Potential upgrade to old PC - suggestions?

Sudden

Sudden

Sudden

Soldato
Joined
15 Nov 2005
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Location
London
My current PC is about 8 years old now, barring a couple of upgrades along the way so been toying with the idea of an upgrade. Not desperate for one since my day to day isn't hampered and the few games I play at the moment (Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition; older games) run fine.

It does stop me however from trying out new stuff that I want to like Outer Worlds and other stuff on the PC Gamepass. Some of the older games I play occasionnaly (Witcher 3, Titanfall 2) also don't run on full/ultra since I got a new monitor either which isn't the end of the world, but would be nice.

Given the current state of GFX cards, is there any point in doing a upgrade here? Or am I better off just waiting for some time? I don't have a set budget as such - most bang for buck really and what would give me a significant upgrade. Maybe something up to £750? Happy to spend less or more though if it would mean a significant ugprade, but equally happy to just wait until gfx cards settle down if it won't be possible to get any meaningful upgrade without it.

Can re-use anything that people think is still fine!

Current set-up:
  • Sappphire Radeon RX 570 Nitro+ 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
  • Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW)
  • Anidees AI-6BS Midi Tower Silenced Case - Black
  • Corsair Vengeance Pro Red 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C9 2133MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (CMY8GX3M2B2133C9R)
  • Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD
  • 850W Seasonic X-Series SS-850KM Ful
  • Gigabyte Z87X-OC Motherboard (Socket 1150, Z87 Express, DDR3, S-ATA 600, ATX, Haswell, Supports 4thGeneration IntelCore Processors, GIGABYTE UEFI Dual BIOS)
  • Noctua NH-D14, Premium CPU Cooler with Dual NF-P14 PWM and NF-P12 PWM Fans (Brown)
  • Intel Core i5 4670K Quad Core Retail CPU (Socket 1150, 3.40GHz, 6MB, Haswell, 84W, Intel Graphics, BX80646I74770, 4th Generation Intel Core, Turbo Boost Technology 2.0)
  • Old monitor was 24" one at 1920 x 1200, but recently got an ultrade wide through work which is a Dell 3440 x 1440. Don't know how long I'll have this for or what the eventual replacement will be since I won't go back to 24" one, but it'll be a similar size or smaller.
 
The only sensible GPU upgrade with current prices would be to set up alerts and try get a 3060Ti FE £369 / 3070FE £469 then if you manage that sell the rx570 and add the cash from that to the left over of the £750 for a new CPU / mb / ram etc.
 
Bumping this up again as I think Graphic cards are a bit more available. Nothing has changed in the above specs, but wondering if suggestions would still be to try and get one of the FE cards (over the others) or anyone had any suggestions/ideas.

Just loaded up Tropico 5 to play and my poor computer seemed to be struggling even with the charachter creation scene in the beginning on anything other than 'low'. The monitor and resolution is a big part of it, since it wasn't an issue with the same set-up earlier, but I don't see myself going back down to a smaller monitor :cry:, so that prompted searching back for this thread and the bumping ^_^
 
Sudden said:
Bumping this up again as I think Graphic cards are a bit more available. Nothing has changed in the above specs, but wondering if suggestions would still be to try and get one of the FE cards (over the others) or anyone had any suggestions/ideas.

Just loaded up Tropico 5 to play and my poor computer seemed to be struggling even with the charachter creation scene in the beginning on anything other than 'low'. The monitor and resolution is a big part of it, since it wasn't an issue with the same set-up earlier, but I don't see myself going back down to a smaller monitor :cry:, so that prompted searching back for this thread and the bumping ^_^
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You've waited so long you might as well wait for the new cards at this point :o The 6700 non-xt is the biggest difference to the 'value' market at that (300-400 for an FE) price range.
 
So....new cards out now :) Anyone have any suggestions for cards/new builds? Happy to increase budget if it'll get me good value!
 
Sudden said:
So....new cards out now :) Anyone have any suggestions for cards/new builds? Happy to increase budget if it'll get me good value!
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There's nothing new in the midrange lower-high-end market really (at least, not yet), the only development within your budget is that the 6800/6800 XT/6900 XT and 6950 XT have all had some price cuts / deals. Not sure what Gibbo's current deal is.
 
