How to upgrade an ancient system

mpj88 said:
If you want to buy new!

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Another £50 and you can get i5 too
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Better with an overclocked Pentium K as a stop gap ?
 
270 or a 960, 24" monitor to start off. Should be a very different experience.

Then PSU, Pentium K + cheap Z97 board + RAM when they're on special. :)
 
Zefan said:
I would absolutely not bother changing anything until you've put a better GPU in that. I bet you'll be more than happy with the performance increase you'll get from that alone, I'd be very surprised if many games are smashing your CPU enough for it to be a problem @ low resolutions on almost all modern games.
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Someone else has mentioned that to me also. When I've looked at my system the cores are getting to 80/85C under 100% load which I think is quite high. Maybe I should consider a GPU and a better cooler?
 
Adam-r said:
Hi all

I think I probably already know the answer to this but here I go.

My current system is old and a recent purchase of Cities:Skylines has shown that it just isn't up to it anymore.

Proc: Intel core2duo quad 2.4GHz
Mobo: MSI P6N
4Gb (4x1Gb) DDR2 ram
128Gb SSD drive
Nvidia 8800GTS gfx

Now, obviously I'd like to upgrade in one go but having an account (the OH) forbids this so I need to do this month by month.

I'd like to upgrade to something along the lines of an i5 processor and a decent graphics card. I'd like to get a motherboard that will last a while as I'm not one for upgrading everything every year.

Now how would you all go about it? Obviously not many of my components will be moved to my new build, save for the case and perhaps my 550W PSU.

I'd like to keep a system running at all times if at all possible. So what order would you buys the bits??
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I have been in exactly the same situation as you numerous times, since Socket 462 in fact, and nore recently with one of a few LGA systems I have taken this sort of upgrade route with.

1st you have to know exactly what you have, so state your case, it's fans, and your PSU. Your monitor, it's resolution, your CPU and cpu cooler.

For me, my case, simply drew in dust and offered poor cooling, so that was important to upgrade.

My PSU's, well I did have to upgrade a few over the years, one was all Molex, there is plenty of urban myth and snobbery with PSU's if yours is working, with the connections you need and appropriate ouput over the PCI-E cables, your fine. But we won't know it's PCI-E ability until you state the model.

Old LGA can't play games is usually another myth, until recently my Q9550 was still playing at 1080p at decent frame rates on many games, with a HD-7950 gpu.
Sure an upgrade is worthwhile, but Z97 and an i5 with a 10 yr old GPU is piontless.
Just as upgrading to an Nvidia 980 is piontless if your running games at 1080p.

Now what sort of monitor and resolution you have now, and what resolution you want, are important. As these are a direct impact on GPU choice.

If you can only afford £400 to £500, a bit every months, then it sort of limits you. For that sort of budget I would simply upgrade what you have, with components you can use right up until you change.

So a 1080p experience with a suitable GPU and 1080p (IPS if possible) monitor would be my recommendation. IF your current monitor has a lower resolution than 1080p.

You have the hard drives covered, but state you need an OS licence? You could try Windows 10 on free trial for a short period. But window 7 or 8.1. More money. Do you use an optic bay or load the OS with USB?

If your happy with your case and PSU, then I would get the GPU next, then try and get the motherboard/cpu/ram.

The G3258 is the minimum, many report good things with that, though an Intel i5 4690k is usually the CPU of choice, but £200. But I honestly think it should be a stand gap item, something that will need replaced in future.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
1 x AOC I2369VM 23" Widescreen LED IPS Monitor - Black/Silver £129.95
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-SLI Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £89.99
1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £59.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Savage Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX324C11SRK2/8) £46.99
Total : £491.00 (includes shipping : £11.75).




My way of upgrading was simply, buy a good 550w to 650w psu, get a good case with the options I want for hard drives, dust filters, and plenty of CPU cooling options.
Stick my old LGA 775 system in that better cooled dust filtered case with the PSU that would let me upgrade, and add an LGA 775 compatable CPU cooler that would allow me to overclock.
Then add the best graphics card suited to a 1080p monitor for the money, which then was an AMD 7950, and today is the AMD 280.

With an SSD for the OS, and a HDD for storage. All that was left to upgrade was a CPU motherboard and memory. And some RGB lighting.
 
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As Zefan suggested above i would be looking to upgrade the GPU first as that is by far the weakest part of your system especially when it comes to games. I would also consider giving the system a good overhaul interms of cleaning the dust out of it and reinstalling Windows to get rid of crap that has probably accumulated over the years.
 
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So after the PSU went in (it has a lovely white LED on the fan) I fitted an MSI Radeon 280X 3G graphics card.

I went with a fresh install of windows 10 and so far so good. I left Cities Skylines installing before work this morning so will report back on performance and also take advice on what to upgrade next!
 
So your going for Crossfire or SLI?

Even overclocked your Q6600 will bottleneck two 280X.

Not sure it's worth buying 8gb to 16gb of memory for an old DDR2 system if thats what Quartz is suggesting.
 
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DIABLO said:
I would also consider giving the system a good overhaul interms of cleaning the dust out of it and reinstalling Windows to get rid of crap that has probably accumulated over the years.
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He's got an SSD drive so is unlikely to have had it for ages and it'll likely be handling Windows as speedily as ever (though may indeed have accumulated lots of tatware).
 
Quartz said:
Upgrading to 8 GB will certainly be worth it, but if all that is available is 2x 4GB sticks then the OP may end up with 10 or 12 GB.
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Really? He would need 4 identical 2GB stick sof DDR2, either PC6400 or PC8500, which even second hand may well cost more than 8GB of 2400MHz DDR3.

I myself would rather save that expense, because a G3258 with an H81 motherboard and 8GB of DDR3 will play many games and run plenty of applications better than the old Q6600 LGA775 system with DDR2.
Investing in a G3258, with a Z97, and 8GB of DDR3 is now what I feel the OP should be considering, but that will be after he states his current PC monitor and case.

Another option could be an LGA775 compatable all in one CPU cooler. It could help overclock that Q6600.
 
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