Looking to upgrade my PC, have never messed with computer parts before...

[Shawn789155]

Hello there!

Thanks for stopping by... My name is Shawn and I have a PC that I would love to upgrade in preparation for several games coming out this fall (mainly BFV). I have had the computer for about 4ish years now, during which I have been able to play any game I want on pretty much max settings. However, recently I began playing Rainbow Six Siege and Battlefield 1 and have not been able to set graphics to max. This made me realize that it may be time to upgrade the old computer. As such, I would very much appreciate some advice / suggestions for upgrades, as I have never messed around with computer building before (got my built comp from a friend). Also, if there is some things/info that you wished you knew but didn't when you started your own journey of upgrading your own PC, please do share!

My computer specs, obtained from a program called Speccy:

Operating System
Windows 8.1 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i5 4670K @ 3.40GHz 30 °C
Haswell 22nm Technology
RAM
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 799MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. Z87-A (SOCKET 1150) 28 °C
Graphics
S240HL (1920x1080@60Hz)
2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 (EVGA) 29 °C
Storage
223GB Seagate ST240HM000-1G5152 (SATA (SSD)) 24 °C
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 (SATA ) 27 °C
Optical Drives
ASUS DRW-24B1ST i
Audio
High Definition Audio Device

I hope that is all I need to share to start this off. Please let me know what else I can share. My goals for upgrading my PC are:

1) play BFV on "High" or higher (depending on cost) settings
2) upgrade Windows to the current version
3) essentially continue to be able to play any game for the next few years I want on "Max" or "High" settings

Thank you and have a wonderful day!

Sincerely,

Shawn

 

[Shawn789155]

Hello everyone! Thanks for all the information so far, lots to digest.

I have a Corsair - RM 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply. I have no idea what any of that means though... Does this need replacing, especially if I decide to upgrade the GPU to say something like 1060 or 1070, maybe even a 1080?

And I am not sure if I can upgrade the CPU, since that would require getting new RAM, motherboard, etc... The budget I had in mind is like $1000 bucks (£762.80 according to Google; also have no idea if this is low or high for custom computer upgrades). I've also thought about simply upgrading this PC a bit (like just RAM and GPU - I've actually ordered 8 GB more RAM identical to what I have now) and then saving a bunch and maybe building a complete new comp in a year or so... (is that normal? I thought one of the beauties of having your own built computer is being able to upgrade/exchange parts, but it seems the CPU restricts this with the RAM and motherboard requirements???).

Regarding overclocking, I have no idea what that is or how to go about doing that... my CPU cooler is a Cooler Master - Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing. Could I overclock with that?

Finally, upgrading Windows... is upgrading from Windows 8 to 10 as simple as buying the product key and installing? I have been nervous of doing this having a custom built computer, wasn't sure if it would mess with anything? When you say make sure to have everything from my SSD backed up, does this simply mean any saved files on my computer that I want to keep should be put somewhere else temporarily (like a large USB drive or external hard drive)? Regarding unplugging drives, what do you mean by this? Like I have a Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive. Would I need to somehow uninstall this from the inside of the computer prior to upgrading Windows?

I apologize if my questions are really naive! Thank you all again for the information, I really appreciate all your guy's help!

Cheers,

Shawn