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Upgrade or buy new system?

dmurray0

dmurray0

dmurray0

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Joined
20 Jan 2006
Posts
46
Hi,

Posting on behalf of my son who has a 2 year old PC. Specs are :

GPU- GXT970
CPU: Intel i5 - 3570 @ 3.40ghz
RAM: - 8gb DDR3 (2 x 4gb Corsair Vengeance)
PSU: Kolink KL-600 80 Plus bronze 600W
Board: Intel dq77cp
Monitor: Acer S271HL

He plays the like of Apex, Overwatch etc and was wanted a better refresh rate. He was thinking of doubling up the RAM and getting a new card and a 144hz monitor. Would the PSU etc be ok if he did, or is he better getting a whole new system? Any recommendations for card upgrade too, budget probably £400 for card.

Many thanks.
 
I would upgrade the PSU, they don't really have good feedback and components inside of them are not as reliable as many other PSU in its price range...

If your looking at £400 just for a graphics card, you can get a 5700XT but that will require a system update for sure otherwise you'll be bottlenecking the GPU
 
If you're wanting 144Hz, I'd try and score a Ryzen system. You could take a Ryzen 1600AF and upgrade the chip further down the line, but the Ryzen 1600AF is basically a Ryzen 2600 and would be a sound starting point.

And I agree with Minibiker, that Kolink PSU would need changing out for a good Corsair or Seasonic unit.
 
dmurray0 said:
Hi,

Posting on behalf of my son who has a 2 year old PC. Specs are :

GPU- GXT970
CPU: Intel i5 - 3570 @ 3.40ghz
RAM: - 8gb DDR3 (2 x 4gb Corsair Vengeance)
PSU: Kolink KL-600 80 Plus bronze 600W
Board: Intel dq77cp
Monitor: Acer S271HL

He plays the like of Apex, Overwatch etc and was wanted a better refresh rate. He was thinking of doubling up the RAM and getting a new card and a 144hz monitor. Would the PSU etc be ok if he did, or is he better getting a whole new system? Any recommendations for card upgrade too, budget probably £400 for card.

Many thanks.
Click to expand...

Overwatch is all about the cpu. The 970 is plenty good enough but that i5 will be holding you back a lot.

There is no point upgrading your ivy bridge. I would get a cheap ryzen 6 core and cheap board, it will be so much smoother

dmurray0 said:
Budget of probably £1k to buy new system, or worth upgrading existing system with new £400ish card with a few extra add one....
Click to expand...

If you upgrade your current system you would be throwing money away. Sticking 16gb of ram in there wouldn't help at all, it would still run horribly with only a 4 thread processor. You can put a 3770k in there which is nice upgrade but the price they go for is silly when you can get new ryzen 6 core 12 thread for the same amount.
 
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You would not see as much of an fps improvement with a ryzen 3600 or 3700 over your 3570 as you would with a gfx card, amd 5700 or 5700xt or nvidia 2070 or 2070s.

1440p is more gpu demanding.

I would get a new psu and a gfx card and try it yourself.
 
Anything higher than a 970 power (RX570/580, GTX 1060) will be bottlenecked quite a bit by that CPU - especially considering its not a K version. I had a i5 2500k 4.8 and a gtx 980 and that would bottleneck in some games. Going to a r5 2600 with the same GPU I saw minimum FPS double in some games like Battlefield 1/5 and Kingdom Come, im sure if you want to push 144 on Apex/Overwatch the i5 will not be capable.

I would go for a Ryzen 1600AF/2600, B450 and 16gb DDR4 3000+ and a 1660S, for those games any higher tier GPU is kind of a waste.. might aswell save the cash for the big GPU jump we are getting next gen or a Ryzen 4000 CPU if needed.

Sell that PC locally to recoup some cash too.
 
Ian Evey said:
You would not see as much of an fps improvement with a ryzen 3600 or 3700 over your 3570 as you would with a gfx card, amd 5700 or 5700xt or nvidia 2070 or 2070s.

1440p is more gpu demanding.

I would get a new psu and a gfx card and try it yourself.
Click to expand...


This might be true for most games but this guy is talking about running overwatch at more FPS.

The 970 is already enough to play 144fps if you turn a couple of settings down.

For example my i7 9700k is 100fps higher on the minimum than my [email protected] using the same card.

overwatch is a competitive game where fps matters more than what it looks like, most people I speak to in masters and diamond use uncapped framerate and aim for anywhere between 150-250fps. You can always turn settings down to get more out of the 970 but 3570k is never going to keep minimums above 100fps.
 
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imginy said:
This might be true for most games but this guy is talking about running overwatch at more FPS.

The 970 is already enough to play 144fps if you turn a couple of settings down.

For example my i7 9700k is 100fps higher on the minimum than my [email protected] using the same card.

overwatch is a competitive game where fps matters more than what it looks like, most people I speak to in masters and diamond use uncapped framerate and aim for anywhere between 150-250fps. You can always turn settings down to get more out of the 970 but 3570k is never going to keep minimums above 100fps.
Click to expand...

His monitor is currently 60hz. Unless vsync is disabled he wont see more than 60 fps.
@dmurray0 maybe just a new 144hz monitor will help?
 
@dmurray0

This a game of overwatch from a couple of weeks ago. I went back and recorded it because I thought all hope was lost but I managed to switch to lucio in overtime and survive 2 massive team fights while my team respawned and then we got it to the finish line.

If you watch on YouTube and up it to 1080p you should see my FPS in the top left corner and even my 4.7ghz 9700k is dropping to 120fps at some points in the big fights. But normally it would run 150fps-180fps.

Video taken at Ultra settings 1440p. Gtx 1080 and 9700k 4.7ghz.
Enemy are blue.


If it was me I would buy AMD 3600 cpu and cheap board. a 1440p 144hz monitor and something like a 1660ti. It should give you similar performance to my video and come at way under your budget.

I would be scared to recommend a amd graphics card for overwatch. they still sometimes get rendering device lost and various other driver issues that might be hard for your kid to sort out.



Edit.
One thing to note with the graphics cards is Nvidia new cards are coming out this year and should give you much more performance for your money so might be best just to do the cpu and board now and grab new card when nvidia 7nm comes out.
 
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