Gaming CPU/Mobo upgrade advice

sammehH

sammehH

sammehH

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Joined
26 Mar 2020
Posts
11
Hi There
I put together a fairly decent rig to play games & VR a few years back - things have moved on quickly of course, I upgraded my GFX card as that was nice and straightforward, but HL Alyx made me realise she's struggling

I'm thinking a CPU upgrade is about due but I have no idea where to start these days, some basic pointers on what constitutes a decent 'mid level' upgrade would be amazing - I think a new motherboard would be required too? plus a new ssd no doubt. Is it more cost effective to start from scratch?

Any advice appreciated, thanks in advance

I have :

cpu - Intel Core i5-4690K
cooling - Cooler Master Seidon 120V
motherboard - MSI Z97-GAMING 5 ATX LGA1150
memory - Patriot Viper 3 Red 8 GB 4 x 4
GFX - MSI GeForce RTX 2060 6 GB VENTUS OC
case - Aerocool DS 200 ATX Mid Tower Case
ssd - Samsung 840 EVO 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
hd - Seagate Barracuda 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
psu - SeaSonic 520 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular Fanless ATX Power Supply
 
Hello & welcome.

Keep your PSU, GFX Card, SSD & HDD (I'd check your SSD with Samsung Magician to see if its life is good)

Replace the rest with this spec.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £606.25 (includes shipping: £12.30)​
​

If you want to replace the SSD, have a look at a Sabrent Rocket which regarded by the regulars on here as pretty good. I have the same board in the above spec, they go together well.
 
What is your budget? Your RTX 2060 should be good enough for VR.

I don't know if the Seidon works with AM4, so:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £432.46 (includes shipping: £10.50)​
​


Further upgrades are a 1 TB SSD and a CPU with a higher core count.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £792.05 (includes shipping: £11.10)​
​

Or somewhere in between.
 
Thank you both, interesting food for thought. Interesting you've both gone for AMD cpus, last time I looked Intel were the be all and end all..! Budget probably around 4-600 so these suggestions should hit the mark nicely, thanks again. If anyone else want to weigh in feel free, lots of research to do yet! :)
 
Grimley said:
Hello & welcome.

Keep your PSU, GFX Card, SSD & HDD (I'd check your SSD with Samsung Magician to see if its life is good)

Replace the rest with this spec.

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Click to expand...
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Hey Grimley - thanks again for replying, quick question about the case - can you give me your thinking for replacing my aerocool one? Is it too small/ poor layout/ not suited to it? I like the case so would try and keep it if possible - just trying to understand your reasoning.. thanks!
 
/\/\/\ Things have moved on since the Aerocool was released. The P400 air has been out for about 3-4 months now, its probably the best case for airflow in its price range right now. OCUK has sold a ton of these in all 3 models (the model I quoted & the 2 RGB version which are available in black or white) Airflow & dust filtration are good for PC hardware if you have your PC on a lot of the time & given the circumstances we are all in right now, I would imagine lots of PC's are on most of the day in peoples homes everywhere!

If you like the Aerocool & you already own it (I assume you do) keep it. It would probably be a good idea to replace the stock fans when you replace the hardware though. If the case is a few years old & you used the stock fans the fan bearings will have seen better days. I swear by these fans, I've had the 80mm & 92mm versions in my everyday PC for a fair few years now. Quiet & they do the job.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £16.60 (includes shipping: £4.66)​
​
 
Awesome, thanks again for your input, v helpful. Also hope you and everyone reading this is safe and well, definitely a lot of upgrading going to be happening while we're all on lock down!
 
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