Looking to upgrade my 2013 PC!!

Ground7even · 2 May 2019 at 11:56

Hi all,

I am looking to upgrade my PC (probably in stages because I'm financialy challenged)
Last upgraded it in October 2013 xD

I'm looking to start off with my Graphics Card - I only tend to use my PC for gaming and minor work projects using MC packages and photo editing.

I originally built my PC with the help of a friend who's now 200+ miles away, so any help you could give me would be really appreciated.

I want to upgrade to a fairly decent Geforce RTX 2060 - around about the £350 mark, but I'm not even sure if my current specs would support this new part - could anyone advise?

Here are my current specs;

Gainward GeForce GTX 770 Phantom 4GB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Intel i7-4770K 3.5GHZ (Haswell) LGA1150 Processor
Asus Z87 Maximus VI Hero Intel Z87 (Socket 1150)DDR3 ATX Motherboard
Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHZ Dual Channel Memory
Corsair 650w TX Series w/120mm fan
Noctua NH-D14 Dual Radiator CPU Cooler
Viewsonic VA2213W 22" TFT 300cd/m2 16000:1 5ms

NovaKill4 · 2 May 2019 at 12:13

What resolution is your current monitor and do you plan on upgrading your monitor to a higher resolution or framerate?
Also what PSU do you have and how old is it?

Ground7even · 2 May 2019 at 12:22

NovaKill4 said:
What resolution is your current monitor and do you plan on upgrading your monitor to a higher resolution or framerate?
Also what PSU do you have and how old is it?

Hi NovaKill, thanks for the response - really is appreciated.

I run my monitor in standard 1920x1080p - Viewsonic VA2213W 22" TFT 300cd/m2 16000:1 5ms
Defo planning on upgrading it post-graphics card.

My PS is 6 years old! Corsair 650w TX Series w/120mm fan.

Cheers,
James

orbitalwalsh · 2 May 2019 at 13:01

current CPU would be fine with rtx 2080 - would help if you overclock it . would then give rise to seeing how ryzen 3000 fairs against it in July (Reveal end of May)

any current games your playing, play at DX12 if you can as will give a healthy boost to your CPU and FPS

Plec · 2 May 2019 at 13:19

As above, you still have a very capable CPU - and get that K series CPU clocked (wasted MHz on tap with a few BIOS tweaks) to relieve any bottlenecking coupled with a top tier GPU.

NovaKill4 · 2 May 2019 at 13:21

I think the 2060 would be fine for 1080p @ 144hz or 1440p @60hz but if you want to go to 1440p @144hz then you may want to consider going to a 2070.

As Orbital said, overclock your CPU if you have not already and it should be fine.

I'm not sure if that was a good PSU or not when you bought it (Corsair have good and bad PSU's) but it would be worth looking at changing it due to its age.

Plec · 2 May 2019 at 13:28

NovaKill4 said:
I'm not sure if that was a good PSU or not when you bought it (Corsair have good and bad PSU's) but it would be worth looking at changing it due to its age.

The Corsair TX650 was a quality PSU - should be fine running a RTX 2060/2070 even after 6 years - if all is well with the unit. They do have a tendency for the fan to sometimes run at full RPM (a known fault in the V2 - i fixed one recently) :/

Ground7even · 2 May 2019 at 16:20

Firstly, thank you all - this is really useful info.

orbitalwalsh said:
current CPU would be fine with rtx 2080 - would help if you overclock it . would then give rise to seeing how ryzen 3000 fairs against it in July (Reveal end of May)

any current games your playing, play at DX12 if you can as will give a healthy boost to your CPU and FPS

@orbitalwalsh I've OC'd it to approx 3.8GHZ w/the motherboard's assistance - not sure if this is a great OC level for an i7 4770k?
On a Low/Med/High/Ultra I'm still averaging 50fps on high settings on most games, altho the 770 is struggling more with anti-aliasing.
Will definately take your advice on DX12 thanks.

Plec said:
As above, you still have a very capable CPU - and get that K series CPU clocked (wasted MHz on tap with a few BIOS tweaks) to relieve any bottlenecking coupled with a top tier GPU.

@Plec Thanks for the advice, glad my rig isn't considered a pile of scrap just yet. 650w does run hot on games like Total War especially, but it's not worried me yet.

NovaKill4 said:
I think the 2060 would be fine for 1080p @ 144hz or 1440p @60hz but if you want to go to 1440p @144hz then you may want to consider going to a 2070.

