What Piece of Hardware Should I Upgrade?

[AlejandrBoss10]

Hey there everyone. So, I have a Windows 10 Desktop PC, and I'm wondering what I should upgrade. I'll leave my CPU-Z system information (I think that's what it's called). I'll leave pictures of what CPU-Z says because I honestly don't know if I'm giving all the information, I'm kind of new to this PC stuff. As of right now, my PC runs well, but that means I have to turn down my settings to about medium with some settings low at 1920x1080 on Fortnite (yeah I know, it's Fortnite) to get roughly 45 frames a second with some serious drops sometimes. 

 

CPU - AMD Phenom II X6 1095T

Motherboard - ASRock 970A-G/3.1

Memory - 8GB (2X4GB) DDR3

Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 970

 

I originally had 12GB of RAM, but the 2x2GB ram sticks were bad I'm guessing since when they're in my system, I constantly get random BSOD with different error messages. When I take them out, I rarely get them.

 

I'm thinking of upgrading the RAM to 16GB, but I'm not sure how much of an upgrade that would be. I'm thinking of getting this RAM and using it with my current ram to have 24GB, but I've read that I shouldn't mix ram. If I were to get that 16GB RAM off of Amazon, could I just buy the same RAM and combine them to have 32GB or no?

 

Thank you so much everyone for your help, it's really appreciated. If anything, I think I might just upgrade my RAM. Thank you again and I await your responses. 

 

Update:

I forgot to mention my budget, sorry about that. I would like to keep it in the $250-$325 price range or lower if possible. I had a feeling that my GPU wouldn't be needing any upgrading anytime soon so I'm goo on that. As for storage, I think I'm pretty good on that. I have a 1TB SSD for windows and loading programs like Illustrator and Unity. Then I have 2 HDD, 1 (512GB) & 1 (128GB). 

 

[Caennanu]

Hi there!

 

Can you perhaps give us a budget to keep in mind? this would help.

Aside of this, personally i don't think you have a very bad system combined, yes the cpu is a bit on the older side, but it should still be able to handle fortnite.

Just like the GTX 970 should be able to handle fortnite. (If a Ryzen 2400G can handle it . . .)

8GB of ram also doens't seem bad. But if you're going to upgrade that, i would opt for a new system with DDR4 instead. (ryzen 2500 or 2600 should be good currently, or equivelant comming out in the 3000 series comming july, combined with the 970)

 

What are your storage solutions? do you know? (are they hard drives, ssd's etc?)

 

If you are keen on upgrading what you have, then yes i would upgrade the memory to 16gb, and you can upgrade to 32gb later.

Maybe i would replace the 970 with a 1060 or 1070 if only for the additional Vram. but this depends entirely on your budget, and if you're still using HDD's i would upgrade to SSD's for windows and page file at the least. For games not so much they can stay on the HDD, it will 'only' impact load times.

[dgsddfgdfhgs]

4 minutes ago, Caennanu said:

Maybe i would replace the 970 with a 1060 or 1070 if only for the additional Vram.

as owner of a gtx970, still very capable at 1080p high details 60fps.

3.5gb vram is definitely fine at 1080p

its not worth such a small upgrade, at least target a rtx2060 grade

[Caennanu]

3 minutes ago, dgsddfgdfhgs said:

as owner of a gtx970, still very capable at 1080p high details 60fps.

3.5gb vram is definitely fine at 1080p

its not worth such a small upgrade, at least target a rtx2060 grade

I don't play fortnite, so i can't really say what it actually needs, so great addition. And i agree if you're upgrading graphics you should make it more future proof. But since i'm assuming budget is low, and thus the preference to upgrade, 2nd hand 1070 shouldn't be too expensive or out of consideration.

[Herman Mcpootis]

45 minutes ago, AlejandrBoss10 said:

I originally had 12GB of RAM, but the 2x2GB ram sticks were bad I'm guessing since when they're in my system, I constantly get random BSOD with different error messages. When I take them out, I rarely get them.

rarely as in you're still getting them anyway? something else is also wrong if it's still showing up, even if it seems to be less frequent. if you want an upgrade, i'd look towards getting a CPU+motherboard+ram upgrade, no point sitting on such an old platform.

[dgsddfgdfhgs]

3 minutes ago, Caennanu said:

But since i'm assuming budget is low, and thus the preference to upgrade, 2nd hand 1070 shouldn't be too expensive or out of consideration.

the point here is the gtx970 as gpu dont need upgrade even in near future. 