Sudden said:
So....new cards out now :) Anyone have any suggestions for cards/new builds? Happy to increase budget if it'll get me good value!
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Can forget about good value with the new stuff right now everything is way over priced as they want to keep the crypto prices going.

Next year will likely see some decent price cuts as most people are just not buying right now so they will need to start dropping prices to move stock.
 
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Not looking for good value on the new cards, just for whatever it is I should get to upgrade my current build which is pretty old at this point. Most bang for buck etc. I'm happy to spend more than my initial budget I'd it means I get better value.

Thanks Tetras. So should it be a build around one of the cards you mentioned? Or is there any reason to wait? if one of the above, could someone spec me a build/upgrade? :)
 
£1000 build .

32gb of memory could be droped to 16gb and then up the you yo a 6750xt.

My basket at OcUK:
Total: £1,029.80 (includes delivery: £14.10)​
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Sudden said:
Thanks Tetras. So should it be a build around one of the cards you mentioned? Or is there any reason to wait? if one of the above, could someone spec me a build/upgrade? :)
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Personally I'm not excited about any of those options, but Gibbo's specials have been very popular, so somebody is :o

To be fair, even a 6600 would be a big upgrade on a 570, so if you went for e.g. a RX 6800 for £550, it would be a huge jump.
 
Thank you both!

It would be good to be able to play my existing things (mainly thinking of Witcher 3 now with the new graphics upgrade) on ultra on my monitors resolution. Will the above spec let me? Or should it be higher?
 
Thank you both! It's been very helpful. I was talking to a friend as well, and he was suggesting going AM5 for not that much more and allow for a bit of future-proofing. Given that, how would this look? I've kind of guessed at most of them based on brand I know and price, but would love any views on if I should be looking at different things, either entirely or just better price/performance ratios. Or if this is a waste and I should stick with AM4. Thought I could re-use my current case, cooler and PSU, unless something wouldn't work for the below. I like the look of my case, compared to some of the others - that would be the main reason.

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £1,230.05 (includes delivery: £11.10)​



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Sudden said:
Thank you both! It's been very helpful. I was talking to a friend as well, and he was suggesting going AM5 for not that much more and allow for a bit of future-proofing. Given that, how would this look? I've kind of guessed at most of them based on brand I know and price, but would love any views on if I should be looking at different things, either entirely or just better price/performance ratios. Or if this is a waste and I should stick with AM4. Thought I could re-use my current case, cooler and PSU, unless something wouldn't work for the below. I like the look of my case, compared to some of the others - that would be the main reason.
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Nothing much to complain about there, since you opened this thread the new things are:
- 7600/7700/7900 non-X
- 13th gen non-K
- B760 for 13th gen
- A620 for AM5 due soon

A B760 DDR4/i5-13500 build would be less expensive, but according to the review hardware unboxed did, the i5-13500 needs DDR5 to compete with the 7600 (and those boards aren't cheap).
 
A couple of tweaks to your idea.

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £1,228.94 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

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As you are intertested in a bit of future proofing its a x670e board with pcie-5. No use atm but could be in the future.
6000mhz ram is the sweet spot ofr ram for am5.
 
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Thank you everyone - and thanks freddie for the noctua info. Wasn't aware at all. Brilliant they are doing free mounting kits!
So been researching/tweaking more, and have gone back to AM4 build - decided to go with that with a few potential tweaks to mickeyflinn's initial proposal. Any suggestions/tweaks to this anyone has? Have I picked any brands where I'm better off goign with something else? Was particularly unsure about the motherboard (compared to the MSI Tomahawk or going x570) and the RAM - Haven't used TeamGroup before, but struggling to find anything else like Crucial or Corsair which is C16 and 3600mhz, which I hear is the sweet spot.

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £1,038.04 (includes delivery: £11.10)​

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And would reuse existing PSU, case, fan cooler and existing SSD and HDD. Nothing I hope is incompatible with the above!​
 
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