As Orbital said, overclock your CPU if you have not already and it should be fine.

I'm not sure if that was a good PSU or not when you bought it (Corsair have good and bad PSU's) but it would be worth looking at changing it due to its age.

@NovaKill4 Thanks again, at this stage it'll just be 1080p gaming - might upgrade to a 1440p in a few years when it's less expensive.

pastymuncher · 2 May 2019 at 18:49

Your 4770k in that motherboard (I had one with a 4790k in it) should hit at least 4.4Ghz with decent cooling.

EsaT · 2 May 2019 at 19:53

There's total of seven various TX650 models to choose from and for their release time all should have been good for the money.
Though all but latest have seriously outdated efficiency and design.
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page447.htm

So with likely quite low fan speed PSU would run warmer.
Also other thing possibly making PSU run hot would be antiquated case with PSU on top as case exhaust.
If that's the case (in both meanings) that's what should be upgraded first.

Double07 · 3 May 2019 at 04:39

Ground7even said:
Hi all,

I am looking to upgrade my PC (probably in stages because I'm financialy challenged)
Last upgraded it in October 2013 xD

I'm looking to start off with my Graphics Card - I only tend to use my PC for gaming and minor work projects using MC packages and photo editing.

I originally built my PC with the help of a friend who's now 200+ miles away, so any help you could give me would be really appreciated.

I want to upgrade to a fairly decent Geforce RTX 2060 - around about the £350 mark, but I'm not even sure if my current specs would support this new part - could anyone advise?

Here are my current specs;

Gainward GeForce GTX 770 Phantom 4GB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Intel i7-4770K 3.5GHZ (Haswell) LGA1150 Processor
Asus Z87 Maximus VI Hero Intel Z87 (Socket 1150)DDR3 ATX Motherboard
Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHZ Dual Channel Memory
Corsair 650w TX Series w/120mm fan
Noctua NH-D14 Dual Radiator CPU Cooler
Viewsonic VA2213W 22" TFT 300cd/m2 16000:1 5ms

I have the 2060 and until I recently changed to AMD I had a 4690k so pretty similar CPU in terms of gaming performance at least, and I can say that for the most part the CPU did very well and I game @ 1440p so its probably fairly representative of what you are thinking of. Had my motherboard not died and forced a change in hardware I would have been happy to carry on with the 1150 CPU and 2060, at least until the new Ryzen CPUs come up in a couple of months.

Ground7even · 8 May 2019 at 15:07

pastymuncher said:
Your 4770k in that motherboard (I had one with a 4790k in it) should hit at least 4.4Ghz with decent cooling.

@pastymuncher thanks for the advice - will have a nosey at passing the 3.9 mark this week

EsaT said:
There's total of seven various TX650 models to choose from and for their release time all should have been good for the money.
Though all but latest have seriously outdated efficiency and design.
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page447.htm

So with likely quite low fan speed PSU would run warmer.
Also other thing possibly making PSU run hot would be antiquated case with PSU on top as case exhaust.
If that's the case (in both meanings) that's what should be upgraded first.

@EsaT can't remember off the top off my head - it was a CM Storm Scout case I remember that much - will have a nosey and if it is I'll start saving for an upgrade, thanks!

Double07 said:
I have the 2060 and until I recently changed to AMD I had a 4690k so pretty similar CPU in terms of gaming performance at least, and I can say that for the most part the CPU did very well and I game @ 1440p so its probably fairly representative of what you are thinking of. Had my motherboard not died and forced a change in hardware I would have been happy to carry on with the 1150 CPU and 2060, at least until the new Ryzen CPUs come up in a couple of months.

@Double07 specs sound similar - great to know, gives me a bit of reassurance my CPU won't be bottling me - only 1080p for me so I'm hoping it should max out most games for a while at least. Sucks about your motherboard, always happens at the worst time.

EsaT · 8 May 2019 at 21:34

Ground7even said:
@EsaT can't remember off the top off my head - it was a CM Storm Scout case I remember that much - will have a nosey and if it is I'll start saving for an upgrade, thanks!

That case has PSU on bottom.
Coolermaster was one of case manufacturers who started moving PSU systematically to bottom earlier than most.

