Upgrade path on a tight budget, combining parts from 2 PC's

MeGaMaN

MeGaMaN

MeGaMaN

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15 Nov 2018
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194
Location
Leicestershire
Background - both my son & I are keen gamers, he only plays Fortnite whereas I play a variety of games, some more demanding than Fortnite.

He has a PS4 but more recently I have converted him to PC gaming by cobbling together a PC from 2nd hand parts and my castoffs and he now much prefers his PC gaming setup to the PS4. That said, his PC does occasionally crash and for reasons we've never quite been able to put our fingers on, it seems to underperform.

His 13th birthday is coming up and he'd like to upgrade his PC but I can't justify spending hundreds of pounds on a new rig for him so my cunning plan is to effectively hand down most of my current rig to him which should see him gain a significant FPS boost in Fortnite as well as being able to run at higher quality settings and then upgrade my rig.

My current setup:

Case - Antec ISK600 Mini ITX Shuttle
Mobo - MSI B85I Gen 4 LGA1150 Mini ITX
PSU - Antec Earthwatts EA-550 Platinum
CPU - Intel i7-4790
RAM - 8GB DDR3-1600
GFX - RX Vega 56 Pulse 8GB
Monitor1 - MSI Optix MAG271CQR Quad HD 27" 144Hz
Monitor2 - Generic 24" Iiyama

Sons Setup:

Case - Corsair (can't remember!)
Mobo - Gigabyte Z170-HD3P LGA1151
PSU - Corsair Vengeance 750M Silver
CPU - Intel i5-6400
RAM - 8GB DDR4
GFX - MSI GTX 770 OC 2GB DDR5
Monitor1 - Samsung SM2233RZ 22" 120Hz
Monitor2 - Generic 24" AOC

I'm thinking of taking the Vega 56 & SSD out of my PC and replace it with his SSD & the GTX770, then remove everything from his PC (leaving the bare case & PSU), buy a new Mobo/CPU/RAM and reuse my Vega56 & SSD.

Given he only plays Fortnite, I think this will give him a nice FPS boost and crucially better stability as (touch wood!) my PC has performed flawlessly and I know the GTX770 works with my PC as it was my GFX card before I upgraded to the Vega 56. I am a little concerned the GTX770 might still be a bit of a bottleneck, even in Fortnite, so at some point in the future may have to pick up a new GPU for him.

Given I want to keep the costs down:
A) Does the above sound sensible
B) What's the sweet spot value wise for Mobo/CPU/RAM given I'm not looking for anything bleeding edge?
C) If I do have to pick up a new GPU for him, how much would I realistically have to spend to see a significant improvement on the GTX770

Apologies in advance for the rubbish formatting, I couldn't work out how to insert a table!

Thanks guys.
 
A newer Gpu for your sons machine would give it a nice boost and you could probably get £60 used selling on the 770. If your about tomorrow then OCUK got a great deal landing at 9am tomorrow.

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...e-rx590-at-109-99-from-9am-tomorrow.18879802/

For your motherboard, CPU and ram upgrade something like this would offer great performance and value.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £347.47 (includes shipping: £10.50)​
​
 
Yes, bought the RX 590 with a view to swap it straight in to his PC for the GTX 770 which will give him the below setup:

Case - Corsair (can't remember!)
Mobo - Gigabyte Z170-HD3P LGA1151
PSU - Corsair Vengeance 750M Silver
CPU - Intel i5-6400
RAM - 8GB DDR4
GFX - RX 590 8GB
Monitor1 - Samsung SM2233RZ 22" 120Hz
Monitor2 - Generic 24" AOC

Any thoughts on whether the i5-6400 is going to be a big bottleneck or should the above be more than capable?

Thanks
 
MeGaMaN said:
Yes, bought the RX 590 with a view to swap it straight in to his PC for the GTX 770 which will give him the below setup:

Case - Corsair (can't remember!)
Mobo - Gigabyte Z170-HD3P LGA1151
PSU - Corsair Vengeance 750M Silver
CPU - Intel i5-6400
RAM - 8GB DDR4
GFX - RX 590 8GB
Monitor1 - Samsung SM2233RZ 22" 120Hz
Monitor2 - Generic 24" AOC

Any thoughts on whether the i5-6400 is going to be a big bottleneck or should the above be more than capable?

Thanks
Click to expand...
Good job in snagging one, I'm sure your son will be very pleased. Even with the i5 system it should still give a nice bump in performance till he moves to the your i7. It may also be worth getting another 8gb of ram for the i7 system when he starts using that.
 
Thanks guys, will report back on how it's running.

Slightly broader question, is there any recommended benchmark software that would point out the bottleneck by posting up the results?

Been almost 20 years since I was a serious gamer chasing bleeding edge performance :D Ah, those halcyon days of CS 1.3
 
MeGaMaN said:
Thanks guys, will report back on how it's running.

Slightly broader question, is there any recommended benchmark software that would point out the bottleneck by posting up the results?

Been almost 20 years since I was a serious gamer chasing bleeding edge performance :D Ah, those halcyon days of CS 1.3
Click to expand...
Bottleneck will vary from game to game so it's best to have something like the MSI afterburner overlay enabled when you game as this will show fps, 1% lows and CPU and gpu usage and ram usage as you play so you can monitor how everythings running.
 
Fantastic, thank you, I'll download and give it a go. I take it you don't need an MSI GPU to use the MSI afterburner overlay software?
 
Just to give some closure for anyone that cares, I ended up buying & installing the RX 590 8GB as an early birthday present and my son is happily running at 120fps on epic settings so is really pleased.

The only downside is the RX 590 only has HDMI & Display Port so we've had to use an old DVI to DP adapter I had in the spares box which works but can't handle 120hz so his Samsung monitor is running at 60hz for the time being.
 
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