Six year old PC worth upgrading?

[Rendar1982]

I have the following system:

CPU: i5 750 (stock cooler, no OC)
MB: Asus P7P55D Pro
GPU: GIgabyte GTX 460
RAM: Corsair 8GB (4x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz
Storage: WD 640GB 3.5" SATA-III 6Gb/s Caviar Black Hard Drive - 7200rpm 64MB Cache
PSU: Corsair 650W TX Series PSU - 120mm Fan, 80+% Efficiency, Single +12V Rail
Case: Casecom 6788 Black Mid Tower ATX

I have mostly been playing less demanding titles such as WoW and BF3 since building the system but I would like to try many of the more recent games such as BF1 on med-high settings at 1080p. Is it worth buying a new graphics card for the system? And, if so, would I be wise to also buy a new PSU because of the age of mine.

Thanks in advance

 

[Barty1884]

If you want to see Medium-High settings @ 1080p on newer titles, the i5-750 isn;t going to cut it (especially on BF1).

The i5 is likely to bottleneck newer cards - quite dramatically in some titles, and probably only a little in some others.

A new GPU would show improvements for those titles, but medium-high settings are going to be out of reach at any form of reasonable FPS.

A new build is in order to achieve what you want.

 

[Samaratin]

I agree with the first response.. you'll see an improvement and it will be a worthwhile upgrade. Additionally, when you do decide to upgrade to a newer processor and motherboard, you'll already have a decent GPU.

As for bottleneckers... i tend to think that most people who profess, whine, cry, and gripe about bottlenecks to be uneducated and probably the kind of people who buy apple products. That is unless you're trying to pair a Pentium 4 on a 478 socket with a Nvidia Titan.. then you'll obviously have a bottleneck going on

 

[aithos]

I have the following system:

CPU: i5 750 (stock cooler, no OC)
MB: Asus P7P55D Pro
GPU: GIgabyte GTX 460
RAM: Corsair 8GB (4x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz
Storage: WD 640GB 3.5" SATA-III 6Gb/s Caviar Black Hard Drive - 7200rpm 64MB Cache
PSU: Corsair 650W TX Series PSU - 120mm Fan, 80+% Efficiency, Single +12V Rail
Case: Casecom 6788 Black Mid Tower ATX

I have mostly been playing less demanding titles such as WoW and BF3 since building the system but I would like to try many of the more recent games such as BF1 on med-high settings at 1080p. Is it worth buying a new graphics card for the system? And, if so, would I be wise to also buy a new PSU because of the age of mine.

Thanks in advance

Is it worth buying a new graphics card for the system? No. Because you need an entire new build if you're going to upgrade, an i5-750 is woefully underpowered by today's standards and even if you threw a brand spanking new 1080 in there you are going to be bottlenecked by your other components.

I would strongly recommend you save up and start fresh, here are some key things I would look for:
- high end current gen 4core/8thread cpu or decent next gen (kaby lake)
- minimum 16gb of 3200+ RAM, preferably 32gb
- 512gb SSD + 4TB or higher storage drive, ideally something like a Samsung 950/960
- 750+ watt 80+ platinum certified PSU, I recommend corsair HX or AXi series
- solid mid tier motherboard from a reputable brand like Asus, ASRock, etc
- solid mid tier GPU from your brand of choice, better if you can afford it

If you want help looking at specific parts I'd be happy to help with a pcpartpicker link but I'll need to know a rough timeframe and budget, otherwise listing specifics doesn't help at all because of how rapidly the tech/pricing changes.

 

[Samaratin]

Ignore Aithos suggestion, thats the kinda of USED CAR salesman tactics you'll see around here.. someone suggesting that you NEED an Super Car when you're only looking for basic transportation

 

[Barty1884]

As for bottleneckers... i tend to think that most people who profess, whine, cry, and gripe about bottlenecks to be uneducated and probably the kind of people who buy apple products. That is unless you're trying to pair a Pentium 4 on a 478 socket with a Nvidia Titan.. then you'll obviously have a bottleneck going on

While I agree "bottleneck" is cried all too often, they do exist.
Every single setup has some form of bottleneck, but whether you'd notice in 'real world' usage is the question.

In this case, especially for BF1, the OP would notice - and notice immediately.

The 'official' minimum recommended CPU's for BF1 are an i5-6600K or FX6350, although these are definitely above what's necessary to be playable (ie low settings, ~30FPS or so @ 1080p), they are an indication of what's needed for good performance in the Medium-High space.

While BF1 would run on an i5-750, you'd need a strong GPU to push medium-high at reasonable FPS (something like a GTX 1060 or RX 480 IMO). There's no way an i5-750 at stock speeds isn't going to cripple the performance of either card in BF1.

Ignore Aithos suggestion, thats the kinda of USED CAR salesman tactics you'll see around here.. someone suggesting that you NEED an Super Car when you're only looking for basic transportation

I would like to try many of the more recent games such as BF1 on med-high settings at 1080p

In that analogy Samaratin, BF1 @ Med-High settings @ 1080p would be more like "mid-sized sedan" opposed to basic transportation.

 

[Samaratin]

I tested BF1 during the Beta with an i3 paired with a 960. Son played it with a core2duo and a 750ti. Both worked.

 

[Barty1884]

I tested BF1 during the Beta with an i3 paired with a 960. Son played it with a core2duo and a 750ti. Both worked.

Worked? I'm sure they did. Did you achieve Med-High @ 1080p with respectable FPS? I believe BETA results actually worked a little better than the full release for some reason too.

I'm seeing cases of people struggling to hit 40+FPS with an i5-3470 & GTX 1070 @ 1080p Medium....

 

[Rendar1982]

Thanks for all the responses. I guess I'll skip BF1 for now.

I might grab a card to give my system a little more life, at the very least it can be used in a new build. Could a GTX 1060, or any new card for that matter, be potentially damaged by using an old PSU with it?

When the time comes I'm sure there are plenty of other posts regarding good value gaming rig builds.

Thanks again

 

[Evil_Geoff]

IF (and that's the operative word here - _if_) you can get a great card to work with your current system, you'll enjoy the improvements. However, a lot of older MB's and BIOS setups won't recognize the newer cards at all. The fans will spin up, the lights on the card will light up, but your HD won't boot the system. Plug in the old card and it works... New card? It's a noisy brick. If you can find a better GPU from a friend to borrow and try, work up to the best you get to work on your system A GTX 750 TI, maybe an R7 series... If those work, then spend the $$$ on buying something.

Trust me, trying to get an RMA from some vendors is major chore on a GPU that's been opened, and installed, only to find out that it turns your system into a paperweight.

 

[Samaratin]

wonder what version of windows you're using... you're not on XP or Vista are you?

 

[Rendar1982]

Thanks again for the advice.

I may try a used card so that I can at least resell it if nothing good happens.

The system was windows 7 home 64 bit originally, now on windows 10 64.