Old cpu or ram combination or something else caused the problem,

may also be too high resolution or strange game configs/ drivers/ windows etc

[AlejandrBoss10]

12 hours ago, Herman Mcpootis said:

rarely as in you're still getting them anyway? something else is also wrong if it's still showing up, even if it seems to be less frequent. if you want an upgrade, i'd look towards getting a CPU+motherboard+ram upgrade, no point sitting on such an old platform.

Yeah, it's strange. There are times when I get them but it's pretty spontaneous really. Roughly, how much would upgrading the all of that even cost? I'm trying to keep within a budget. Also, if it wasn't clear, my PC just crashes when I'm doing nothing sometimes, not necessarily during games. Any idea for a config to upgrade what you said, like any specific motherboard and such. I don't really know too much about compatibility so I'm afraid of buying something and having it not be compatible.

[ThatScottishguy]

In the UK I managed to source a 2600x + MSi B450-Pro board for £160 brand new about 1month ago. 32GB of Patriot 3200 Steel Series Viper was £120 brand new... These would be fine with your 970.

[trevb0t]

Without a budget and location it's hard to give advice, but I'll assume we are looking at a desire for budget friendliness:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor	$116.89 @ OutletPC
Motherboard	ASRock - B450M Pro4-F Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$71.00 @ Amazon
Memory	Crucial - Ballistix Sport LT 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$68.99 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$256.88
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-06-28 23:01 EDT-0400

This will be a significant upgrade in performance over your current CPU. You'll need the MOBO and RAM, since the DDR3 can't be used on a DDR4 board.

As many have stated, the GTX 970 is still a pretty capable 1080p gaming GPU. It's not likely the weak point here.

 

If you are looking to spend a bit more for a heftier upgrade, I'd watch out for the Zen 2 release on 07/07 where we will get Ryzen 3rd gen. The Ryzen 5 3600 will be a big step over the previous two gens:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	$199.99
Motherboard	MSI - B450M BAZOOKA V2 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$79.87 @ Amazon
Memory	Crucial - Ballistix Sport LT 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$68.99 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$348.85
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-06-28 23:05 EDT-0400

 

[AlejandrBoss10]

6 hours ago, ThatScottishguy said:

In the UK I managed to source a 2600x + MSi B450-Pro board for £160 brand new about 1month ago. 32GB of Patriot 3200 Steel Series Viper was £120 brand new... These would be fine with your 970.

I honestly had no idea that location mattered. Well, I live in the US, California to be more exact. I think that you're option would be the best out of all of them so far, but I'm not sure how much of an actual upgrade would be. I'm guessing it would be a pretty nice upgrade since it's 32GB of DDR4 RAM and a newer CPU, but I'm not sure lol. Will upgrading the CPU be that much of an upgrade?

[AlejandrBoss10]

3 hours ago, trevb0t said:

Without a budget and location it's hard to give advice, but I'll assume we are looking at a desire for budget friendliness:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor	$116.89 @ OutletPC
Motherboard	ASRock - B450M Pro4-F Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$71.00 @ Amazon
Memory	Crucial - Ballistix Sport LT 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$68.99 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$256.88
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-06-28 23:01 EDT-0400

This will be a significant upgrade in performance over your current CPU. You'll need the MOBO and RAM, since the DDR3 can't be used on a DDR4 board.

As many have stated, the GTX 970 is still a pretty capable 1080p gaming GPU. It's not likely the weak point here.

 

If you are looking to spend a bit more for a heftier upgrade, I'd watch out for the Zen 2 release on 07/07 where we will get Ryzen 3rd gen. The Ryzen 5 3600 will be a big step over the previous two gens:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	$199.99
Motherboard	MSI - B450M BAZOOKA V2 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$79.87 @ Amazon
Memory	Crucial - Ballistix Sport LT 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$68.99 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$348.85
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-06-28 23:05 EDT-0400

 

If I were to go with this option, would I be able to use 32GB DDR4 RAM? I'm guessing that I should be able to correct, if the board supports it. It says it can go up to 64GB. I really like this option (the 256) but if dishing out 100 bucks more offers more performance, then I might just go for that. Which would you suggest?

[celerystruct]

1 hour ago, AlejandrBoss10 said:

Will upgrading the CPU be that much of an upgrade?

Upgrading a 10 year old CPU? Yeah that'd be an upgrade. Especially since the Ryzen 5 1600 alone has a higher stock clock speed than your current CPU.

 

1 hour ago, AlejandrBoss10 said:

If I were to go with this option, would I be able to use 32GB DDR4 RAM? I'm guessing that I should be able to correct, if the board supports it. It says it can go up to 64GB. I really like this option (the 256) but if dishing out 100 bucks more offers more performance, then I might just go for that. Which would you suggest?

You don't need 32GB of ram. 8 GB is enough for gaming and 16 GB is more than you'll ever need if you're only gaming.

