Help Me Build a PC!

[HerrBobo]

Hi All,

Things are bad, very bad.

I've not upgraded in a very long time, I don't exactly remember when the last upgrade was done, but my GPU before my current one was a 8800GT, so yeeeah. To be honest she has severed me well and still runs most new games on mid-high settings, with the exception of Battlefield 1, which is best left on low.

My current build is this:
AMD PhenomII X4 840 3.20ghz
8gig RAM
GTX 570
800w power supply.

As I'm older (36 soon) I game quite a bit less, and I may have been tempted to struggle on for another year with my current set up. I believe that my GPU is acting up though as it is losing connection to my screen. It may just be a loose cable, for sure, but it is high time I upgraded and I'm using this as an excuse!

So, what am I looking for?

Pretty much total replacement. My case is ten years old! While it is in good shape, I'm gonna need a new one as a new GPU might not fit in to it. My power supply is only a year or so old, I replaced it when my last one crapped out, so it should be fine, but I'd like recommendations for everything else. I've been out of the upgrade game so long I've no idea where to begin in terms of where to allocate the budget.

Speaking of budget, I'm not looking for bleeding edge stuff here. I'd like to spend a total of around $500. I can build it myself, but pre-built PCs will also be considered.

Cheers.

 

[Joccaren]

Honestly I wouldn't go for a full replacement to start with, as that will likely be fairly expensive if you want pretty good stuff. RAM should still be fine, PSU will be fine if its a decent brand, and CPU/Mobo could probably still handle most stuff pretty well, benching at around midrange from a quick lookup. The biggest thing would be moving up in the graphics card department, as while I loved my 560s, yeah, they don't hold up quite as well as they used to.

I'd look at a 960 or 970 personally. The 970 for me is handling 4K gaming with a side screen on all titles I've played just fine, and naturally is a bit cheaper than the 1000 series that has succeeded it, and last I checked [Early/Mid last year], the drivers for the 1000s weren't up to scratch, and they could at times run slower than the 900s anyway.

See if that'll fit in the case, and if yes you're gold. If no... Well, honestly, I'm not sure which case you pick matters too much overall. Find a full tower that has some features you like - I've got a Chaser Mk-I, which has the standard slot in/out front ports for things like CD drives or fan controllers, a hotswap SATA connector on top of the thing, buttons dedicated to fan control, topside USB ports, and fans on the front, back, top and side. And it doesn't look bad either. No idea if they're still sold as I haven't changed my case in a fair while, but finding something with features that suit you is probably the more important of the lot. If you're in a hot climate, or were maxing out the system, I'd recommend looking into something with good airflow, but if you just want a reasonably cheap upgrade that'll let you play new games pretty well, then the case shouldn't be too important.

If you replace only those two you should be able to bring it in at <$300, which saves you some nice money, which if you really want to spend I'd recommend putting towards some good peripherals or an SSD in all honesty.

If you try just the graphics card and its still a bit slow, things could get a fair bit more expensive, but that shouldn't really be needed I'd think. Games are still primarily bottlenecked by GPU, rather than CPU.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Hi All,

My current build is this:
AMD PhenomII X4 840 3.20ghz
8gig RAM
GTX 570
800w power supply.


Cheers.

So, I saw from your profile you are Irish, hopefully these stores and currency (british pound) is close enough for you to work with and there is no hassle from it buying these online.

Here is the list:

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/dv8sPs

so assuming that's okay, here is a list I made that I think will *long term* be most beneficial for you, DDR3 memory, while still great, is definitely going out the door, so this build is based around the idea of having DDR4 memory so you wouldn't need to replace the mobo/memory for a very long time. I'm assuming you have your hard drives and those are all still in working order, but just in case and to give yourself a fresh start, I added a 120 GB SSD into the list for your OS and possibly one or two modern games, it's up to you, it pushed the price a bit over but that's totally up to what you have and want to do.

I went with the i5 cpu because it's extremely solid and is a great price for punch ratio not to mention the overclock capabilities later on in its life, anything higher and you start paying too much and anything lower you lose the overclock potential (but short term that is fine)

it doesn't come with a stock cooler, hence adding on that cooler in the list

Right now there is quite a 3 way tug of war in the mid range cards, I picked the 480 because unless you are looking to do 2k/4k gaming, it slays everything at 1080p for max settings, especially in battlefield 1 (which you mentioned) it runs a bit better compared to the 970 or 1060. You're more than welcome to pick a 970 or 1060, I'd go with a 1060 if you want to stick with nvidia, it's entirely your choice since their performances and prices are all close enough that only you would know what the best deal is to get in Ireland.

I added a case in there, but honestly if your case is still running just fine, I would just clean it and keep using that sucker, the 480 card isn't huge and it has the dimensions for the card in the listing, so you can measure it yourself to see if it will fit or not.

If you remove the case and SSD, it will *hopefully* be well within your budget and I think it would be a GREAT long term build for the average gamer, it will slam anything at 1080p right now and probably for another 2-3 years if not longer (besides the occasional game that is optimized to shit and tries to act like it is decades ahead of previous games in graphics).