Hi all,
I have been out of building/upgrading PC’s for a number of years now but I am keen to get back into it and build a gaming rig. In order to do this I need to upgrade my current desktop as it doesn’t even have a graphics card (I didn’t bother replacing it when it broke due to not playing games anymore).
The dilemma I am in is I would like to gradually build up the spec of my PC rather than just replace every part but I would like to start gaming straight away. I would like to buy the best I can afford and to do this I will have to do it part by part. The current spec of my PC is pretty poor and what I need to know is what can I add to it currently to be in a position to start gaming again? I know that certain components will be a bottleneck but that is fine until I can replace them.
Current Spec:
Window XP 32bit
Intel Core i3 530 overclocked to 2.93 GHz
Gigabyte H55M-UD2H Motherboard
4Gb Corsair XMS3 1600
OcUK Swift 450w PSU
Some random old HDDs
Obviously the above is in no fit state to start gaming again. However if I replace the motherboard and CPU I will pretty much have to buy every component from new. Instead would the following upgrades be enough to start playing games to a fairly decent standard?
YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 970 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £289.99
1 x Samsung 256GB SSD 850 PRO SATA 6Gbps 3D NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-7KE256BW) £144.95
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02733) £77.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £41.99
Total : £564.52 (includes shipping : £8.00).
(The extra RAM is just to increase current to 8Gb)
Then in the future when DDR4 is cheaper, I can start to replace the Motherboard, CPU, RAM and PSU and maybe add an extra GTX970 if needed.
Would the above changes get me back to gaming again and would they all work with the older mobo, CPU and PSU?
Thanks in advance.
I have been out of building/upgrading PC’s for a number of years now but I am keen to get back into it and build a gaming rig. In order to do this I need to upgrade my current desktop as it doesn’t even have a graphics card (I didn’t bother replacing it when it broke due to not playing games anymore).
The dilemma I am in is I would like to gradually build up the spec of my PC rather than just replace every part but I would like to start gaming straight away. I would like to buy the best I can afford and to do this I will have to do it part by part. The current spec of my PC is pretty poor and what I need to know is what can I add to it currently to be in a position to start gaming again? I know that certain components will be a bottleneck but that is fine until I can replace them.
Current Spec:
Window XP 32bit
Intel Core i3 530 overclocked to 2.93 GHz
Gigabyte H55M-UD2H Motherboard
4Gb Corsair XMS3 1600
OcUK Swift 450w PSU
Some random old HDDs
Obviously the above is in no fit state to start gaming again. However if I replace the motherboard and CPU I will pretty much have to buy every component from new. Instead would the following upgrades be enough to start playing games to a fairly decent standard?
YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 970 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £289.99
1 x Samsung 256GB SSD 850 PRO SATA 6Gbps 3D NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-7KE256BW) £144.95
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02733) £77.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £41.99
Total : £564.52 (includes shipping : £8.00).




(The extra RAM is just to increase current to 8Gb)
Then in the future when DDR4 is cheaper, I can start to replace the Motherboard, CPU, RAM and PSU and maybe add an extra GTX970 if needed.
Would the above changes get me back to gaming again and would they all work with the older mobo, CPU and PSU?
Thanks in advance.