ADVICE: Looking to Upgrade The Ol' Rig, but on The Cheap

Shroomlet on 27/11/2023 - 21:12
Last edited 29/11/2023 - 00:07

Hey everyone, looking to upgrade my ol' rig over here but hopefully looking to spend sub $500. I used to game a lot but honestly trying to run Baulders Gate 3 on this was very upsetting with huge long wait lists and the poor beast, she just isn't cutting the mustard anymore.

USE CASE AND ABOUT THE USER:
Runs 24/7 as a Plex Server (only really serving local clients, thankfully no transcoding), light gaming, WFH/Remote desktop kinda situation. I'm not exactly technical minded, but I can follow a youtube tutorial. Don't really have a lot of tools and never cleaned/applied thermal paste before.

Hoping for some upgrades to make it run a lot smoother/Run Elden Ring with constant 60fps (not looking for max graphics as such, but I can run nice graphics but I get periodic massive frame loss/jarring).

Please tell me how much I'm dreaming/wanting gold with a wood price tag/recommend me things I can throw into my box of goodies.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: Updated with Case as I managed to find that one out

PCPartPicker Part List

Type Item Price
CPU Intel Core i5-6500 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Processor $373.04 @ Amazon Australia
CPU Cooler Cooler Master Nepton 240M 76 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler -
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-H170N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard -
Memory Kingston HyperX Fury 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-2133 CL14 Memory -
Memory Kingston HyperX Fury 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-2133 CL14 Memory -
Storage Samsung 850 Evo 250 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive -
Storage Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive $189.65 @ Amazon Australia
Storage Western Digital Red 4 TB 3.5" 5400 RPM Internal Hard Drive -
Storage Seagate Barracuda Compute 8 TB 3.5" 5400 RPM Internal Hard Drive $225.00 @ I-Tech
Video Card Gigabyte AORUS WATERFORCE GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB Video Card -
Case Cooler Master N400 ATX Mid Tower Case $144.10 @ Amazon Australia
Power Supply Antec VP PLUS 600 W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply -
Operating System Microsoft Windows 11 Pro OEM - DVD 64-bit $170.00 @ Amazon Australia
Monitor LG 32GK850G-B 31.5" 2560 x 1440 165 Hz Monitor -
Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
Total $1101.79
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-11-29 00:06 AEDT+1100
Computing Computer Desktop Computer

Comments

  • Joshminey on 27/11/2023 - 21:36
    +3

    I think the 1080ti is still pretty capable I'd recommend upgrading to a newer CPU and Motherboard that supports DDR4 so you don't have to upgrade the ram as well I'd recommend either a i5-12600KF or i7-12700KF from this deal https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/812786 and a DDR4 LGA1700 motherboard like this one https://www.bpctech.com.au/product/prime-h770-plus-d4-asus-p…

    • frondono on 27/11/2023 - 22:04
      +1

      They got some 3070/3070 ti for around the same price.

      • Shroomlet on 27/11/2023 - 22:05

        Reckon getting a better GPU is the way to go? over say mobo/cpu upgrade?

        • frondono on 27/11/2023 - 22:42
          +1

          Higher resolutions are mostly GPU. I don't really know about your cpu. It's pretty old. Is baldrs gate running off a nmve ssd?

          • frondono on 27/11/2023 - 22:43
            +1

            @frondono: You could probably get away running a 6800 with your power supply.

          • Shroomlet on 28/11/2023 - 13:46

            @frondono: Yeah it is, it's running off the nvme ssd. Still roughly 1.5-2m load times between screens and horrible performance. Sad me

  • Muzeeb on 27/11/2023 - 21:41
    +5

    Came here thinking you were upgrading your old Kenworth truck. Left disappointed.

    • Shroomlet on 27/11/2023 - 21:57
      +1

      When this thing gets under load it sounds like one!

