Ancient computer upgrade/bandaid advice while I save up for a new one.

[Storm Crow]

So I have an HP Pavilion Elite m9500f with an HP w2007 monitor, an MS 7548 Aspen motherboard (recently replaced) and AMD Phenom 9750 processor, a Nvidia Geoforce GT 630 GPU, 8 gigs of ram and a 600w PSU.

Its an old crappy rig I know Im saving up a for a new one but that wont be for a few months but in the mean time my new game (FF14) is almost unplayable at 25 frames at best. So I wanted to figure out what I can do to improve frames to a playable level. I thought that maybe my cpu was bottle necking my gpu since the processor is around 6-7 years old and the gpu is about 2-3 years old but they are both relatively low end so I didnt think too much of it.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

 

[digitaldoc]

No easy fix for this system. The processor is the first gen Phenom, and they were not great when they were released- and this was years ago.

You already have enough RAM.

I would not put a new CPU or GPU into a system this old. The money will be better spent on a new motherboard, and modern parts.

While I would consider an SSD for overall performance, it does not affect FPS for gaming performance in benchmark testing. Then again, at least you could recycle it into your next system.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/12/10/hdd_vs_ssd_real_world_gaming_performance/1

 

[Storm Crow]

No easy fixes indeed. But like I said I want to build my own PC from scratch but its just this computer runs my games so poorly that I wanted to put it on life support for a couple months till I got the money to build my own. I figured whatever else I put into this would be throwing it away but I almost didnt care in order to just be able to break that 30 fps mark in Final Fantasy 14.

No easy fix for this system. The processor is the first gen Phenom, and they were not great when they were released- and this was years ago.

You already have enough RAM.

I would not put a new CPU or GPU into a system this old. The money will be better spent on a new motherboard, and modern parts.

While I would consider an SSD for overall performance, it does not affect FPS for gaming performance in benchmark testing. Then again, at least you could recycle it into your next system.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/12/10/hdd_vs_ssd_real_world_gaming_performance/1

 

[Storm Crow]

Actually, the gt630 is holding that old phenom back by quite a lot.
The phenom should be able to run a gtx750 t.i. without bottlenecking much, whilst that gt630 is absolute pants.
A non t.i. 750 would do what you ask as well, I leave the budget to you as you are likely to carry the card over.

So you are saying the gt 630 is holding back my old phenom processor? I find that kinda funny lol. I thought it was the other way around albeit based solely on the age of the technology. If I could carry over a gpu from my old to new that would solve my problem of not wanting to throw good money after a bad/old system. I'll have to look into that. But concerning the gt 630 you are saying its a poorly performing card I got it like a year ago at best buy for $100. League of Legends was playing at around 30 frames I put that in I have been playing 60 ever since. But now with Final Fantasy 14 its a different problem altogether. I figured I could keep trading up to a higher/better video card until I came across bottle necking and started reading up on that and concluded I couldnt simply keeping doing what I was doing.

 

[coozie7]

As has been said, the Phenom is quite weak: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,review-32901-5.html but the graphics card is actually weaker still: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-graphics-card-review,review-32899-7.html it's 18 tiers down, left hand side.
If the power supply is a half decent make (quality is more important than claimed output) as I see it your options are:
1: Do nothing, bite the bullet, run FF at the lowest settings and keep saving. This costs nothing but has obvious problems.
2: Upgrade the graphics card then carry it over into the new build. Plus side is you'll get an instant boost in performance and , probably the most expensive part of the upgrade is already purchased, installed and tested. Downsides are that new stuff comes out at a frightening pace and Nvidia will be releasing a new GTX960 card in a few days time so if you decide to go this route at least hold fire until the reviews are out.
3: Drop in a used card off E-bay, either an moderate upgrade or something a little stronger. Prices of old tech have fallen dramatically following the release of Nvidias GTX970/980 Maxwell based cards so this would be the best bang per (fill in your local currency here) purchase and if you can spring for a GTX760 or HD7950 class of card it'll transfer into the new build nicely because both cards are still capable enough for HD (1920x1080 rez) gaming, although you'll have to turn the settings down a bit on some of the current heavy hitters like FC4 and the Metro Redux titles.

 

[Storm Crow]

Oh okay coozie7, yeah the power supply I got from a friend its a Rosewill RP600V2.

Im probably going to be just waiting and putting together a custom rig. Id rather save the money and put it into a really nice gpu/cpu than putting another bandaid on, just a little frustrating though.

I was having trouble trying to figure out where to start when assembling a new computer andI figured that deciding on the cpu was the probably the best start in this process. I came across jayz two cents and tech syndicate both giving great reviews of the AMD fx 8350 as it performed fairly well compared to the I7 3770k. I will primarily gaming I dont stream and im not a graphic designer so in reference to gaming it seemed like a solid cpu and it cost less than half of the i7 3770k. Just wanted to know if what you guys thought about this cpu and if I should first decide on the cpu to begin my process.

 

[digitaldoc]

Oh okay coozie7, yeah the power supply I got from a friend its a Rosewill RP600V2.

Im probably going to be just waiting and putting together a custom rig. Id rather save the money and put it into a really nice gpu/cpu than putting another bandaid on, just a little frustrating though.

I was having trouble trying to figure out where to start when assembling a new computer andI figured that deciding on the cpu was the probably the best start in this process. I came across jayz two cents and tech syndicate both giving great reviews of the AMD fx 8350 as it performed fairly well compared to the I7 3770k. I will primarily gaming I dont stream and im not a graphic designer so in reference to gaming it seemed like a solid cpu and it cost less than half of the i7 3770k. Just wanted to know if what you guys thought about this cpu and if I should first decide on the cpu to begin my process.

When planning a system, in terms of process, I start with the CPU. The FX8350 is decent choice for a chip, especially for gaming.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7963/the-intel-haswell-refresh-review-core-i7-4790-i5-4690-and-i3-4360-tested/9

However, I would also look carefully at a Core i5-4690.

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-4690-vs-AMD-FX-8350

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8350-vishera-review,3328-13.html

 

[Storm Crow]

I dont get the first link you posted it was addressing the amd 7850k, or were you trying to show the relationship between the other intels and the i5 4690?

Yeah I was told by a friend to look at a i5 for gaming he didnt give the serial number though.

I was thinking of just saying screw it and getting an i7 3770k or i7 4770k. I can afford it and the only bad review I could find about it is that it was significantly more expensive, but nothing really about performance.

 

[Nikola Aslanov-1338074]

GT 630 is an office card.
The Phenom is older but decent mainstream quad core CPU.
Upgrade the GPU to GTX 750TI, used HD7850 or HD7870 (prices on ebay / craigs are really nice) or GTX 960 (coming this week) - the performance will increase 4 times and more.
I'd say there is a good chance most games will be playable on medium settings @ 1,680x1,050.

 

[Storm Crow]

Thanks Nikola I figured the gt 630 wasnt all that good just a decent jump up from where I was. I think will just wait and study/save up for my rig and then go out and get it in 3-4 weeks.