Hand-Me-Down PC Upgrading to Game

[mwm564]

I was given a gaming pc that is now third hand. I'm trying to get in to more pc gaming with it. This rig can handle Minecraft no problem, but I'd liked to play Rocket League and Escape From Tarkov. I just upgraded the storage from a hard drive to a solid state, which was a big boost. I have about $150 US to spend on it right now. I feel like ram is the weakest point, but also I can't upgrade the CPU with this motherboard. Should I upgrade the RAM now, or start saving to upgrade motherboard, then ram, and then cpu?

 

System Specs:

CPU - Intel i7 870 w/ Intel heatsink cooler

RAM - Mushkin Blackline 2x2gb 1600mhz DDR3

GPU - EVGA FTW GTX 770

SSD - Crucial MX500 250GB

MB - ASRock P55 Pro/USB3

PS - CoolMax 650 Watt T-650N

OS - Windows Home 64bit

[schwellmo92]

If you have 2 ram slots free just buy 2x4GB sticks and put them in (you should be able to get this really cheap), that should make the rig workable till you can save more money for a complete platform upgrade.

[LIGISTX]

8 minutes ago, mwm564 said:

I was given a gaming pc that is now third hand. I'm trying to get in to more pc gaming with it. This rig can handle Minecraft no problem, but I'd liked to play Rocket League and Escape From Tarkov. I just upgraded the storage from a hard drive to a solid state, which was a big boost. I have about $150 US to spend on it right now. I feel like ram is the weakest point, but also I can't upgrade the CPU with this motherboard. Should I upgrade the RAM now, or start saving to upgrade motherboard, then ram, and then cpu?

 

System Specs:

CPU - Intel i7 870 w/ Intel heatsink cooler

RAM - Mushkin Blackline 2x2gb 1600mhz DDR3

GPU - EVGA FTW GTX 770

SSD - Crucial MX500 250GB

MB - ASRock P55 Pro/USB3

PS - CoolMax 650 Watt T-650N

OS - Windows Home 64bit

This is a really hard spot to be in. The 870 is a very old chip. Yes, 4 GB of RAM is pretty low, you can try and find 2 2 GB sticks for cheap on craigslist or somewhere used that would help, DDR3 is pretty easy to come by, but I wouldn't spend more then ~40 bucks for that.

 

You really just need to start saving for a newer machine, even a newer used one. The SSD you got you will want to take with you to the new machine, but the rest.... is all pretty old. The platform itself is from ~2010, so you can't really get a better CPU in there, and the RAM won't be usable on a newer PC as everything after that became DDR4.

 

I would just enjoy that PC for what it can do, and start trying to save up for something better. I have sold i7 2600k PC's fully running with similar GPU's to the 770 for ~200 bucks, so you can likely search the used market for something, maybe try and save up to ~400 and buy a decent little used machine.

[lightfire]

Hey, you might want to consider selling your desktop. Pretty much all parts would need upgrading except your psu and ssd.

My recommendation is: keep the psu and ssd, sell the rest (in parts or as a whole).

What you could do with your money is something like this: 

 I'm pretty that with your $150 and with what you can get for your current desktop, you can get a pretty good optiplex, with some spare money left. Then you put your psu and ssd in that optiplex. 

If you're not familiar with these machines, I highly recommend searching some vids on YouTube, but here is a summary:

You basically wanna get either a 7020 or 9020, these have 4th gen intel processors, I recommend looking for an i7 model (i7-4770 or i7-4790), but the i5's (i5-4590 or i5-4670) are really good cpu's aswell. The 7010 and 9010 models are a little cheaper, but have 3rd gen processors and I'd recommend going with the i7-3770 in that case.

 

Oh, and if you do look into this. Don't bother with the sff (small form factor) one's, they have terrible gpu compatibility and terrible airflow. The MT model is what you want.

 

These optiplex's are pretty much monsters when you install a gpu in them. Really solid desktops for when you're on a budget (like me).