13 Year Old PC - Upgrade Advice Please

[Adam1987]

Hi everyone, first post on this forum so please go easy on me!

I have recently pulled out an old PC of mine that hasnt been used properly for a number of years, however i am now looking to upgrade to the highest possible spec....the problem i have is i dont actually know what spec the current machine can handle.

Current Basic Spec;

Acer Predator G5900
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 650 @ 3.20GHz 3.20 GHz
Memory 4GB (Increasing to 8GB)
64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
2TB SSD (Recently upgraded from inital 500GB HDD)
NVIDIA GeForce GT340
Windows 10

I have just completed the SSD upgrade and this has improved boot up and general speed incredibly well and hopefully when i complete the RAM upgrade from 4GB to 8GB this should add to that speed increase.


The additional upgrades i would be looking at would be the CPU & GPU and the ones i am looking at are below;

CPU - Intel Core i5 760
GPU - NVIDIA RTX 4060/NVIDIA RTX 4060Ti

Firstly, would the two upgrades above be compatible with the whole system and secondly would a CPU upgrade be required to turn this current setup into a decent gaming set up?

Your advice on this is greatly appreciated.

 

[mickyflinn]

Hi and welcome.

With all due respect you have a dinasour I wouldn't spend any more money on it just save up and build something newer that can handle a 4060.

If your dead set on upgrading then what PSU do you have ?

 

[Tetras]

CPU - Intel Core i5 760

The i5 760 is nice, because you get 4 proper cores, but with games being quite demanding now, I'd recommend you get an i7 instead (the Xeon equivalents were also popular, but I'm not sure if that's feasible with an Acer motherboard).

There's only one thing that really hurts these CPUs in newer games (apart from clock speed) and that's the lack of AVX.

RandomGaminginHD makes some great videos on what old CPUs are capable of, like this one:

The i7 860 Vs i3 10100 - Can an Ancient High-End CPU Outperform a Modern Budget CPU?

Today we're taking a look back at the Intel Core i7 860 and seeing how it compares to the new i3 10100. Both have 4 cores and 8 threads, but one is 10 years ...

www.youtube.com

GPU - NVIDIA RTX 4060/NVIDIA RTX 4060Ti

This is overkill for some light 1080p gaming, if I were you, I'd be looking at no higher than the RX 6600 which you can get for £180. HUB's testing also showed that RDNA 2 does better with weaker CPUs, but if that still applies to the 4000 series I'm not 100% sure. There's one caveat to that, the same channel (RandomGaminginHD) found that frame generation can help with older CPUs, which you can see toward the end of the video here:

RTX 4060 Ti In a 13-Year Old Alienware PC - Some Interesting Results

After selling the GTX 1050 inside my old Alienware I decided to slap a Palit RTX 4060 Ti inside it instead. How do games perform at native resolution, does t...

www.youtube.com

Firstly, would the two upgrades above be compatible with the whole system and secondly would a CPU upgrade be required to turn this current setup into a decent gaming set up?

There's a few things to consider, the basics first:

- Do you have a PSU that can support the new CPU and graphics card, since they'll have higher power draw and you need a PCI-E 8 pin, which older PSUs may not have.
- Does the case have sufficient room to accommodate a full size graphics card and enough cooling that it won't overheat?

Then, there's the PCI-E version, in theory it should be backwards compatible, but it's never a 100% guarantee, especially when there can be difficulties with modern cards booting into a legacy BIOS (rather than UEFI).

What I tend to resort to for very old systems is to look at the charts on userbenchmark, since you can find what config other users have ran, if you scroll down a bit here:

UserBenchmark: Acer Predator G5900 Compatible Components

It looks like the newest cards are 1650/1660. That doesn't mean newer cards won't work (maybe nobody tried it yet), but it's something to be aware of. Personally, I think one getting of the popular cards here (1060, 1050, 1050 Ti) would be a better match for this system and you can buy one that doesn't need a power connector, but it is your call and depends on what kind of games you're trying to squeeze out of this system.

 

[Adam1987]

Hi and welcome.

With all due respect you have a dinasour I wouldn't spend any more money on it just save up and build something newer that can handle a 4060.

If your dead set on upgrading then what PSU do you have ?

