Low powered GPU for old rig

[e36Adz]

I've recently moved over to a mini PC and so dismantled my old gaming rig - which I hadn't gamed on in years!

I sold my case (weighed a ton), the GTX 970 and the 1000W PSU but I'm left with the following:

Intel Core i5 4670K, Asrock Z87 Ex3, 16GB GSkill DDR3, Corsair H80i.

I'm finding it hard to shift these, I don't think I'll get much for them tbh so instead I'm thinking, why not just keep them and build a low end gaming rig hooked up to a 1080p screen for the kids. Low noise and low power are a must, so my question(s)...

(1) Which graphics card would complement the above parts?

I've always gone nvidia but happy to consider all options.

May as well ask these in here as well.

(2) What rating PSU could I get to run all the above?
(3) What the smallest/lightest case that could house the above?
(4) Or would you just get rid of all the parts for next to nothing?

Thanks

 

[Tetras]

Maybe a 1060 or 1050 Ti? Though, truthfully, I'm not sure you'd get your money back on this.

 

[sx_turbo]

1060, 550w power supply. For case id probably recommend https://www.overclockers.co.uk/aero...idi-tower-tempered-glass-black-ca-222-ae.html

Your limited with the requirement for an atx motherboard, can't see anything available that smaller than a mid tower and still fits a full ATX board

 

[TrojanWhore]

Maybe a 1060 or 1050 Ti? Though, truthfully, I'm not sure you'd get your money back on this.

I think they are proposing building a low end gaming rig for their kids, rather than to build a complete system to sell on.

@e36Adz -
1: As the above posters have suggested, if you can find a cheap used 1050ti/1060 (ideally the 6GB model!) these would be about the best value. If going new then the AMD 6600 at £200 or the 6650XT at £229 would both provide good performance, although I'm not sure if they'd be slightly bottlenecked by the CPU. Equally if you can find a cheap 780ti/970 used, they'd be a good option (similar performance to each other), but would use more power gaming.
2: Depending on the GPU, you could get away with around 400-450W, you could also improve this by undervolting and/or downclocking the CPU/GPU
3: Plenty of cheap ATX cases around for £30 upwards, depending on what the limiting factor on size is. If height is the main concern then the Aerocool dryft looks pretty nice (and teen friendly aestetics), but is wider than a standard tower case (such as: most of these)
4: Maybe Depends what you want out of the kid's PC and budget, but you can pick up a used Ryzen 6 core bundle (i.e. 1600, cheap mobo, 16GB) for around £100, which would be better and use less power.

You haven't mentioned storage, but SSD is a must and if the motherboard supports it (and need to buy one) then nvme is around the same price as SATA these days

 

[Gray2233]

Check B Grade stock, someone claimed that OCUK had accepted an offer on a 6600 the other day for £100.

 

[e36Adz]

Yes the idea is, pick up a low powered gpu and rebuild a low end gaming rig for the kids which they can also use for Internet and basic school work.

The gtx 970 was using far too much power and the 1000w psu was just overkill. I've just been offered the following:

GTX 1660
500gb SSD (not sure what brand)
500w coolermaster psu
24GB DDR3 (not sure what brand)

He won't split so he's giving it with the case and with the cpu/mobo/cooler but I'll get rid of them and use my parts. The GTX 1660 seems to be much more efficient than the 970 that I sold.

He only wants £100 for the lot.

 

[heatonpkmassive]

For 100 quid, you might as well. I think the graphics card alone sells for not so much less than that second hand.

 

[e36Adz]

This guys busy. Whilst I'm speaking to him someone else knocks on the door, they've come to collect the exact same tower. I traded some speakers with him and got the full tower for £80. Will test it out later.

 

[e36Adz]

Which cpu would you guys keep?

i5 3570 which was in the tower I've just picked up or my own i5 4670?

His 24gb ram is 2x4gb and 2x8gb.
I suppose i could keep one set with my own 16gb but not sure over 16gb makes any difference at all for what I'll be using it for? Or does it?

 

[Meddling-Monk]

It looks like the main difference between the two CPU is AVX2 on the 4670. Otherwise, there doesn't appear to be much between them.

I actually have a 3570 here myself (along with 4x8GB DDR3 for 32GB RAM), and the highest GPU I've got running in it where the CPU can drive it (somewhat), is an RTX3060 12GB. There was previously an AMD RX580 8GB in it.

