 Quad-Core 3.0GHz, AM3, HT 4000MHz, 4x 512KB L2 + 6MB L3 cache, 95W, 45nm, Retail
- ZALMAN, CNPS10X Quiet CPU Cooler, Socket 1366/1156/775/AM3/AM2/940/939/754, Copper/Aluminum, Retail
- KINGSTON, 8GB (4 x 2GB) ValueRAM PC3-8500 DDR3 1066MHz CL7 (7-7-7) 1.5V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC
- 2 x SAPPHIRE, Vapor-X Radeon™ HD 5750 710MHz, 1GB GDDR5 4640MHz, PCIe x16 CrossFire, DVI /2, DP, HDMI, Retail
- Samsung 850 EVO 500GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-75E500B/AM)
- WESTERN DIGITAL, 1TB WD Caviar® Black™ (WD1002FAEX), SATA 6 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB Cache



 
Solution
Justiceinacan
I'd do this ;
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-7500 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($199.89 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($69.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($99.97 @ Jet)
Video Card: MSI Radeon RX 470 4GB ARMOR OC Video Card ($164.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $534.84
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-04-09 14:53 EDT-0400

If you absolutely can't go over 500, opt for a Pentium G4560 or i3 7100 if you don't wanna wait for the pentiums to get restocked.
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Justiceinacan

Justiceinacan

Admirable
Jul 19, 2016
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I'd do this ;
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-7500 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($199.89 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($69.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($99.97 @ Jet)
Video Card: MSI Radeon RX 470 4GB ARMOR OC Video Card ($164.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $534.84
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-04-09 14:53 EDT-0400

If you absolutely can't go over 500, opt for a Pentium G4560 or i3 7100 if you don't wanna wait for the pentiums to get restocked.
 
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Solution
geofelt

geofelt

Titan
Oct 9, 2006
54,295
4,145
174,240
Your cpu is weak and dual low level gpu is no good.
One rule of thumb is to budget 2x the cost of the cpu for the graphics card.
Since you need to buy ddr4 ram regardless($35 for 8gb)
and a motherboard($100 perhaps for lga1151) that leaves $$365 for cpu and gpu.
or $120 for the cpu and $240 for the graphics card.
That would be a GTX1060 for graphics and a G4620 or I3-7100 for the cpu.

If you can market your old parts on ebay, so much the better.
 
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WereWalt

Prominent
Apr 9, 2017
3
0
510
Gentlemen,

First, thank you both very much for your quick assistance.

What do you think of this setup, then? I'll reuse the case, cooling fan, SSD, and 1 TB hard drive, but sub in the following parts:

CPU: Intel Core i3-7100 3.9GHz Dual-Core Processor (117.78)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($69.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($99.97 @ Jet)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB 3GB SC GAMING Video Card (189.99)

TOTAL: 477.73

(Also, I currently have a max 1680x1050 monitor... might be able to afford to upgrade that as well, if I bribe the finance committee with ice cream... Or could I get along with what I have?)


 
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WereWalt

Prominent
Apr 9, 2017
3
0
510
hey one more question.... I was thinking that I could use a single 8 gb ram card instead of the two 4 gb, to make it easier to upgrade someday... but when I checked on userbenchmark, the 2x 4 gb blew the single 8 gb card out of the water (performance-wise)! Same brand and specs - I double checked. When I did a Google search everyone said that the difference should be negligible. Any idea what gives?
 
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