Guidance for PC upgrade for gaming

[RoidyRedRum]

Hi all,

This is my first time looking at upgrading my PC which is around 10 years old!! The system was originally purchased for graphic design and video work with some occasional gaming. It's pretty much been retired for the last few years as I moved to Apple for my work needs.

I originally purchased the system from Overclockers and the specs are:

Case: Antec 902 Ultimate Gaming Case - Black
Power Supply: Corsair TX 650W ATX SLi Compliant Power Supply
CPU: Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz Overclocked to 4.00GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte EX58A-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
Cooler: Prolimatech Megahalems Rev B CPU Cooler with 2000RPM Sharkoon Silent Eagle 120mm
RAM: Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache
Graphics Card: Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5830 1024 MB GDDR5
Sound: Realtek ALC889 7.1 Channel Sound (On-Board)
Optical Drive: LG Blue Ray RW/DVD+/-RW SATA Drive
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium (Now upgrade to Windows 10)

The only reason I am looking to upgrade is to potentially play COD Warzone. A few friends play and I'd like to join in having recently enjoyed COD Mobile.

I'm basically looking to see if it's even possible to upgrade this to a good enough spec to play warzone and also as cheaply as possible as I won't be using it for anything else. If it's not possible I will be donating it to a local charity who provide computers to school kids. Even if it is possible to upgrade, I will still donate after a few months of playing Warzone.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read and any advice given!

 

[EsaT]

Welcome aboard.

Biggest problem for upgrade to modern game capable is availability and prices of graphics cards.
Higher end cards have simply extremely bloated prices and you're hard pressed to find any stock.
(except with even more arm and leg price level)
Even low mainstream/mid level cards cost lot.
Only low 1920x1080 resolution level cards have lower prices.

Also memory would need upgrading.
And that ancient Nehalem architecture CPU is just out of date for demanding games.
Not sure about Warzone's CPU requirement, but for CPU heayv games it would be major bottleneck.

 

[Gray2233]

You should be able to buy a cheap second hand Xeon like the X5670 for that board, from what I remember they OC very well and you'd get to enjoy a 6c12t processor on the cheap. I'd do a bit of research into this before jumping the gun however.

I'd get at least 16GB of RAM too, although depending on how much the CPU/RAM set you back you might be better off grabbing a 11400F setup such as the following:

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Intel Core i5-11400F 2.60GHz (Rocket Lake) Socket LGA1200 Processor - Retail= £149.99
• 1 x Asrock B560 Pro4 (Socket LGA 1200) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £101.99
• 1 x Patriot Viper Steel 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C18 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS416G360C8K)= £68.99

Total: £320.97 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​

The big issue at the moment is finding a decent GPU, they're like gold dust and ridiculously over priced.

 

[RoidyRedRum]

Welcome aboard.

Biggest problem for upgrade to modern game capable is availability and prices of graphics cards.
Higher end cards have simply extremely bloated prices and you're hard pressed to find any stock.
(except with even more arm and leg price level)
Even low mainstream/mid level cards cost lot.
Only low 1920x1080 resolution level cards have lower prices.

Also memory would need upgrading.
And that ancient Nehalem architecture CPU is just out of date for demanding games.
Not sure about Warzone's CPU requirement, but for CPU heayv games it would be major bottleneck.

Thanks very much for your reply. As I feared, its just too far out of date to reasonably upgrade for the sake of playing one game. Maybe time to donate it after all.

With my limited knowledge, I did wonder if the motherboard would even support newer graphics cards/processors/memory. Is that part still workable?

Many thanks

 

[RoidyRedRum]

You should be able to buy a cheap second hand Xeon like the X5670 for that board, from what I remember they OC very well and you'd get to enjoy a 6c12t processor on the cheap. I'd do a bit of research into this before jumping the gun however.

I'd get at least 16GB of RAM too, although depending on how much the CPU/RAM set you back you might be better off grabbing a 11400F setup such as the following:

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Intel Core i5-11400F 2.60GHz (Rocket Lake) Socket LGA1200 Processor - Retail= £149.99
• 1 x Asrock B560 Pro4 (Socket LGA 1200) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £101.99
• 1 x Patriot Viper Steel 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C18 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS416G360C8K)= £68.99

Total: £320.97 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​

The big issue at the moment is finding a decent GPU, they're like gold dust and ridiculously over priced.

Thanks thats really helpful and given me something to consider.

Sorry for my lack of knowledge, but why us there an issue with getting hold of graphics cards at the moment. Is it just a recent supply issue with everything that's been going on and likely to improve?