Thankyou for the welcome, and appreciate the response and i certainly agree i am dealing with a dinosaur here!

Is there a quick way to find out the PSU details without taking the panel off?

 

[Adam1987]

The i5 760 is nice, because you get 4 proper cores, but with games being quite demanding now, I'd recommend you get an i7 instead (the Xeon equivalents were also popular, but I'm not sure if that's feasible with an Acer motherboard).

There's only one thing that really hurts these CPUs in newer games (apart from clock speed) and that's the lack of AVX.

RandomGaminginHD makes some great videos on what old CPUs are capable of, like this one:

The i7 860 Vs i3 10100 - Can an Ancient High-End CPU Outperform a Modern Budget CPU?

Today we're taking a look back at the Intel Core i7 860 and seeing how it compares to the new i3 10100. Both have 4 cores and 8 threads, but one is 10 years ...

www.youtube.com

This is overkill for some light 1080p gaming, if I were you, I'd be looking at no higher than the RX 6600 which you can get for £180. HUB's testing also showed that RDNA 2 does better with weaker CPUs, but if that still applies to the 4000 series I'm not 100% sure. There's one caveat to that, the same channel (RandomGaminginHD) found that frame generation can help with older CPUs, which you can see toward the end of the video here:

RTX 4060 Ti In a 13-Year Old Alienware PC - Some Interesting Results

After selling the GTX 1050 inside my old Alienware I decided to slap a Palit RTX 4060 Ti inside it instead. How do games perform at native resolution, does t...

www.youtube.com

There's a few things to consider, the basics first:

- Do you have a PSU that can support the new CPU and graphics card, since they'll have higher power draw and you need a PCI-E 8 pin, which older PSUs may not have.
- Does the case have sufficient room to accommodate a full size graphics card and enough cooling that it won't overheat?

Then, there's the PCI-E version, in theory it should be backwards compatible, but it's never a 100% guarantee, especially when there can be difficulties with modern cards booting into a legacy BIOS (rather than UEFI).

What I tend to resort to for very old systems is to look at the charts on userbenchmark, since you can find what config other users have ran, if you scroll down a bit here:

UserBenchmark: Acer Predator G5900 Compatible Components

It looks like the newest cards are 1650/1660. That doesn't mean newer cards won't work (maybe nobody tried it yet), but it's something to be aware of. Personally, I think one getting of the popular cards here (1060, 1050, 1050 Ti) would be a better match for this system and you can buy one that doesn't need a power connector, but it is your call and depends on what kind of games you're trying to squeeze out of this system.

Oh wow....thank you for taking the time to provide all of this information!

I will have a look at the video and certainly take into account the different options for the CPU & GPU.

I have actually used userbenchmark as a guide and according to their analytics, the CPU & GPU that i mentioned didnt flag any incompatabilites. Im guessing the website would take into account the standard PSU that the system has? or am i wrong to just think that?

Thanks again!

 

[Quartz]

Is there a quick way to find out the PSU details without taking the panel off?

Not really. You need to find out if your PSU has a PCIe power cable. Looking at reviews, some PSUs do and others do not.

 

[Tetras]

Im guessing the website would take into account the standard PSU that the system has? or am i wrong to just think that?

This information is not collected in their benchmark, so I'm afraid you can't assume that. It only guarantees that they used the same motherboard.

From what I can gather, the motherboard uses standard power connectors (i.e. it is not unique to Acer), so my guess would be that users with high power draw cards (1070, 1080) replaced the PSU.

the CPU & GPU that i mentioned didnt flag any incompatibilities

They're both compatible, in theory (I mean, they will fit in the respective socket/slot), but it's never an exact science with these old computers.

I will have a look at the video and certainly take into account the different options for the CPU & GPU.

FYI: the i7 860 in the first video is what I recommend you switch the 760 to (or the 870).

