Is my 6 year old build upgradable?

Terk · 9 Feb 2017 at 11:42

Just got a 4k monitor so I thought id try to plug it into my old build (I mainly just use my macbook as I dont game often) and turns out the 560ti doesnt support 4k...

Im using a Corsair Hydro H60 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler to cool my i5 2500k, everything good you think to OC that?

anyway the rest of the build is:
-OcUK GeForce GTX 560Ti 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
-Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
-OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
-Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit

I've got a HDD in there and added an SSD about a year ago too.

What would you recommend to upgrade, i'm assuming GPU is the main one, what would work so I don't bottleneck, i'm not upgrading till 2-4 months time btw

Mrjobby · 9 Feb 2017 at 11:48

A AMD 480 or a Nvidia 1060 would be a great match for that system.

TrojanWhore · 9 Feb 2017 at 12:25

if gaming is not top priority, then I certainly wouldn't go any higher than the two cards Mrjobby mentioned above.

the AMD RX480 gets my vote as AMD cards are all but proven to age better than nvidia in the last few generations, however with AMD vega being (AFAIK) a new design, we could see these improvements tailing off

in terms of overclocking, the h60 should be enough to get most 2500Ks to 4.2-4.4GHz very easily - just go to the BIOS, manually set Base clock (BCLK) to 100MHz, cpu core voltage to around 1.30V (can go as far as 1.38 if needed, and not too hot!), and then turn the multiplier up (may as well start at 42x, most will do that fine).
run a stress test (game/intense workload for a few hours) to see if it's stable, and if not, decrease speed, or up voltage a bit

varkanoid · 9 Feb 2017 at 13:01

Just for reference my 2500k did 4.0ghz(40x) with no voltage change, 4.2ghz(42x) at 1.25V and 4.5ghz(45x) at 1.28V

stulid · 9 Feb 2017 at 15:49

If a new gfx card doesnt actually work then try flashing the motherboards bios with whatever is the newest available.

bledd · 9 Feb 2017 at 17:39

Is the SSD the Windows/boot drive? If not, make it so. Then upgrade gfx card.

Doogles · 9 Feb 2017 at 18:30

Overclock the CPU to 4.5 Ghz, upgrade the PSU to a decent 80+Gold 550w then add a RX 480 or GTX 1060. I can vouch for that motherboard supporting GTX 10xx series

sergiup · 10 Feb 2017 at 10:19

As @bledd said, get an SSD as a system drive, unless you already have that. It's by far the best upgrade in terms of general usability.

After that, same as everyone else said: the RX480 would do great in there, and an overclock to 4.2-4.5GHz for some added oomph.

WantoN · 10 Feb 2017 at 12:22

What's been proposed in this thread will actually give you a very good little system. The 2500K with a decent overclock is still a very capable chip, and the RX480 (which is what I would buy) is bloomin' brilliant at its price point.

chongker · 11 Feb 2017 at 02:08

The 2500k is known to be able to overclock like a beast, so don't be afraid to push it a little. IIRC that was the era when Intel was still using solder underneath the IHS instead of cheap TIM like they use nowadays, so temps tend to be pretty decent as well.

Other than that, RX480 or 1060 are good suggestions, but if you can wait, see what Vega is like when it comes out.

reflux · 13 Feb 2017 at 13:45

I bought a 480 for my system (2600k) and it runs Deus Ex and Doom really well. Doesn't feel like the core of the system is nearly 6 years old.