But rear exhaust fan's mesh could use cutting it away and putting there standard finger guard.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CoolerMaster/Storm_Scout/3.html
That causes notably more turbulence noise while decreasing airflow.

pastymuncher · 9 May 2019 at 09:31

Regarding the Storm Scout, it is a decent case and can be made much better with a little modding. As EsaT mentions above, cutting the rear exhaust fan mesh out and replacing it with a normal fan grill helps it get rid of a lot more air. I did several other mods to mine such as drilling out the rivets on the lower drive cage so that it can be removed to allow much better airflow from the front intake fan. The hdd's were mounted in the top cage with 3.5"-5.25" adaptors. I also added a extra 120mm fan in the top cage which was secured by cable ties. I modded the top to take a Akasa 180mm fan. This involved removal of the plastic trim and cutting out the mesh and enlarging the whole as well as making the vent's in the plastic much longer. I was having problems with gpu vrm cooling at the time as I only used core only blocks back then so I got a sheet of acrylic and made a new window panel. I then got a Coolermaster 200mm fan and figured out where it would cool the best and marked the position out on the window. I then very carefully cut the hole for the fan (took two attempts as I cracked the first one). I got hold of a 200mm filter for the fan which mounted on the outside and the fan bolts went through it to secure it. It looked pretty good and the mods I made had the desired effect of dropping temps in the case significantly.

Danny75 · 9 May 2019 at 09:54

Did the rear exhaust mod on my Phantom 820 as well a few years ago. Nasty, with some pliers and more twisting than "cutting", but it came off. Cut down on noise, rear fan blowing right onto metal grill is one of the worst offenders. Shaved a couple of degrees off too, despite having a H100i exhausting out the top at the time. Now with an air cooler pointing at the rear, I imagine it's even more beneficial.

The Corsair 540 Air came with the "mod" already and old-style ring fan guard and was one of the reasons that case has such good airflow. Don't understand why manufacturers continue to insist on metal grill.

Plec · 9 May 2019 at 10:19

Danny75 said:
Don't understand why manufacturers continue to insist on metal grill.

Agreed, even the premium 'silent cases' have them - i'm guessing it's cheaper to laser cut/paint an all-in-one grill along with the rest of the cut outs - plus aesthetics probably play an unnecessary role too.

It pee's me off as i may have to dremel my brand new case (Zen 2 build) as it will almost definitely have an over-engineered grill that will be my only vent :/

Ground7even · 9 May 2019 at 16:27

@EsaT @pastymuncher thanks for the aboive advice, tried to OC my i7 4770k past 3.9 to 4.3 last night - getting avg 93c max 98c w/Prime95 so might have to look into cutting the rear exhaust mesh and maybe a fresh thermal compound as well. Could finally be time for water-cooling o_O

Plec · 9 May 2019 at 16:38

Ground7even said:
@EsaT @pastymuncher thanks for the aboive advice, tried to OC my i7 4770k past 3.9 to 4.3 last night - getting avg 93c max 98c w/Prime95 so might have to look into cutting the rear exhaust mesh and maybe a fresh thermal compound as well. Could finally be time for water-cooling o_O

What have you got strapped to the top of that CPU?

Cutting the rear mesh isn't going to make a significant dent on those 'very high' temps - something else is amiss (what was the vCore at 4.3GHz?). A CPU refit may if it's not making full contact with the heatsink or compound has dried out.

What are your temps at stock settings at idle and load? Also, how are you going about your clock?

Danny75 · 9 May 2019 at 16:40

What voltage (Vcore) are you using? It's not an "auto OC" is it?

EsaT · 9 May 2019 at 17:59

Ground7even said:
@EsaT @pastymuncher thanks for the aboive advice, tried to OC my i7 4770k past 3.9 to 4.3 last night - getting avg 93c max 98c w/Prime95 so might have to look into cutting the rear exhaust mesh and maybe a fresh thermal compound as well. Could finally be time for water-cooling o_O

NH-D14 would likely beat most waterpipe coolers in cooling performance per noise.
So save those moneys for something actually useful, because something else is amiss.
Could be bubblegum/toothpaste Intel put under the heatspreader going bad.
Or then voltage fed to CPU is aproaching dangerous level.

Plec said:
Agreed, even the premium 'silent cases' have them - i'm guessing it's cheaper to laser cut/paint an all-in-one grill along with the rest of the cut outs - plus aesthetics probably play an unnecessary role too.

Word premium in adds stands for premium profits.
And laser cutting would cost, so bet they're stamped always when material is thin enough for that.
(unless production volume is too small for tooling costs)