Gaming PC Upgrade Help

Wpod · 16 Jul 2023 at 04:45

Hi guys,

Finally have both some money and time to upgrade! Will refit old components into a 2nd PC for friend. I put together the below specs in 2017.

My graphics card is on it's last legs so that will be need replacing (thinking rtx 4070)
I have no idea if anything else needs replacing along with that so I really need some help. I imagine motherboard + cpu, PSU, might be due an upgrade along with gpu (but honestly have no idea lol)
I don't want to go too crazy on budget, let's say max £1200

. Mostly used for watching videos / daily gaming, but I'm pretty interested in getting into some AI functionality too

Intel Core i5-7600K 3.80GHz (Kaby Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail
Asus Radeon RX 580
Team Group Night Hawk LED 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Blue Light
Asus Prime Z270-P Intel Z270 (Socket 1151) DDR4 Motherboard

Cougar GX-S 550W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler
EK Water Blocks EK-Cable Y-Splitter 2-Fan PWM (10cm)

Samsung 250GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-75E250B/EU)
Seagate BarraCuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST2000DM006)
Samsung 980 1 TB PCIe 3.0 (up to 3.500 MB/s) NVMe M.2 Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (MZ-V8V1T0BW)

Kolink Aviator Midi Tower Gaming Case - Blue
AOC G2460PF - 24 Inch FHD Gaming Monitor, 144Hz, 1ms, TN, FreeSync premium, USB Hub, Height Adjust 1920x1080 @ 144hz, 350 cd/m²

Wpod · 16 Jul 2023 at 16:22

Thanks guys, very helpful

These build ideas are really useful, appreciate everyone's posts!

To answer some q's ..

I can re-use as much as I want but I can see I do need to change over a lot of components
1080p resolution is fine, I don't plan to push to 4k, ray tracing / upscaling aren't too high up there for me
A stable 1080 60fps or even up to 120FPS that the monitor supports would be great, tend to favour perfect performance over shiny graphics (but if you can have both..)

Case I'd really want to stay, love the design of it (unless any of you have another awesome black/blue case you'd recommend)

CPU I'm seeing is the other thing that definitely needs upgrading to 13th gen - is it worth the price grab an i7 over an i5?
Seeing a new motherboard in every build - can someone pretend I'm an 8 year old and explain exactly why I need a new one? lol
Is there too much difference between 16gb v 32gb ram? I do tend to be doing a lot at once on PC and have dual monitors, so I can see the appeal and then could reuse old RAM in another build

Wpod · 16 Jul 2023 at 21:55

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Intel Core i7-13700F (Raptor Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6BD-IN) = £359.99
1 x Palit GeForce RTX 4070 Dual 12GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-071-PL) = £569.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan EXPO 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C38 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FLABD532G6000HC38ADC01) (SKU: MY-0B2-TG) = £119.98
1 x Gigabyte B650 Gaming X AX (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-5BF-GI) = £189.95

Total: £1,247.90 (includes delivery: £7.99)

Bit of a push here but DDR5 and i7 included. I expect to re-use PSU and case. Any thoughts, is this overkill / is it worth pushing the graphic card up a little more with this setup?

Wpod · 17 Jul 2023 at 09:57

Oh man I can't believe I just did that.. it's been far too long

Tending towards this NVIDIA build, might go for the i7 anyway just to future proof a bit further. You hit the nail on the head, I don't want to have to upgrade for a while again haha

If we were to increase budget up to 1400-1500, is there anything significant that I could get with this setup (particularly gpu)
Is the DDR5 6000mz worth it? (I do tend to have a lot running whilst gaming) + would like to explore streaming, recording, AI stuff
I have a feeling a new PSU is needed with this setup judging by some responses. How do I actually know what kind of PSU I need (again.. pretend I'm an 8 year old lol)

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Intel Core i7-13700F (Raptor Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6BD-IN) = £359.99
1 x Palit GeForce RTX 4070 Dual 12GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-071-PL) = £569.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan EXPO 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C38 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FLABD532G6000HC38ADC01) (SKU: MY-0B2-TG) = £119.98
1 x Asus Prime Z790-P WIFI (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6JR-AS) = £220.00

Total: £1,277.95 (includes delivery: £7.99)

(+ peerless assassin.. have only heard amazing things about it so far)

Thanks for all the responses again. Has been Really REALLY helpful when coming back to this stuff