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

good points by tetras
i tried to upgrade on older pc a while back
forgot exact motherboard
a gtx970 worked fine
a gtx1070 wouldnt boot
psu used was easily sufficient for a gtx1070
due to the bios as tetras mentioned

do you know what motherboards in it?
or full model number?
acer predator g5900 comes up with varying results
some with i7 and 16gb max ram
others i5 and 8gb max ram

you already did ssd
which is great
which would always be first recommended thing
just night and day compared to a hdd

 

[Adam1987]

good points by tetras
i tried to upgrade on older pc a while back
forgot exact motherboard
a gtx970 worked fine
a gtx1070 wouldnt boot
psu used was easily sufficient for a gtx1070
due to the bios as tetras mentioned

do you know what motherboards in it?
or full model number?
acer predator g5900 comes up with varying results
some with i7 and 16gb max ram
others i5 and 8gb max ram

you already did ssd
which is great
which would always be first recommended thing
just night and day compared to a hdd

Oh your not wrong with the SSD vs HDD...the improvement has been huge!

I have 4 memory slots so have ordered 4 x 2GB to double the RAM to 8GB.

Is there a way to upload photos here as i have taken a picture of what i believe is the PSU details...

Thanks

 

[Adam1987]

This information is not collected in their benchmark, so I'm afraid you can't assume that. It only guarantees that they used the same motherboard.

From what I can gather, the motherboard uses standard power connectors (i.e. it is not unique to Acer), so my guess would be that users with high power draw cards (1070, 1080) replaced the PSU.



They're both compatible, in theory (I mean, they will fit in the respective socket/slot), but it's never an exact science with these old computers.



FYI: the i7 860 in the first video is what I recommend you switch the 760 to (or the 870).

Thanks again Tetras.

 

[Adam1987]

good points by tetras
i tried to upgrade on older pc a while back
forgot exact motherboard
a gtx970 worked fine
a gtx1070 wouldnt boot
psu used was easily sufficient for a gtx1070
due to the bios as tetras mentioned

do you know what motherboards in it?
or full model number?
acer predator g5900 comes up with varying results
some with i7 and 16gb max ram
others i5 and 8gb max ram

you already did ssd
which is great
which would always be first recommended thing
just night and day compared to a hdd

Model NO: PS-6451-5 ( i hope that means something)

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Model NO: PS-6451-5 ( i hope that means something)

google thinks thats a 450w or 500w psu model?
software like cpuz can tell you the motherboard

 

[Tetras]

google thinks thats a 450w or 500w psu model?
software like cpuz can tell you the motherboard

I think it is 500, the service manual was 500 or 750 iirc.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Oh your not wrong with the SSD vs HDD...the improvement has been huge!

I have 4 memory slots so have ordered 4 x 2GB to double the RAM to 8GB.

Is there a way to upload photos here as i have taken a picture of what i believe is the PSU details...

Thanks

you can post images
though has to be an external host
i use postimg
then i use the thumbnail for forums option

 

[Adam1987]

I think it is 500, the service manual was 500 or 750 iirc.

I have looked at the PSU label and it says 500W (Max Peak), but then also says 450W Max at 35 degrees.

 

[Adam1987]

google thinks thats a 450w or 500w psu model?
software like cpuz can tell you the motherboard

Manufacturer: Acer
Model: Predator G5900
Bus Specs: PCI Express 2.0 (5 GT/s)
Chipset: Intel Havendale Clarkdale Host Bridge REV 12
Southbridge: Intel H57 Rev 06
LPCIO: ITE IT8721

 

[Tetras]

I have looked at the PSU label and it says 500W (Max Peak), but then also says 450W Max at 35 degrees.

From the pictures online, I think it has one PCI-E 6 pin (for graphics card), but I wouldn't consider my guess reliable.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

seems its probably an acer motherboard
i7 880 might be highest cpu
you can shove in there
probably pcie gen 2
cant really find info on best gpu it will support

 

[mickyflinn]

Guys have done a great job with advice.

The highest CPU you can upgrade to is an I7 875k reading a simmlar thread from the Acer forum.

upgrading CPU - Acer Community

Hi I have a Predator G5900 desktop with intel(R)Core(TM)i5 CPU [email protected]; can I upgrade this please

community.acer.com

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Guys have done a great job with advice.

The highest CPU you can upgrade to is an I7 875k reading a simmlar thread from the Acer forum.

upgrading CPU - Acer Community

Hi I have a Predator G5900 desktop with intel(R)Core(TM)i5 CPU [email protected]; can I upgrade this please

community.acer.com

i thought i7 880
so pretty close
any info in there about gpu upgrades on it