what should i upgrade for performance

GeorgeEllis

GeorgeEllis

GeorgeEllis

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7 Sep 2025
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6
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England
Hi i am wanting to upgrade my PC without buying a new PC. what upgrade should i do to get a better playing experience. My pc is a Alienware aroura R7 and it only has 2 fans FYI. Any feedback appreciated

NVIDIA geForce RTX 2080 Super
Intel Core I7-8700 @ 3.2GHz
32GB RAM 2666 MT/s
 
What resolution do you play games at?

Which games are you having problems with?

To be honest unless you're playing at 4K and can just plug in a 9070, I think you're going to struggle without doing both CPU and graphics.

Your CPU is similar(ish) to the 10600K in this video:
 
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Tetras said:
What resolution do you play games at?

Which games are you having problems with?

To be honest unless you're playing at 4K and can just plug in a 9070, I think you're going to struggle without doing both CPU and graphics.

Your CPU is similar(ish) to the 10600K in this video:
Click to expand...
I run at 1920x1080 but when I play rust for example I am on roughly 50-60 fps with the occasional 40fps at times. My fans are really loud as well when running games like rust, rainbow six siege and any other game that requires a lot of graphics.
 
adrichardson81 said:
The easiest drop-in upgrade would be your GPU, but the 8700 is risking a bottleneck. What's driving the upgrade?
Click to expand...
When im playing games such as rust or siege i have to play on the lowest settings to maximize performance and even then its not that much difference. My pc fans are also really loud but i dont know if that is just down to only having 2 fans.
 
i take it you have it set up as 1 intake and 1 out?
gpu should be fine if it fits and cpu would be fine depending on the cooler
 
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GeorgeEllis said:
Yes i have 1 intake and 1 out. My CPU has a fan on top of it, no cooler
Click to expand...

What do you mean by no cooler? You must have a cooler on the cpu otherwise the pc would shut down within seconds of starting up. What case do you have? Any chance of a photo of the inside of the case?
 
Fan wise, 2 in 1 out is a better setup if your case will support it.

It sounds like you're using the stock CPU cooler too, so you might be able to squeeze out better performance or an overclock with a better cooler.
 
That is a awful case for airflow with only a single 120mm intake and going by Kitguru's review there is nowhere to put any additional fans so no wonder it's noisy. The cpu has a stock cooler on it and the only upgrade would be a low profile cooler as the psu sits on top of it. Does yours have the 450w or 850w psu? The motherboard looks to be a standard mATX size and the psu connections appear to be standard too. I would spend £40-50 on a half decent mATX case so that you can improve the cooling and also fit a decent cpu cooler. You could transfer the psu over or preferably replace it for something decent. Everything else transfer over to the new case then look at replacing the gpu. You will then have a quieter, cooler running pc while being more powerful for having a gpu upgrade.
 
it's the gpu that will be making the noise, it sounds like it is throttling too, just have a quick check as to what power connector it is using so we are better able to suggest a gpu upgrade, personally, I would try a gpu upgrade first! then see if there is a cpu bottleneck after that, maybe upgrade the case fans too, with luck it will just be a single 8 pin connector I'd consider upgrading to a 5060
 
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