Upgrading my pc

[Cds1]

I was wondering if anyone could tell me what my pc is missing (performance wise) or what I could upgrade etc.

My specs are:

CPU - intel i5 4430 quad core

GPU - Gtx 1050 

Storage - 2 tb WD green? 240 gb Crucial SSD 

RAM - 2x 4GB Corsair DDR3 

Motherboard - H81M-Plus

Please tell me if I missed anything important/relevant haha i'm very new to PC's.

Thanks!

 

P.S These are my speccy specs : P pretty sure that sensor is broken on the 115 degrees mobo ..

[Jurrunio]

most important thing is to tell us your budget

[Bombastinator]

 I’d say it’s fairly well balanced for what it is.  It’s quite old though.  I’d say more GPU, except I’m not sure a 4/4 cpu could even drive more GPU.

 

The problem is you can’t improve a single piece of it to make it much better.  You’d kind of have to improve all of it.  The motherboard is locked and old.  The CPU is locked and old.  More memory could be put in, but it wouldn’t make it much faster I think, and it would arguably be throwing money in a hole.  Doing a mobo/cpu/memory swap would mean the gpu would need to be upgraded.  The PSU is likely as old as the rest of it.

[Fasauceome]

it's not missing anything if you're reaching your performance target

[Cds1]

The powersupply is old and needs to be replaced since it is some crappy one. As for my budget, not much.. Like £150-300 Oh yeah I play games like Ark se, Gmod, LoL, cs:go,HOI4, gta 5 idk what else

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, ennui52 said:

The powersupply is old and needs to be replaced since it is some crappy one. As for my budget, not much.. Like £150-300 Oh yeah I play games like Ark se, Gmod, LoL, cs:go,HOI4, gta 5 idk what else

PSUs are important.  If they blow your whole machine can be destroyed. What did pcpartpicker estimate your wattage use at?  Are there any spare ram slots left open?

[Cds1]

43 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

most important thing is to tell us your budget

I'm only 15 so I was hoping to upgrade it over occasions like Christmas, my birthday etc. That is why I wanted to know if there is anything I should seriously look on upgrading 

[Jurrunio]

5 minutes ago, ennui52 said:

I'm only 15 so I was hoping to upgrade it over occasions like Christmas, my birthday etc. That is why I wanted to know if there is anything I should seriously look on upgrading 

graphics card to an RX 570/580 maybe, but really this system is better off sold as a whole and start over.

[Cds1]

Just now, Bombastinator said:

PSUs are important.  If they blow your whole machine can be destroyed. What did pcpartpicker estimate your wattage use at?  Are there any spare ram slots left open?

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Core i5-4430 3 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$256.00 @ Amazon
Motherboard	Asus H81M-PLUS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory	Corsair XMS3 4 GB (1 x 4 GB) DDR3-1600 Memory	$24.99 @ Corsair
Memory	Corsair XMS3 4 GB (1 x 4 GB) DDR3-1600 Memory	$24.99 @ Corsair
Storage	Crucial M4 256 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage	Western Digital WD Green 2 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	$87.99 @ Other World Computing
Video Card	MSI GeForce GTX 1050 2 GB GAMING X 2G Video Card	$279.99 @ Amazon
Case	Thermaltake Versa G2 ATX Mid Tower Case	$228.59 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$902.55
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-26 19:02 EST-0500

252 watts, there are no spare ram slots.

[Cds1]

2 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

graphics card to an RX 570/580 maybe, but really this system is better off sold as a whole and start over.

How much could I sell it for?

[Bombastinator]

20 minutes ago, ennui52 said:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Core i5-4430 3 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$256.00 @ Amazon
Motherboard	Asus H81M-PLUS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory	Corsair XMS3 4 GB (1 x 4 GB) DDR3-1600 Memory	$24.99 @ Corsair
Memory	Corsair XMS3 4 GB (1 x 4 GB) DDR3-1600 Memory	$24.99 @ Corsair
Storage	Crucial M4 256 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage	Western Digital WD Green 2 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	$87.99 @ Other World Computing
Video Card	MSI GeForce GTX 1050 2 GB GAMING X 2G Video Card	$279.99 @ Amazon
Case	Thermaltake Versa G2 ATX Mid Tower Case	$228.59 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$902.55
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-26 19:02 EST-0500

252 watts, there are no spare ram slots.

So let’s assume that all that 252 watts is 12v.  PSUs split their wattage between 12v, 5v, and sometimes 3.7v .  So you need a PSU bigger than 252 watt.  350w would do it but they’re also generally garbage.  More wattage doesn’t hurt anywhere but the pocket book and sometimes the electric bill.

my suggestion isn’t look through the tier list in the PSU subforum and find something cheap and small but still decent.  Stay away from the D rates and possibly C rated stuff.

