What to do?

[Jano]

Hey all,

Very old member here who for various reasons hasn't really kept up to date. I'm currently rocking a very old pc built and slightly upgraded from around 2012... This is off the top of my head so might be slightly wrong, but you probably get the idea.

i5-2500k
Asustek motherboard of some sort z87 rings a bell.
16gb of ram
Xfx R9 290 graphics card.

This clearly won't cut it for windows 11 and to be honest I'm not sure it needs to. I game a little these days, nothing new really although I do have an itch to try cyberpunk 2077.

My question is, do I upgrade and if so how far do I go. Do I need to go windows 11 and if so, what's the minimum I could go with, assuming that it's going to be the graphics card that really bottlenecks any newer processor, but also knowing there's no real point in going to mad about it as it's very lightly used these days?

 

[Craig_d1]

Hey all,

Very old member here who for various reasons hasn't really kept up to date. I'm currently rocking a very old pc built and slightly upgraded from around 2012... This is off the top of my head so might be slightly wrong, but you probably get the idea.

i5-2500k
Asustek motherboard of some sort z87 rings a bell.
16gb of ram
Xfx R9 290 graphics card.

This clearly won't cut it for windows 11 and to be honest I'm not sure it needs to. I game a little these days, nothing new really although I do have an itch to try cyberpunk 2077.

My question is, do I upgrade and if so how far do I go. Do I need to go windows 11 and if so, what's the minimum I could go with, assuming that it's going to be the graphics card that really bottlenecks any newer processor, but also knowing there's no real point in going to mad about it as it's very lightly used these days?

err, a 2nd gen intel...if you want to play cyberpunk let be real, there is no real upgrade for that pc...starting from scratch is your best option
now i play cyberpunk with a 9070xt at 4k...but that's 4k...deciding on gpu also, esp if budget conscious also means looking at the resolution you play at
and on that note? what resolution are you playing...personally, now I'd look at getting a 1440p setup rather than 1080p if starting from scratch, unless you want to push the boat out?

 

[Tetras]

The cheapest PC I'd look at for recent gaming would be a 12400F/14400F or Ryzen 5600, with a card like: 6600/6600 XT, 3060 12GB, 4060 or better.

A 9060 XT 16GB is what I'd consider the longer-term minimum for 1080p/1440p gaming, but they're at least £300.

The problem with any of Intel's older sockets is that the faster CPUs are rarely worth buying and motherboards get scarce, so a basic 12100F/H610 build beats almost everything.

Low cost builds are unfortunately being hit by the high prices of DDR4, so you're better off shopping used for that, or (if has to be new) just getting a DDR5 board instead.

Here's an example £500 build with all new parts.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core i3-12100F 3.30GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6AS-IN) = £73.99
• 1 x MSI PRO H610M-E DDR4 (LGA 1700) DDR4 mATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-MSI-03383) = £55.00
• 1 x Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (SKU: MY-0AK-TG) = £39.95
• 1 x Sparkle Intel ARC B570 GUARDIAN OC 10GB GDDR6 Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-SPK-03924) = £182.98
• 1 x Gigabyte Aorus 7300 1TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-GIG-05731) = £59.99
• 1 x Kolink Inspire Series K2 ARGB Micro-ATX Case - Black Window (SKU: CA-046-KK) = £29.99
• 1 x MSI MAG A650BN UK PSU 650W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (SKU: POW-MSI-03345) = £49.99

Total: £503.88 (includes delivery: £11.98)​

 

[sastusbulbas]

Like others here I would advise a new PC if your looking at Cyberpunk but do not want all the bells and whistles.

I would decide on a budget and work out what you will actually do vs want to do on the PC, with some scope for upgrading if you need it a year down the line.

AM5 has a lot going for it, sadly it has all jumped up in price a little, but the 7600x, 32gb of C30 6000 DDR5 memory and the 9060xt 16gb are my current favorite "budget" gaming components, memory has went up in price but most brands are solid, and shop around, see if OC can price match.

 

[Jano]

Thanks - definitely parking the cyberpunk idea then. Guess it's not really worth upgrading a little from the looks of it!