Should I upgrade or build a new PC?

Qwentalis

Qwentalis

Qwentalis

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20 Nov 2015
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Hello everyone,

I'm relatively new to PC gaming, I do play some games however, they're not very graphic demanding or require a lot of processing, games like Undertale.
I want to play games like: gMod; CS:GO; Minecraft; Amnesia and SOMA.

So, I have an old PC, it's an Optiplex 755 SFF. It's all stock except the 8gb of RAM installed and the Pentium Dual core E2200.

I have a rather small budget of £200, which I know sounds impossible to find anything good for the price of that.

I was thinking if I was upgrading the desktop I would add a GeFore GTX 750 1GB (£100) and upgrading my processor to an Intel QuadCore Q6600 (£75).

Would that be a reasonable upgrade or should I build a new PC?

Here are the specs of the PC I am willing to build:

CPU: AMD A8-7600 3.1GhZ QuadCore
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A78M
RAM: HyperX Fury 4gb
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
PSU: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply
Case: Xigmatek Recon ATX Mid Tower Case

-- All this I can get for just £200, I know there's know GPU however I may be able to get more money soon to buy one, but I heard the APU's graphics are good enough.

That's my original plan. But I was reading on overclockers about "bare bones PC", should I get one of those and add the parts?


What's the best option?
Thanks in advance :D
 
Im also looking to upgrade my PC. Its nearly 8 years old and my processor is a Q6600. On that basis alone id recommend you build something more up to date. :D
 
uber soldat said:
Im also looking to upgrade my PC. Its nearly 8 years old and my processor is a Q6600. On that basis alone id recommend you build something more up to date. :D
Click to expand...

Hi mate
I'm still using that CPU, great in its day but now seems slow for encoding etc. I'm torn between Skylake and a 5820k.

Cheers
S
 
get the best low profile graphics card the dell power supply can take and max the ram out if you havent already done so and see what the cpu support is :).

i had the 620 gx(had a 755, but too small for cards) and i had 3.5gb ram, hd2400, pentium D and i used to mostly play Hitman Bloody money on max, granted not a demanding game, but an E350 APU struggled lol..

as for the build you said for £200, if you eager to replace then that's not a bad setup, would look around first make sure that is the best for the money though as you can buy old q6600 gaming builds for much less, which is another point, instead of buying a q6600 and gtx 750, buy a 1150 board with cpu like the G range or i3 and look at the TI 750 otherwise AMD equivalent.
 
I'm not familiar with some of the titles you listed. What performance do you want to run those games at? 60fps on a single 1080p monitor?

I have an older rig that I'm struggling to justify upgrading because it will run older titles that I've not gotten around to playing yet. Eg baldurs gate 2. I might need to upgrade for fallout 3 or dragon age origins.not sure yet. CS Go sounds like an interesting upgrade from CS Source too.

My rig details are in in my sig.

The key question is what do you want your rig to do. 2nd hand parts can be good value if you only want to play the older titles at 1080p on a single monitor.
 
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sdfuk said:
Hi mate
I'm still using that CPU, great in its day but now seems slow for encoding etc. I'm torn between Skylake and a 5820k.

Cheers
S
Click to expand...

get a 5820k 6core on black friday. Should be able to get a whole bundle (cpu,ram,motherboard) for £500 if i remember correctly, bundle might include more im not too sure.

But with the 5820k, it runs hot so get a cpu watercooler. All in ones are simple and in most cases just clip on.


But to be fair, if you're just casual gaming etc just get an old i7-2600k, plenty being sold these days and they're still epic
 
crashNburn said:
get the best low profile graphics card the dell power supply can take and max the ram out if you havent already done so and see what the cpu support is :).
Click to expand...

The Q6600 is pretty much the best CPU the 755's motherboard can handle; I already have the maximum RAM installed.

The only favourable GPUs I could find on the market are the Sapphire Radeon R7 2GB and the GTX 750 1GB
 
Sorry, but when I googled the Optiflex 755 SFF what I saw was two slots, images of that PC's rear showing a GPU in the upper slot so if nothing occupies the lower slot I thought a dual card would fit.

A better case is under £30, so maybe budget that instead? As personally the cheapest smallest wattage card capable of gaming is a 2GB 750 ti dual slot card, and every recommended budget card around £100 to £150 is either dual slot or requires a better PSU than your office PC will have.

With a better case you can upgrade your PSU and not be limited to using the cheapest single slot budget GPU available. Even an AMD 380 could be aimed for, though possibly not all on your budget. It also leaves you open for future upgrades.

Edit, having just read a little more, is it not also a low profile GPU IE not full width, and does the unit only have a 275w PSU? If that is the case then you have little option but to look at a cheaper single slot low profile GPU designed to run of a PCI-E slot power and I am afraid they are usually not suitable for gaming. Or to start again, though your budget is limited.

My opinion would be to get a case, and a PSU, and maybe rebuild the old machine into that or just start saving and building, I would rather have an Intel G3258 or i3 (usually around £300 to £400 for a budget game system) than an AMD build, nor do I see enough performance from integrated GPU's to warrant then for anything other than occasional low quality games during office work luls.
 
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