  • Ozbar Gain on 28/11/2023 - 09:01
    +1

    I have an old 4th gen i5 that I had for 10y now and last week I finally re applied thermal paste after seeing that I was hitting 100 degrees on the CPU very often. It's made a massive difference.
    I know it's off topic but I had to tell someone

    • Shroomlet on 28/11/2023 - 11:18

      Really? Damn that's great, I might give it a go

      • Ozbar Gain on 28/11/2023 - 11:25
        +1

        Install something like Core Temp to see if your CPU ever hits 100'. If it does while doing casual tasks (like watching YouTube) then it might benefit from having new TP applied. When a CPU hits those high temps it throttles to protect itself

        • Shroomlet on 28/11/2023 - 13:36

          Will do tonight!

  • tekisei on 28/11/2023 - 13:21
    +1

    How happy are you to go: #1 used, #2 AMD, #3 mATX?

    Mobo - Good VRM quality B550M or B450M (choose one with VRM heatsink): $100 (brand new B550M Gigabyte DS3H for $129 is acceptable).
    CPU - AMD Ryzen 3600: $90
    RAM - 16GB Kit, CL16 3200Mhz or CL18 3600Mhz DDR4: $50
    (FB market place prices - CPU and RAM are easy to get but good quality used motherboard is harder)

    Then make a further upgrade to AMD Ryzen 5700X, or 5700X3D/5700 in 2 years. Your current GPU is already better than a RX 6600 so there aren't any real budget options there.

    You should be able to sell your old CPU, RAM, MOBO for at least $100, maybe up to $140 ish.

    • Shroomlet on 28/11/2023 - 13:45

      Ayyyy here we go!

      Used? I'm not sure, mainly because I tend to "but and forget" I'm more inclined to buy new just for cough "longevity".

      AMD? honestly not fussed. I bought the NVIDIA card cuz at the time I bought 1080ti cuz it was "the best upgrade" at the time, bought the GeForce compatible screen cuz it was GeForce enabled.

      mATX? Yeah not fussed too much on that.

      Some strange part of me is tryijg to preserve parts of it…aka what Joshminey is saying re motherboard and CPU upgrade.

      Please tell my brain that upgrading means getting rid of "no longer useful" parts

      • tekisei on 28/11/2023 - 14:02
        +1

        If you are a bit wary of used parts, then I would say buy a new motherboard since that is by far the most fragile of the 3 parts I suggested.

        CPU and RAM are more or less bulletproof and I personally would have no hesitation getting used CPU and RAM, especially for non-overclocking/midrange parts like those. (oh, by AMD I was referring to the AMD CPU instead of Intel CPU). With any upgrade at all you'll need to learn how to apply thermal paste though (very easy).

        Your original motherboard was an ITX so I was wondering if you were case-constrained to a small format lol

        The rest of your PC (Graphics card, PSU, Case, Storage, etc) you can basically reuse - the Windows license in most cases should be transferrable too if you link it to your Microsoft account (I'm not familiar with Win 11 OEM, but Win 7 OEM was fine for me).

        Think of your old parts like car parts… you are swapping an 8 year old engine for a 3-4 year old engine at very little cost.

        • Shroomlet on 28/11/2023 - 15:01

          Amazing thank you so much for breaking this down for me. Naa mate I wouldn't say the case is small. Its a Cooler Master one but I wouldn't say it's particularly small. Still has room for a horizontal DVD/Bluray/cupholder slot and I'd say probably 50cm tall? Not at home ATM.

          Really appreciate the advice and you've given me a bunch to work with. I'll start hunting to see what I can find used on scumtree and Facebook marketplace!

          • tekisei on 28/11/2023 - 16:39
            +1

            @Shroomlet: No worries at all, I went through this process last year of swapping "very used" to "somewhat used".

            From your description it might also be able to fit a full ATX sized motherboard which may increase your options (ATX is often more expensive than mATX though). Probably should search up the model number to see what can fit, but mATX should be safe.

            Also need to remind you that your Cooler Master Nepton 240M CPU cooler will fit on the AM4 socket in theory (for AMD Ryzen 3XXX/5XXX series CPU). But you need an AM4 adapter either from your old packaging or you'd need to buy one. If you can't find it then a simple 120mm tower cooler like this $29 DeepCool AG400 will be more than enough for mid-tier CPU. You might receive a stock AMD fan when you get your CPU, which will also work but will be a bit noisy.

            • Shroomlet on 01/12/2023 - 13:25

              @tekisei: Sorry to bother you so much, but been outside of the PC building game for a while. Is the biggest difference between intel/AMD purely its another Apple/Samsung(Android) relationship or is it deeper?

