Need upgrade help

chris247uk · 24 May 2020 at 23:06

Hi, I've been wondering whether I should just buy a entirely new gaming PC or just spend as little money as possible and upgrade my current one.. and yeah the second option sounds more appealing.. Here's my gaming pc spec,

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz
MSI NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
Asus Maximus VII Ranger Motherboard
8 GB DDR3 HYPERX SAVAGE 2133Mhz
Thermaltake Toughpower DPS G 750watt psu 80plus gold < is this enough power?
Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB
2TB HDD
Windows 10 64bit

So yeah, just looking at it I'm guessing I need to upgrade my RAM and graphics card.. I guess I just need help with those things? Can anyone suggest a decent but significant upgrade to the GTX 970 that's in a sort of cheap price range? Also I'm having issues finding that exact same RAM module.. I was going to add 8gb of the savage stuff but I can only find it from China ebay or at lower Mhzs, anyone know of a good place to get DDR3 ram? Also can I mix and match ram modules on my motherboard? Or will that cause issues? Should I be aiming for 32gb ram or is 16gb enough? Is there any other hardware I can improve on? Thanks.

doopydug · 24 May 2020 at 23:20

I have a poorer spec than that in one of my rigs - however, I have 16GB of ram and most games play quite well at 1080P - the 970 is surprising for its age

bagel · 25 May 2020 at 01:18

What's your reason to upgrade? I.e what do you want to do that you can't now

chris247uk · 25 May 2020 at 01:49

bagel said:
What's your reason to upgrade? I.e what do you want to do that you can't now

Good question.. had to think about that one for a moment.. I suppose I just want to play the latest games on the max settings, I'm seeing a lot of modern games lately that require recommended specs of 16GB+ ram and I'm seeing graphics cards that have gone 2 generations ahead of mine. Had this PC for something like 4-5 years now, figured I'm due for an upgrade? Maybe? I'm usually playing games on consoles but it would be nice to have a beefy gaming pc on the side. But if people think the 970 is still great, I suppose I'll stick with it.

Screenbeat · 25 May 2020 at 03:14

Is only having 8gig a problem? Upgrade the gpu and your good to go.

Depends what you are trying to achieve. Get a 1070 and another 8gig then your good

bagel · 25 May 2020 at 11:25

chris247uk said:
Good question.. had to think about that one for a moment.. I suppose I just want to play the latest games on the max settings, I'm seeing a lot of modern games lately that require recommended specs of 16GB+ ram and I'm seeing graphics cards that have gone 2 generations ahead of mine. Had this PC for something like 4-5 years now, figured I'm due for an upgrade? Maybe? I'm usually playing games on consoles but it would be nice to have a beefy gaming pc on the side. But if people think the 970 is still great, I suppose I'll stick with it.

I'd say it mainly depends on the resolution and refresh rate of your monitor - If it's 1080p/60Hz i'd say your system is going to be fine for a while running 60fps, and going for something like a 1660 super would allow you to up your settings on newer games. If it's 144Hz and/or higher resolution you'd probably want to look at a more substantial upgrade