 

As to ram you’d have to find out if

 

A your mobo will even take 8gb sticks, (it might not)

B IF (and only if) it does can you even find any of the right speed and type (you might not be able to)

 

if it does and you can, and it’s cheap, you might get a bit more oomph in stuff that uses more than 8gb of memory.

 

youd need 2 identical 8 gb sticks and you would replace your current memory sticks with them.

[Cds1]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

So let’s assume that all that 252 watts is 12v.  PSUs split their wattage between 12v, 5v, and sometimes 3.7v .  So you need a PSU bigger than 252 watt.  350w would do it but they’re also generally garbage.  More wattage doesn’t hurt anywhere but the pocket book and sometimes the electric bill.

my suggestion isn’t look through the tier list in the PSU subforum and find something cheap and small but still decent.  Stay away from the D rates and possibly C rated stuff.

 

As to ram you’d have to find out if

 

A your mobo will even take 8gb sticks, (it might not)

B IF (and only if) it does can you even find any of the right speed and type (you might not be able to)

 

if it does and you can, and it’s cheap, you might get a bit more oomph in stuff that uses more than 8gb of memory.

https://www.pc-specs.com/mobo/Asus/Asus_H81M-PLUS/2947 This site here states that it could hold up to 16 gb ddr3 but only up to 1600 mhz.. 

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, ennui52 said:

https://www.pc-specs.com/mobo/Asus/Asus_H81M-PLUS/2947 This site here states that it could hold up to 16 gb ddr3 but only up to 1600 mhz.. 

So you can run up to 8gb 1600mhz ddr3. The question now is what is available?  DDR3 is old.

 

im seeing 2x8 1600mhz ddr3 kits on eBay for ~$40-50.  

[Cds1]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

So you can run up to 8gb 1600mhz ddr3. The question now is what is available?  DDR3 is old.

 

im seeing 2x8 1600mhz ddr3 kits on eBay for ~$40-50.  

Theoretically speaking if I was to upgrade my motherboard, the only real bottleneck would be the CPU right? and of course I would have to upgrade RAM if it's a newer mobo. Would the 1050 be fine? 

[Bombastinator]

9 minutes ago, ennui52 said:

https://www.pc-specs.com/mobo/Asus/Asus_H81M-PLUS/2947 This site here states that it could hold up to 16 gb ddr3 but only up to 1600 mhz.. 

So some money for ram that may do you some good sometimes, and a new PSU that will extend the safe life of the machine.  My temptation is to get you to not the ram, but instead buy a good 500-550w PSU which is too much, but would allow you to transplant it into a better rig later.  Depends what you’re going to do.  Getting the current machine to play new games well isn’t going to happen.  It’s going to need to be upgraded eventually.

[Bombastinator]

Just now, ennui52 said:

Theoretically speaking if I was to upgrade my motherboard, the only real bottleneck would be the CPU right? and of course I would have to upgrade RAM if it's a newer mobo. Would the 1050 be fine? 

You can’t use that CPU on a new motherboard. It won’t fit.  Neither will the ram.  It’s new ram/mobo/cpu/PSU.  The only things that would be saved are the HD and the case.  Not really worth doing.  
 

the real answer is save money for a new machine.  A new PSU will make your current machine more likely to survive long enough to save cash, and more ram will make it be able to run some newer things without bogging down.

 

the real answer is a new system down the road.  Throwing $100-130 at this one will make it longer lives but it won’t make it a lot faster.

[Cds1]

3 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

You can’t use that CPU on a new motherboard. It won’t fit.  Neither will the ram.  It’s new ram/mobo/cpu/PSU.  The only things that would be saved are the HD and the case.  Not really worth doing.  
 

the real answer is save money for a new machine.  A new PSU will make your current machine more likely to survive long enough to save cash, and more ram will make it be able to run some newer things without bogging down.

 

the real answer is a new system down the road.  Throwing $100-130 at this one will make it longer lives but it won’t make it a lot faster.

Alright, I guess I will be saving for a while.. But I really do have a money spending problem haha. Thanks a lot for your time

[Bombastinator]

25 minutes ago, ennui52 said:

Alright, I guess I will be saving for a while.. But I really do have a money spending problem haha. Thanks a lot for your time

Budgeting.  Even the envelope method works.  One of the tricks to spending problems is to make sure it gets spent in the right places not the wrong ones.  If the money is in the envelope it’s not in your wallet.