              On the surface my casual look says "no" but I'm curious if there's more to it.

              Apologies for the basic level questions, but if there specifically anything i'm looking for in the motherboard? I'll need to grab an AM4 adapter, but there's so many options and variations of the same "type" of board it's very overwhelming lol.

              What's your opinion on the DDR5 Ram upgrade? worth or just get more/better single stick DD4?

              Apologies for the question bombardment in advance, I'm hoping to understand what i'm doing, not just take your shopping list and run : )

              • tekisei on 01/12/2023 - 15:37
                +1

                @Shroomlet: AMD vs Intel
                For current generation CPU Intel/AMD is very similar in terms of use case. Apart from the motherboard and CPU, every other component is shared.

                The only thing I would note for a use case tangential to yours is that for Plex transcoding in particular (which you have said you don't use), Intel CPU (with integrated graphics, e.g. not F model CPUs) are supported for hardware transcoding, but AMD CPU are not. But you use a GPU so it doesn't matter anyway.

                Socket wise you are looking between AM4 and AM5 for AMD, but only LGA1700 for Intel. Each motherboard only supports one socket type. Each socket usually supports one RAM generation.

                AM4 and LGA1700 are both considered "dead" sockets should have no new CPUs released… but both are releasing some new models of socket specific CPUs next year.

                DDR4 vs DDR5
                AM4 only supports DDR4, and AM5 only supports DDR5. LGA1700 can support either but not both.

                I would say that your RAM choice will depend more on the CPU/Socket choice - for LGA1700 I would say DDR4 since the speed increase for DDR5 is negligible on that socket. The stable speed of DDR5 kits should improve for the next few years, so I'm not sure that arguments that buying DDR5 now, just for the possibility of moving it to a new build when that particular kit of DDR5 is outdated, is a compelling one.

                The advice is normally to get a 2 piece kit for RAM - either 8GB x 2 or 16GB x 2. The CPU will be able to access both RAM slots at the same time, which increases access speeds. When you upgrade, add more RAM from the same brand, series, and speed.

                Motherboard Considerations
                CPU power consumption has been increasing for the past decade - as we reach the limits of silicon, the way manufacturers get more performance is to pump up the power. This has caused power regulation to be a major barrier in terms of motherboard reliability and performance. If your voltage regulator (VRM) overheats then your CPU speed will get throttled, and your board may fail if it happens too many times (might still take months to fail though).

                So you need a motherboard with good VRM performance (eyeball it by checking if there is a heatsink on the left hand side of the socket like where it says ULTRA DURABLE - that is the absolute minimum - ideally there will be another heat sink above the socket). You can also check VRM tier lists or reviews from channels like Hardware Unboxed.

                Motherboard Essentials
                Good VRM (heatsinks on main VRMs on left hand side) - this is perfectly fine for mid tier CPU
                4 x RAM slots for flexibility
                PCIE 4.0 x 16 main slot

                Motherboard Nice to Have
                Excellent VRM (heatsinks on left and top VRMs)
                2 x M.2 slots
                5V ARGB header for RGB fans if you need them
                More than 2 case fan headers

                Rear Connectivity
                USB-C - Some boards have a rear port, and some have an internal header to plug in a USB-C port from your case.
                WiFi - You can buy boards with WiFi integrated into the board ("AX" boards - often not worth to pay extra though).
                Premium Audio - 6 ports instead of 3 ports, can support more speakers with higher fidelity.
                2.5Gbps Ethernet - I think the standard is 1Gbps which is probably fine unless you are buying 250/40 NBN.

                • Shroomlet on 01/12/2023 - 21:37

                  @tekisei: Thank you so much! I really appreciate the detailed breakdown :)

                  If you were in Melbourne I'd buy you a beer or three!

                  • tekisei on 01/12/2023 - 22:27

                    @Shroomlet: No worries haha, glad to help since you want to know the why and how instead of just following a list.

                    Forgot to mention that 4 SATA ports is the standard for cheaper boards. Your 2 x 3.5" hard drives, 2.5" SSD, and DVD drive (?) already make 4. 6 SATA ports starts in the mid range models.

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