PC Gaming Upgrade Advice

[Personal Social]

Hi all,

I'm looking to upgrade the components of my current pc to a reasonably light weight gaming pc. Here is my current spec:

Packard Bell IXtreme M5801
Intel Core i3 3.20GHz
6GB DDR3 RAM
nVidia GeForce GT 420
1TB SATA HDD

I am on a tight budget so not looking to spend too much. Something around £150 would be ideally. My guess is that all I'd need to buy is a new ram, gpu and power supply, but not 100% sure what to invest in.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Personal Social]

To upgrade that system, for general use, I would upgrade to SSD. Hard drives are so slow.

▷ WD Blue 3D NAND 1TB 2.5" SATA 6Gbps Solid Sta… | OcUK (overclockers.co.uk)-£94.99

For that budget, not much else to do. DDR 3 is now 7 plus years out of date, dual cores are now replaced by quad cores as the minimum, an SSD will be silent in use, work on Sata 1/2/3 and will give some speed to your system.

Regarding a PSU, a good gold rated 80 plus PSU will cost over £50.00. Below is an example PSU.

▷ be quiet! Pure Power 11 500W 80 Plus Gold Pow… | OcUK (overclockers.co.uk)-£62.99

Oh and these two items could carry over to a new system, when you have more budget.

Will the above PSU work for my system? I wouldn't mind second hand.

 

[Personal Social]

Depends if he buys second hand GPU, eg easy to pick up one that requires 2 pcie 8 pins and over 200 watts. With £150 I would buy a new psu and a second hand GPU like a nvidia 760/770. Yes long in the tooth but great if you play older games like LOTRO

Second hand is fine for me. Considering how old my system is, I'm not really expecting new parts.

Is a PSU and GPU all I need? Would upgrading ram benefit performance? Sorry for the silly questions, I'm a complete noob and not too sure what is worth paying for.

 

[Personal Social]

I suspect that the best outcome is that you should be able to pick up a 2nd hand nvidia 730 and swap it for the 420. Save the rest of your money towards a console or a new laptop/desktop for when this system packs up or can't do what you want.

Ok this prob makes sense. I'm assuming ddr3 for the 730 if i was to invest? Would I need to upgrade the ram and psu if this was the case?