Of the two whilst running BG3, both had trouble pushing above 35fps, but the RTX3060 could at least push all the eye candy on, whilst the RX580 had trouble even with limited eye candy on (both at 1080 resolution). Whilst if I take the RX580 over to a much more powerful CPU (7950X), it could hit 45+fps at 1080 all eye candy on. So I would say the CPUs we have are basically limited with a GPU in the RX580 class. Anything more advanced and powerful than that and you'll need to push resolutions and eye candy but even then it'll be rather limited due to the CPU.

 

[e36Adz]

I'll probably just keep my 4670 in that case.

I'll check the specs of the ram and decide whether or not to keep more than my original 16gb.

PSU is a Coolermaster 500w, didn't recognise the brand of the ssd but it's 500gb and will do as a boot drive for win 10. I don't quite fancy the case so I'll sell it with as much in here as possible.

 

[e36Adz]

Just started the system up and it was powering on and off, on and off etc. Removed the 8gb pair of ram and left the 16gb in and seems to be working fine now. Been running the Heaven benchmark on a loop for 30 mins and all seems good.

I've advertised the remaining bits up for sale for £40 and been inundated with messages asking for more pics, model of mobo, one guy just said can I collect tmro morning etc. It means I got the GTX 1660, the 500GB SSD and the 500W Coolermaster psu for circa around £40-50 which is a bargain.

Next question is, which would you keep from these two...

Asrock Z87 Ex3
MSI B75A G41

We've already established the cpu's are virtually the same, not much difference in them.

 

[PaulM]

The Z87 EX3 is better in almost every way. Multiple SATA3 ports (the B75A only has 1 the rest are SATA2) if you ever want to add a new drive, 4x USB3 (the B75A only has 2), more advanced overclocking options which you might want for the 4670K because you can usually OC them a lot with minimal effort and real-world performance increases.

edit: Didn't realise they're not even the same socket? 1150 vs 1155 so you can only use the Z87 anyway if you wanted to use the 4670k

 

[TrojanWhore]

This guys busy. Whilst I'm speaking to him someone else knocks on the door, they've come to collect the exact same tower. I traded some speakers with him and got the full tower for £80. Will test it out later.

Good result! - Keep the 4670/Z87, as well as whichever RAM has the best speed/timings (or keep 24/32 if you can get it working together, probably never going to be an issue with a system of that level but more = more better )

 

[e36Adz]

Think I've got all the parts now, will put it together v soon hopefully. Don't think I've put a PC together for around 10 years.

Kept:
Z87 EX3
i5 4670k
16gb GSkill DDR3

Sold:
Corsair Case
1000W Seasonic psu
970 gtx
Got £130 for them.

Picked up used:
Coolermaster 500w
500gb ssd
1660 GTX
Got these for ~ £50.

Today I just received the corsair 4000d airflow case which I ordered online for £79 brand new and I also picked up an Asus 27" 1080p monitor for £40.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

rtx a2000 sff would work well. you get dlss which helps. ya could go all out and get a a4000 ada sff

 

[HangTime]

Depends what you mean by low end gaming for kids, if its just cheap indie games and stuff for primary school age maybe the iGPU would be sufficient? That would meet the low power/noise requirements. I have an old 3570k system in the kitchen albeit we mainly just use it for video streaming and occasionally home learning, tbh the biggest issue is the igpu doesn't support 1440p properly which would be too high res for gaming but good for video etc.

Although I see you've got a 1660 now so this would be more for anyone else in the same boat.

 

[e36Adz]

All sorted now, up and running with a new 'old' build. By low end gaming I meant my steam library which has around 100 games from 7-8+ years ago, there's nothing new on there.

The only thing I splashed out on was a new case in the end, the corsair 4000d airflow in white, was on offer for £79. Everything else was dirt cheap.

Kept:
Asrock Z87 Ex3, i5 4670k, 16GB DDR3, H80i, 2TB HDD

Added: 8GB DDR3, 1660 GTX, 500GB SSD, 500W Coolermaster PSU, 27" Asus 1080p, Steelseries Gaming Kb + Mouse.

In total it cost me around £50 on top of the money I got back from selling my 970 GTX and 1000W PSU.

 

[Scania]

This thread has reminded me of one of my "donk" machines, 280 Watt PSU, i7 4790, 16 GB DDR3, 2 Hard drives, 2x GTX580 SLI, yes, the PSU shouldn't be powering one of these cards, never mind two!

 

[e36Adz]

This thread has reminded me of one of my "donk" machines, 280 Watt PSU, i7 4790, 16 GB DDR3, 2 Hard drives, 2x GTX580 SLI, yes, the PSU shouldn't be powering one of these cards, never mind two!

That makes me feel a bit better about the 500W I've got in mine, what brand was the 280W???