Upgrade path for friend's PC

doodah

doodah

doodah

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A friend of mine has an ageing PC and trying to give him some options for upgrades. The obvious solution would be a complete platform upgrade but wondered if there is any sense/value to upgrade his RAM, GFX or CPU second hand?

Perhaps a GTX 1070/80, more RAM and CPU upgrade?



Edit:
  • 32GB of DDR 3000 - £50-70
  • 1070 - £70
  • Higher end 1151 CPU - £unknown
 
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I'd worry you're just throwing good money after bad for incremental upgrades.

The minimum if consider is 5800x (or 5700X3D), 16GB DDR4, a B450/550 board and a new graphics card, a 6700XT will give almost 3070 performance. But, there's an argument to be made that you're swapping one dead end for another and you should just bite the bullet and go AM5 to spend now but save in 2-3 years time.
 
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doodah said:
  • 32GB of DDR 3000 - £50-70
  • 1070 - £70
  • Higher end 1151 CPU - £unknown
Click to expand...
It is not normally worth buying old Intel CPUs because of the high used prices, when something like an i5-12400F or Ryzen 5600 is ~£100 and you can get cheap boards (£50+) good enough to run them, with a CPU cooler included in the box.

1151v1 boards can be modded to take 1151v2 CPUs, which are more worthwhile, but the used prices are too still high on many parts.

Personally, I'd try and get a card on the level of a GTX 1080 or RX 6600, since the 1070 is starting to struggle and I'd guess they would last another year or so.
 
MissChief said:
I'd worry you're just throwing good money after bad for incremental upgrades.

The minimum if consider is 5800x (or 5700X3D), 16GB DDR4, a B450/550 board and a new graphics card, a 6700XT will give almost 3080 performance. But, there's an argument to be made that you're swapping one dead end for another and you should just bite the bullet and go AM5 to spend now but save in 2-3 years time.
Click to expand...
Come on, it's not nearly 3080 performance, it's 3070 at best

3080 is more comparable to a 6800xt/6900xt
 
Id go 2080ti (if playing games that can take advantage of RT), up the ram to 32GB and larger cheap SSD , could be an easy all in one sale down the road.
 
B650M-HDV/M.2 around £100
7500F import around £100, I paid just £92 for one recently
32gb DDR5 6000MT starts around £70
GPU depending on budget 6700XT/4060 around £250, 7700XT around £300 or a 7800XT around £400
 
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Joxeon said:
B650M-HDV/M.2 around £100
7500F import around £100, I paid just £92 for one recently
32gb DDR5 6000MT starts around £70
GPU depending on budget 6700XT/4060 around £250, 7700XT around £300 or a 7800XT around £400
Click to expand...
Thanks though that still comes to £500-650 compared to <£200 for a dead end but still decent uplift upgrade on his current platform. I'll give him both options.
 
upgrading ram and graphics card seems the only logical step to retain the system. while i like building systems like these, i wouldnt upgrade the cpu as its 4 core to 4 core, the difference wouldnt really be worth the cost.

a whole new system would be the better spend if your friend is happy with that.

i dont know what your budget is, but if you exclude the msi mag psu then the 2 systems in my sig came to around 450ish, obviously all used parts and youd generally want better than an a320 motherboard, but as an idea it would be a good replacement and better still with am4 you have an actual upgrade path. both my boards support the 5000 series as will b350 onwards boards.
 
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