Cheers for your advice

 

[Gray2233]

Thanks thats really helpful and given me something to consider.

Sorry for my lack of knowledge, but why us there an issue with getting hold of graphics cards at the moment. Is it just a recent supply issue with everything that's been going on and likely to improve?

Cheers for your advice

A mixture of Covid and the current crypto-mining boom, a lot of people are buying the cards for non-gaming purposes due to this so demand is much higher than normal coupled with low supply.

 

[Joxeon]

As @Gray2233 says a Xeon makes for a solid upgrade and the x5650 can be picked up for around tenner and easily overclocks to 4ghz +

The GPU is harder to find especially for a decent price right now but the above would easily handle something like a gtx 1070 and should give you some decent fps.

You probably want atleast 12gb of ram also but once you start spending more then it does make the case of just going for something modern.

 

[JerriMeyer]

So... Your pc will be powerful. Good luck with ur upgrade. But I recommend buying an i7 10th gen

 

[Temp.sgk]

Get one of those cheap budget gaming GPUs like the RX 580 or even the 1060 and you're set. Only issue is finding one though.

 

[RoidyRedRum]

Thanks for all of the advice guys. @Joxeon yeah I'll definitely look into a xeon x5650 and will look at 12gb ram instead of 16gb to keep costs down.

@Gray2233 Would 16gb give a big difference vs 12gb? I'm not too bothered about playing warzone on the highest quality settings, just after a relitively smooth experience.

@Temp.sgk will definitely keep an eye out for one of the budget graphics cards as I'll be just looking at playing at mid to low quality settings. On a quick search for GPUs I see other brands coming up like msi, gigabyte and palit. Are these any good or is it best to stick with amd and nvidia?

Cheers all

 

[Joxeon]

advice guys. @Joxeon yeah I'll definitely look into a xeon x5650 and will look at 12gb ram instead of 16gb to keep costs down.

I think 12gb would be fine and cheap considering the price of 2gb dimms and running 6 would also mean you would still benefit from triple channel.

I was running an X5670 OC @4.5ghz with 12gb ram 3x 4gb and a gtx 1070ti and it made for a pretty decent gaming machine, it was an improvement going to a new ryzen 5 3600 but not that much of one.

 

[Gray2233]

Just hold in mind you'll want DDR3 for that system so you'll have to look second hand much like the CPU, with a little luck you should be able to get CPU + RAM for around £30-50 if the old Xeons are still going cheap.

Something like an AMD RX570 or RX580 would be a good GPU for your needs, but like most GPU's at the moment they're difficult to find and I'm not sure I'd be happy paying more than £150 for one maximum.

 

[RoidyRedRum]

Thanks for all the valuable info everyone, much appreciated. I'll be on the lookout for a second hand Xeon CPU, DDR3 ram (3 x 4gb) and I'll do my best to find a cheap gpu.

Did anyone have any experience using msi, gigabyte or palit GPUs? They keep coming up in searches but at cheaper prices than AMD or Nvidia.

Cheers all

 

[Gray2233]

Thanks for all the valuable info everyone, much appreciated. I'll be on the lookout for a second hand Xeon CPU, DDR3 ram (3 x 4gb) and I'll do my best to find a cheap gpu.

Did anyone have any experience using msi, gigabyte or palit GPUs? They keep coming up in searches but at cheaper prices than AMD or Nvidia.

Cheers all

Companies like MSI, Gigabyte etc make graphics cards using Nvidia and AMD GPU's (GPU = Graphics Processing Unit). They're not really making their own GPU's, both AMD and Nvidia have a number of partners who manufacture their platforms.

I'd be happy buying any of the companies you've listed, although I favour Gigabyte for warranty reasons.

 

[chipps101]

There are loads of videos on youtube of people running i7 950's with various graphics cards like gtx 970, rx 470/570/580 and they are getting a pretty solid above 60 fps experience with it in warzone at 1080p

I think upgrading to 12gb of ram and trying to find a decent priced midrange card would be your best bet without replacing your whole pc.

 

[Mylestheone]

Would you look at that. I just retired my old PC, still wondering what to do with some of the parts. I had the same motherboard as you, paired with the same RAM (but 12gb worth), same CPU cooler, x5650 and GTX 970 (EVGA SSC 2.0). I didn't play Warzone often but was able to hit 60fps at 1080p with mostly high settings. x5650 and 6gb of RAM (to compliment your current 6gb) should be dirt cheap on eBay.