Upgrade help

Mother of geeks

Mother of geeks

Mother of geeks

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Joined
27 Jul 2019
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8
My 14 year old son wants to upgrade his gaming pc and rather than get a new one, he wants to do it himself. His current build is-

Consisting of:-
EBAY-BRB-029 1
Ebay INTA Blue BRB
CPU0334U 0
OEM: Intel Core i3 (4170)
CLR0931 1
Intel Heatsink/Fan for
RAM1587 1
Kingston ValueRAM 8GB (1x
HDD1319 1
Seagate Barracuda 1TB
VGA2260 1
PALIT 2GB GEFORCE GTX
NET0312 1
ASUS PCE-N15 300Mbps PCI-
MIT3CR 1
CCL3CR - 3 year Collect
CPU0334 1
Intel Core i3-4170

He is looking at a gtx 6gb 1060 graphics card or Rx 580. We are aware that he will also need a new CPU and motherboard but would it be possible to upgrade this pc using these parts? And what would you recommend in terms of CPU and motherboard upgrades. He will be using his birthday money to build so budget is around £300 give or take? Also would you recommend letting a 14 yr old build his own pc? Thanks all
 
Your socket is old (1150) but still viable. An i7-4770 or i7-4790 will work and can be had for reasonable money 2nd hand, still good for all the latest games.

Something like an i5-4460 is almost an upgrade, but I would skip any old i5 at this point and go straight to i7, as even the i5's are limiting in the latest games.

You could spend a third on the aforementioned i7, and then 200 would cover a GTX1660, which is the best card in that price range, the RX580 is considerably slower.

If your RAM is 1x8GB stick, get another 8GB to match. Running a single stick of RAM can also cause performance loss in some games, varying from insignificant to very significant.

There is no point talking about new motherboard/CPU as that would require new RAM also, your budget of 300 is way too small to cover a GPU, CPU, motherboard and RAM.
 
My first concern is the PSU will be garabage to accomodate any newer and more power hungry GPU, your spec indicates it's from the bay, so it will not be any good...

If he upgrades the GPU to something like a 1060 or RX 580 - his CPU is going to bottleneck it and not be an enjoyable experience as it should be...

Ideally he needs a bigger budget (£500-600 be more realistic) or to save more (unless dad/mum can help him) to upgrade properly, but he'll likely need new everything... CPU, mobo, RAM, power supply, graphics card and SSD are in dire need. At this point you may as well get him a nicer case too :D

* The PSU will be garbage, your spec indicates it's from the bay
* SSD is needed in this day and age to appreciate a new PC fully, you could use the Seagate 1TB as storage still
* CPU and 1150 socket is too old to upgrade, you could get a used i7-4x chip as @Terrorfirmer mentions they are still good chips, but again it's the PSU that is a concern to me

Also nothing wrong with the lad building a PC at 14yo, I was 13yo when I built my first rig. You could always help and supervise, you might find it a wonderful parent moment ;)
 
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Thank you both for your replies, I have been looking into this for a while and find it so complex. His current pc from eBay was built by CCL which seems a decent company. Would it be possible to build in stages and possibly get the i7 chip, the 1660 GPU, another stick of ram and a new PSU, then after Christmas he could possibly get the CPU, motherboard, SSD and case? Many thanks
 
Could you find out what PSU he has?

If you upgrade to more RAM now he'd need DDR3 and the new build will be a different type of RAM (DDR4) is redundant quite quickly.

Compatibility becomes an issue with quite old tech and unfortunately it often ends up becoming full new builds required.

But by all means you could grab a used i7, it's just investing more money into an old platform you'll need to sell if he then does a full upgrade after.
 
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Yeah it's not the worst, but it's a fairly bad PSU looking on comments elsewhere... I wouldn't trust that with a relatively new GPU personally.

Your choice if want to find a used 1150 CPU - something like the 4770, 4770K, 4790 or 4790K would be better.

GPU wise, if you're set on 1060 or RX 580 - I'd go for the 1060 it uses less power, you want to strain the 'bleh' psu as little as possible... :p

RAM if you're bothering to upgrade this, I'd try find a cheap and cheerful 16gb DDR3 dual channel kit.
 
Sparx said:
Yeah it's not the worst, but it's a fairly bad PSU looking on comments elsewhere...
Click to expand...
@Sparx is being diplomatic - that's a terrible PSU - whatever components you/he decide on i would try and save/find the funds to get a semi-decent PSU.

There's a strong chance that PSU would spit it's dummy out if you connected it up to the proposed components listed - and, if it did, the hope would be it will only top itself and not take any of the new hardware with it.
 
@Mother of geeks to clarify what @Plec and @Sparx said, a poor PSU has the possibility of destroying ALL the other components inside the PC by outputting the wrong current. A decent PSU will cost you about £50 and can be transferred to a new PC.

If you do decide to get a 4770 or 4970 don't bother with the K models as the motherboard you almost certainly won't support overclocking.

You might consider saving some money to put to a PSU by upgrading to a RX 570 rather than a 580. To put the various PC gaming performance grades in perspective, watch this video:

 
Thanks everyone I have looked on cex as a guide and the i7 4790 is £120, a gtx 1060 is £160 or rx570 £110 an 8gb ddr3 is £20 which comes to £250-£300 plus around £50 for a new PSU is definitely doable. Would it still be 500w he would need?
 
