I've Been Gifted a PC; Please Help Me Upgrade for Gaming

Lchinezejew on 15/06/2015 - 23:55

thanks go "whgb" for some great ideas

I have been given a PC, and want to play GTAV and a good PC for another 3years for $500ish (less the better)

I have put all the parts I have in the list below:
http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/Rj7CnQ

I have been told to maybe look into CPU and Motherboard Updgrade if GTAV doesn't play.

And, now with GTAV installed it plays Ok (it doesnt look as good as the youtube clips of people playing, and a few glitches here and there; nothing I can't put up with).

NOVAbench results (1102)
Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro
Intel Intel Core i3 550 3.20GHz running at 3197 MHz
NVIDIA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti GPU

8120 MB System RAM (Score: 173)

  • RAM Speed: 7587 MB/s

CPU Tests (Score: 408)

  • Floating Point Operations/Second: 103374528
  • Integer Operations/Second: 336532620
  • MD5 Hashes Generated/Second: 940255

Graphics Tests (Score: 499)

  • 3D Frames Per Second: 1371

Hardware Tests (Score: 22)

  • Primary Partition Capacity: 111 GB
  • Drive Write Speed: 147 MB/s

To replace my Xbox 360 as a gaming system.
It is next to my 40" TV, be joined to my 5.1" Logitec system, and I have wireless Xbox360 controller.
Not looking into 4K anytime soon. 1080p is fine with me.

Type Item
CPU Intel Core i3-550 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-H55M-USB3 Micro ATX LGA1156 Motherboard
Memory Corsair 2GB (1 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory
Memory Corsair 2GB (1 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory
Memory Kingston 2GB (1 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory
Memory Kingston 2GB (1 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory
Storage Patriot Pyro 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage Patriot Pyro 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage Western Digital RE2 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB Dual Classified ACX Video Card
Case Antec NSK 6582B ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply Antec 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Operating System Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro OEM (64-bit)

What can I do with this current system?
Do I need an upgrade?
If so, what to get? Bang for buck (I do not really mind to spend $400 or so)

I think I may need CPU/ Motherboard/ Ram, but don't want to walk into MSY blindly.
(if i do need these 3 components, $500-$600)

Please assist.
Any suggestions will be much appreciated.

Computing

Comments

  • scrimshaw on 16/06/2015 - 00:06
    +3

    Hmmmm. Maybe a Skylake generation Core i5-6400? That should be due sometime in Aug or November, if you can wait that long.

    For now, you can probably go to ebay or the OCAU trade/sell forums and get yourself some second hand Core i5 / i7 LGA1156 processors. That should be enough processor power to get you going — tbh, as far as gaming performance goes, the GPU is what does most of the work and you have a decent enough GPU to handle most of today's games. I'd drop in say around $120 bux and look for a Core i7 perhaps and drop that in.

    Your 780 card is still pretty powerful, the issue now is that your processor is only dual core so you'd need to get a quad core chip to help out with CPU workload.

    • chinezejew on 16/06/2015 - 00:30

      Thanks.
      Great idea. 2nd hand parts for more CPU power.

      And thanks for the GPUpositive review.
      Ive been told, although old, it's still a sort after graphics card.
      (Lucky me)

    • elusive on 16/06/2015 - 00:31
      +1

      Ehh… regarding gaming performance, that really depends on what games you play. Games like CS:GO or Minecraft tend to be CPU-bound. And then a lot of modern games still don't make good use of higher core counts, to the point where a Haswell Pentium can outperform a Nehalem Core i7 in many games (higher single-thread performance, and easily overclocked to be even higher). Funnily enough, modern console ports are probably the exception, considering what kind of CPU they have.

      That said, getting an older-gen socket-compatible Core i7 is still probably the best upgrade for this machine.

      GPU is only one-two gens old and far more up-to-date than the CPU, not to mention it's a higher-end part in the first place.

    • chinezejew on 16/06/2015 - 18:27

      CPU - INTEL(R)CORE(TM)i7-860 SLBJJ LGA1156 - 2.80GHz / 8MB / 2.5GT/s - QC CPU

      http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/CPU-INTEL-R-CORE-TM-i7-860-SLBJJ-…

      Can anyone find it for Melbourne 3000 close to $130?
      I am unsure what to do if it comes dead on arrival.

      • scrimshaw on 16/06/2015 - 19:47
        +1

        That seller does not have a single negative feedback. And he seems to sell a lot of used equipment.

        I'd say you'd be OK since eBay and Paypal nowadays strongly favor buyers over sellers when it comes to compensation. If something goes wrong you just hit "return item" in your eBay and let Paypal sort out the rest.