 

32+GB is for people who run virtual machines or edit videos and things like that.

 

This is why things like budget, location, and use case matter for posts like these. Read the pinned post at the top of the forum about posting guidelines.

 

Wait till 7/7 when new Ryzen chips drop, you might see a price drop or sale on older chips like the R5 1600 mentioned above.

Also make sure your ram is rated as 3000 mhz. Ryzen benefits from high Ram speeds with 3000-3200 being a sweet spot.

And make sure you're using 2 Ram sticks. So if you're going for 8GB use a kit that comes with two 4gb sticks and if you're aiming for 16gb a kit that comes with two 8gb sticks.

[AlejandrBoss10]

1 hour ago, celerystruct said:

You don't need 32GB of ram. 8 GB is enough for gaming and 16 GB is more than you'll ever need if you're only gaming.

I completely forgot to mention that I'm going to be using my machine for more than just gaming. I will be using it to run Blender, Unity, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Camtasia for video editing (this is kind of light video editing really). Also, I'm sorry if I didn't follow the guidelines correctly, I'm sort of new to the LTT website. I think I'll wait for the 7/7 date to hopefully get something cheaper. I had no idea that my cpu was 10 years old! I'm probably going to upgrade that lol, maybe that could be what's causing my system to crash? Thank you so much.

[trevb0t]

3 hours ago, AlejandrBoss10 said:

If I were to go with this option, would I be able to use 32GB DDR4 RAM? I'm guessing that I should be able to correct, if the board supports it. It says it can go up to 64GB. I really like this option (the 256) but if dishing out 100 bucks more offers more performance, then I might just go for that. Which would you suggest?

Yeah, the board has 4 RAM slots, and support up to 4x16GB (64GB). A more powerful CPU would be a better investment than the extra RAM though in this lower price class.

The 2nd build listed with the Ryzen 5 3600 will be a significantly better processor than the 1600 for productivity AND for gaming. 

[BobbyPdue]

2 hours ago, AlejandrBoss10 said:

I completely forgot to mention that I'm going to be using my machine for more than just gaming. I will be using it to run Blender, Unity, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Camtasia for video editing

In that case If I were you I would save up as much as you can.  At the lower end of computers each $50 - $100 additionally spent makes a big difference.  For another $129 you can get 20% - 25% more performance.    

 

Ryzen 3700X over the 3600 is $129 more, but it's two more cores and four more threads and has a better cooler.

 

NVIDIA GTX 1660ti would be $280 more, but it's nearly 50% more powerful than the 970.  Thought you could always wait on the GPU.  

 

 

[trevb0t]

17 hours ago, BobbyPdue said:

Ryzen 3700X over the 3600 is $129 more, but it's two more cores and four more threads and has a better cooler.

I'm interested to see what the compute power is like on the 3600. If the victories they are claiming are remotely true, it should be fairly competitive to a 2700x despite the 4 fewer threads.

[VEXICUS]

On 6/29/2019 at 2:31 PM, AlejandrBoss10 said:

...

I'll recommend something like this...

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($148.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock - B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($59.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Team - T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($56.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $265.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-06-30 14:33 EDT-0400

[AlejandrBoss10]

On 6/29/2019 at 3:14 AM, trevb0t said:

Yeah, the board has 4 RAM slots, and support up to 4x16GB (64GB). A more powerful CPU would be a better investment than the extra RAM though in this lower price class.

The 2nd build listed with the Ryzen 5 3600 will be a significantly better processor than the 1600 for productivity AND for gaming. 

Well, after looking at the builds and the prices, dishing out an extra $100 sounds like it would be worth it especially if I'm getting more performance. Even going for the cheaper option of about $250 would still be a pretty big upgrade right? I'll just have to save up my money and go for the more expensive option, the $350 one, mostly because I don't want to have to upgrade in the near future. I'll look around online to see where I can find the cheapest options for those items. Thank you so much to everyone. I've actually learned quite a lot. I'll keep you guys posted on what I buy and where I buy it. I might even end up getting 32GB of Ram if I find it somewhat cheap. Thank you so much everyone. 

[ThatScottishguy]

On 6/29/2019 at 7:15 AM, AlejandrBoss10 said:

I honestly had no idea that location mattered. Well, I live in the US, California to be more exact. I think that you're option would be the best out of all of them so far, but I'm not sure how much of an actual upgrade would be. I'm guessing it would be a pretty nice upgrade since it's 32GB of DDR4 RAM and a newer CPU, but I'm not sure lol. Will upgrading the CPU be that much of an upgrade?

Sorry, was away working and I work on a ship...wasn't ignoring you. Hope you got it all sorted :)