Be careful buying from CEX. They are charging new prices for the GPUs:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £329.08 (includes shipping: £11.10)
​

8 GB RAM for £20, however, is reasonable, but be sure to check that it matches what is already there. £120 for the 4790 is the going rate. Make sure you are NOT buying the K variant as these may have been overclocked and mistreated.

I've quickly specced up a £500 build. Just transfer the SSD & HDD across. You may need a new Windows license key which is available cheaply elsewhere. You might also be able to re-use your current case (saving £30).

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £510.24 (includes shipping: £12.30)
​

You're paying £20 more for a far better CPU but also have to pay £130 for the motherboard and RAM.
 
I believe the i3 4170 was from the original Haswell launch so a Haswell refresh/Devils Canyon cpu such as the 4790 will probably need a motherboard bios flash before the cpu will work. This needs to be done with your current cpu.

With regards to the psu. I have a reputation on here for not beating around the bush when it comes to poor quality psu's. I just don't see any point in dodging around the issue when the psu, argueably the most important component in a pc is of poor quality and a risk to every component in the pc. Sadly yours is about as poor as they come. It is complete and utter garbage and only fit for the bin. They can be picked up for as little as £13.99 so the sellers probably pick them up for a fiver (or less) each. That so called 500w psu has a pathetic 12v rail of only 264w and I very much doubt if it could even deliver that much. Any decent modern psu should be able to deliver all or near enough all of it's power on the 12v rail where it's needed most. Efficiency is abysmal too at only around 70%. There is no quality at all in that psu and it needs to be replaced as soon as possible and definately when you carry out these upgrades.

Personally I wouldn't be spending any money on that system. It just needs too much spending on it to make it better and it still won't be as good as a modern pc. I would bite the bullet and go for a new build such as the one Quartz has posted above. I would spend a extra £6 on the psu though and go for the much better Bitfenix Formula Series 550w at £66.95.
 
That PSU is a fire hazard. I wouldn't trust it in an office PC.

Don't buy from CEX. Dunno about the UK but here in Ireland they do test GPUs but nothing else. They just take in CPUs, RAM, HDDs, etc with zero testing and sell them. I'd say from buying a fair amount of all 3 (because I live beside a CEX store) the failure rate is about 50%, literally.

Remember going in there once with a dead stick of RAM I'd just bought and the guy took it out of the packaging, smelt it, and said "strange, doesn't smell faulty".

Last time I bought anything from them after that.
 
Sparx said:
Yeah it's not the worst, but it's a fairly bad PSU looking on comments elsewhere...
Click to expand...

Plec said:
@Sparx is being diplomatic - that's a terrible PSU - whatever components you/he decide on i would try and save/find the funds to get a semi-decent PSU.
Click to expand...

Quartz said:
@Mother of geeks to clarify what @Plec and @Sparx said, a poor PSU has the possibility of destroying ALL the other components inside the PC by outputting the wrong current. A decent PSU will cost you about £50 and can be transferred to a new PC.
Click to expand...

pastymuncher said:
With regards to the psu. I have a reputation on here for not beating around the bush when it comes to poor quality psu's. I just don't see any point in dodging around the issue when the psu, argueably the most important component in a pc is of poor quality and a risk to every component in the pc. Sadly yours is about as poor as they come.
Click to expand...

Terrorfirmer said:
That PSU is a fire hazard. I wouldn't trust it in an office PC.
Click to expand...

I hope the message is getting across. :)
 
Wow, thanks for all the responses. I'm guessing I need a new PSU sharpish . If we go for a full build we have only really looked at Intel as I find AMD difficult to understand, would there be any compatability issues with the Ryzen and his current 1tb storage or his steam games?
 
The Mortar will take Zen 2 comfortably if you were to upgrade in the future (BIOS issues will be sorted then) - and the 3700X would be a nice bump when more cores may be needed. You could sub out the 8Gb 570 for the a 4Gb version and save an additional £30...

EDIT: @Quartz has done a very similar build - but will leave this here as it should reinforce that you can get a lot of performance for a relatively modest outlay.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £516.90 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​
 
Hi again, we have decided to go with the upgrade, got the extra ram, i7 4790, Rx 570 8gb, SSD and new case, just struggling to find a PSU for the £50-£60 mark. The ones mentioned above have a £10.50 delivery charge which takes the price over budget, can anyone recommend a cheaper alternative? Many thanks.
 
Most stores are going to have a fairly similar delivery, and unfortunately we're not allowed to link to competitors on OCUK so we can't really point you elsewhere.

I'd suggest looking for a 500-600w Gold Rated PSU for around the £60 mark, it could be worth checking to see if there's any local hardware stores where you could physically pick the unit up to avoid delivery fees. If you do spot one locally check in here first and we can let you know if it's worth getting.

It's also worth seeing if you can check out via Amazon through OCUK, I've heard some people mention that it allows them to get free delivery but it's not something I've tried myself.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £75.49 (includes shipping: £10.50)
​

This PSU is an absolute steal at the moment if the Amazon check-out works.
 
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