        Otherwise you'd be looking on OCAU or Gumtree. Not a lot of other channels to buy used equipment apart from online forums and ebay really.

        • chinezejew on 16/06/2015 - 20:25

          Thx mate.
          Yup. Thx.
          Ill get in contact with the seller now.
          cheers

  • Davo1111 on 16/06/2015 - 00:21
    +2

    780 is a bit old isn't it?

    I'd upgrade the CPU first, i5 or i7. Look at price/performance ratio

    • chinezejew on 16/06/2015 - 00:30

      Thanks man. 2nd hand shopping here i come.

    • scrimshaw on 16/06/2015 - 01:23

      GPU is old, loud and hot, but in terms of raw performance, it has plenty of chop and for 1080p gaming is adequate.

      It certainly holds its own against the Radeon 290x.

      So it's not worth upgrading…yet. I would wait until next month and see what AMD comes up with for their Radeon 300 series. HBM stacked memory could be a game changer.

    • chinezejew on 16/06/2015 - 20:38

      http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/EVGA-GeForce-GTX-780-Ti-Classifie…

      Seems like I can probably take out the GPU and sell for $400-450.

      Nah… not changing GPU

      Thanks scrimshaw

      • Lukian on 17/06/2015 - 11:24

        That GPU should be fine for at least another ~year. It's approximately time to be selling 670s (maybe 680s) with the last of their ~6mths of 3 years warranty.

  • mrmarkau67 on 16/06/2015 - 09:19

    Question for the gurus… How can the OP know for sure that they are CPU or GPU bound while playing GTA5?

    • scrimshaw on 16/06/2015 - 09:49
      +1

      Easy to do a test if you benchmark it and monitor two factors - the fps and processor utilisation.

      You can either lower the GPU or CPU clock speed to a point where you start seeing a dip in performance and also looking at GPU or Cpu utilisation chart in MSI afterburner.
      You'd do several runs at different clock speeds and compare the data side by side.

      You'd be using some kind of benchmark mode so that you can run a consistent simulation. Thankfully GTA has one and it's been tested to be quite CPU bound.
      http://www.techspot.com/review/991-gta-5-pc-benchmarks/page6…

      In a situation where the graphics card is waiting on the CPU to catch up, you will notice that the GPU utilisation will not be at its maximum capacity - it needs to slow down to wait for further instructions from the processor.

  • Annoying Source on 16/06/2015 - 14:37
    +4

    I don't get why there are people dissing the GTX 780 it's the best part of that PC (and are worth $200-300), It's a solid GPU and will last at least a few more generations at least. I have a GTX 570 and it still plays games fine (older games that is, newer games not that much).

    If that was my pc the thing I see as a must is the CPU & motherboard, an i5 will be plenty (an i7 wont hurt tho)

    Then if you wanted to and have some spare cash I'd recommend upgrading the RAM (two 8gb sticks or something) and perhaps upgrade the OS storage (you can get 500gb SSDs really cheap now).

    But overall the only thing really bring that system down is the CPU, everything else is pretty decent.

    (also make sure you have the most recent drivers for your computer as they affect how games run)

    • chinezejew on 16/06/2015 - 15:33

      It is a TI

      • Annoying Source on 16/06/2015 - 16:10
        +1

        Then that makes it even better them, it's a pretty solid card and it is one of the best graphics cards out right now (within the top ten). Do the CPU upgrade and you'll have a beast of a gaming machine that will last a another year or two before you'll need to upgrade anything

        • chinezejew on 16/06/2015 - 20:29

          Sounds awesome.
          I am running Windows 8.1 right now.
          I find it easier to install Windows8 over Windows7 with picking up the new drivers.
          (I have registered for Win10; hope it lives up to the hype)

  • KaTst3R on 23/06/2015 - 15:38

    you are given a PC with a GTX 780 Ti. That itself is already a beast. It runs close to the performance of a 980 but uses more power. Just change the CPU like to an i5 4690 (you may need to also upgrade the motherboard) and you are good to go for a long time…

    • chinezejew on 24/06/2015 - 21:12

      i purchased the i7-860 for $130(inc delivery)
      i have it currently overclocked to 3.3ghz
      popped in a antec kohlur h2o 650 from MSY ($68)
      still testing voltages

      giving me a novabench score of 1640's fromm 1100.

      also running windows10 on it too.

      i'd appreciate anyone with some info for me to clock this CPU with GA-H55M-USB3 motherboard
      can't seem to get it running stable anything over this.
      it may be my ram not pairing up properly.

      thanks everyone

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