Looking to upgrade pc to play games comfortably

SilentShinobi

SilentShinobi

SilentShinobi

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4 Apr 2020
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5
I currently have a Lenovo Leigon tower y520 with the general specs being:

Processor Name:Intel Core i5-7400
Graphics Card:Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 3gb
upgraded the ram to 16gb from 8gb

And i was wondering whether you know what the best ways i can upgrade the pc with a budget of 1k give or take. I heard to get a 1080 ti or 2070 superGPU is a good start but I dont quite know whether i would be required to upgrade the CPU to a i7. Also if other parts need upgrading like the motherboard or PSU to accompany this.

Kind Regards

SilentShinobi
 
It really depends on the games you want to play. The i5 is very dated and in some newer games it doesn't give a very good experience. (eg Assassins Creed, Battlefield 5)

Equally, plenty of games are not that fussy about CPU and you would gain massive benefits from upgrading the graphics alone (eg COD Modern Warfare, Apex Legends).

If you explain what your budget is and what games you want to play?
 
Do check the wattage of the PSU and the number of PCI Express power cables it has. The standard is 450W, so you should be good for any decent GPU upgrade if the PSU has the connectors. Given the limited wattage, you're better off going for Nvidia GPUs.

People are charging silly prices for i7-7700 CPUs on Fleabay, so if you need a CPU upgrade you're better off going the whole hog and switching to AMD.

Do you have a SSD? That will make the system much more responsive.

I'm going to guess that you are gaming at 1080p, so the below should provide an immediate (well, after reinstalling Windows...) balm:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £369.84 (includes shipping: £9.90)
​

If you do need a CPU upgrade, then:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £841.01 (includes shipping: £11.10)
​


Your case should be able to take a mATX motherboard and the PSU looks like a standard ATX PSU but I've left budget to cope if replacements are required. If replacements aren't required, spend the extra on a better GPU:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,031.01 (includes shipping: £11.10)
​

If you already have a SSD then upgrade to the 2070 Super.
 
Better to forget CPU upgrades.
Quad cores are all really low end by todays standards making sense as upgrade only if costing pocket money.

Also CPU power circuitry (VRM) of that motherboard is at standard market PC trash level and very minimal:
https://www.windowscentral.com/lenovo-legion-y520-tower
So it could limit i7's clock speeds and performance below benchmarks in reviews using properly designed boards+good CPU cooling.


Quartz said:
Click to expand...
That's £20 too expensive:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-b...-solid-state-drive-wds100t2b0a-hd-54j-wd.html

And for minimal budget Kingston A400 would to down to £90
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/king...state-hard-drive-sa400s37-960g-hd-10n-ks.html
 
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,019.93 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​

If you don't need Wi-Fi you could drop down to the Tomahawk Max and save £20.

Specced a new case as I can't find a decent in-stock M-ATX on the website, regardless it'll be an upgrade over your current tower anyway.

I don't know which monitor you own but the above build would be best suited to 1440P.

Honestly I'd recommend just selling your current tower, maybe put the money you get toward a nice monitor if you're still on 1080P.

You'll get good longevity out of the above system, there's room to upgrade to a 12-16c Ryzen 4000 down the line if you need more CPU power. Even if you stick with the 3700X it should still be ample for a GPU upgrade when/if you need more graphical grunt in a few years time.
 
I've looked around but there's very little data on SSD's, what little there is dates back to 2015, such as the article you linked.

Tons of stuff for HDD's.
 
Terrorfirmer said:
It really depends on the games you want to play. The i5 is very dated and in some newer games it doesn't give a very good experience. (eg Assassins Creed, Battlefield 5)

Equally, plenty of games are not that fussy about CPU and you would gain massive benefits from upgrading the graphics alone (eg COD Modern Warfare, Apex Legends).

If you explain what your budget is and what games you want to play?
Click to expand...
Well you pretty much named the pool of games i currently play. Battlefield runs fine. Cod runs okay on low or disabled but cannot have other things opened, even discord. Granted the upgraded ram a week ago allowed COD to be playable. Apex runs on mid to low. AC origins and od run mid with frame drops/ freezes once i go to an actual area. Budget is £1000 with like 200 room above if need be.
Future games like cyberpunk, the new watchdogs etc.
 
Keep in mind what is killing you right now in most games is the 3GB vram of the 1060.

You said Apex runs on mid-low for example - a 1060 will actually run the game at high-ultra perfectly fine once you set textures to low.

Same for other games. Low texture is usually around 2GB, medium can be 4GB in a lot of games, will cause serious issues on a 3GB 1060.
 
Terrorfirmer said:
Keep in mind what is killing you right now in most games is the 3GB vram of the 1060.

You said Apex runs on mid-low for example - a 1060 will actually run the game at high-ultra perfectly fine once you set textures to low.

Same for other games. Low texture is usually around 2GB, medium can be 4GB in a lot of games, will cause serious issues on a 3GB 1060.
Click to expand...
YEP X) found out the hard way thats why i thought just buying a 2070 super with higher gb might be the play but I saw that bottlenecking was a thing and PSU needs to match. Also is the Ryzen series a good cpu, everywhere i see its a better multi purpose for cheaper, but at thesame time I hear it overheats n stuff.
 
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