Value Upgrade Path?

[ve4grm]

My wife and I have two computers. After money being tight for a long while, we got a decent tax return and are looking for any upgrades we could perform that would allow our computers to last a while longer before laying down the cash for complete rebuilds. Items that could be folded into new builds in a couple years would be especially appreciated.

 

 

1. Budget & Location

Budget isn't 100% set, but smaller is better. Under $1000 total preferred.

Canada.

 

2. Aim

Most of the games we play are a couple years old by the time we get them.

My next big ones are probably Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Wolfenstein 2, and Borderlands 3. Maybe The Outer Worlds?

My wife will want to play Borderlands 3 as well.

As an engineer, I also do some drafting (2D and minor 3D) but my system as is can mostly handle what I throw at it.

 

3. Monitors

We each run a 1080p 60hz monitor. I don't foresee us upgrading to anything higher resolution any time soon, though I may pick up a 1080p 120hz at some point if I can support it.

 

4. Peripherals

No peripherals needed.

 

5. Why are you upgrading?

These two PCs are getting old. PC 1 (mine) was built in 2014, and has held up quite well. I can still run relatively recent games with high settings (Destiny 2, for example), but it struggled a bit with Deus Ex Mankind Divided (which if I remember correctly was supposed to be pretty demanding on the GPU?).

 

PC 2 (my wife's) was the hand-me-down from before that. Initially built in 2010 for me, and upgraded around 2014 with a new motherboard (old one exploded) and a better GPU when we got PC 1. It's been struggling recently on some games, mostly when Chrome is open in the background.

 

 

The Builds as they stand today:

 

PC 1 (mine)

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 (4 core, 4 thread, 3.2 GHz)

GPU: MSI GTX 970 Gaming (MS-V316)

MB: ASUS H97M-E

RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600

 

Thoughts: Honestly the CPU and RAM still seems decent to me. Obviously a modern CPU would probably give better turbo speeds, but base clocks are similar. I could also get a 6-core or more, but I don't think what I'm doing is really multi-thread intensive? RAM speed gives benefits, but from what I understand those are minimal compared to gains from other locations?

 

Should I just pop in a 1660 Super and call it done? Is there somewhere else I can get a lot of benefit?

 

 

 

PC 2 (my wife's)

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1055t (6 core, 2.8 GHz)

GPU: EVGA GTX 960 SuperSC ACX 2.0+

MB: Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H

RAM: 8GB DDR3-1333

 

Thoughts: I intend to bump this system up to 16GB of memory for sure, and install an SSD boot disk.

The CPU is old as dirt, and could definitely use an upgrade, but that would basically involve replacing the system (except case and PSU).

If I upgrade the GPU, would the existing CPU bottleneck me?

 

 

Would it be more cost-efficient to just build an entire new PC 1, downgrade PC 1 to the new PC 2 and drop in a video card?

[Fasauceome]

23 minutes ago, ve4grm said:

Would it be more cost-efficient to just build an entire new PC 1, downgrade PC 1 to the new PC 2 and drop in a video card?

Basically yeah. Even on the cheap end, a Ryzen 3 1200 to replace the Phenom is a pretty big bump in performance, and you get quite the upgrade path for future drop in replacements. Cheap B350 or B450 and used CPU goes a long ways.

 

even with new parts:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 3 1200 3.1 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$80.08 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock B450M Pro4-F Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$71.00 @ Amazon
Memory	GeIL EVO SPEAR 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$63.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$215.07
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-10 17:19 EDT-0400

 

Edited March 10, 2020 by Fasauceome

[ve4grm]

1 hour ago, Fasauceome said:

Basically yeah. Even on the cheap end, a Ryzen 3 1200 to replace the Phenom is a pretty big bump in performance, and you get quite the upgrade path for future drop in replacements. Cheap B350 or B450 and used CPU goes a long ways.

 

even with new parts:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 3 1200 3.1 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$80.08 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock B450M Pro4-F Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$71.00 @ Amazon
Memory	GeIL EVO SPEAR 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$63.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$215.07
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-10 17:19 EDT-0400

 

Huh. That's something to think about. (Though those prices seem to be USD, but still.)

 

So you would do a Full new system for PC 2, and GPU for PC 1?

[Fasauceome]

10 minutes ago, ve4grm said:

Huh. That's something to think about. (Though those prices seem to be USD, but still.)

 

So you would do a Full new system for PC 2, and GPU for PC 1?

Assuming sub $1000 for the whole upgrade combined:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 3 1200 3.1 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$80.00 @ shopRBC
Motherboard	ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$69.50 @ Vuugo
Memory	Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$79.99 @ Newegg Canada
Storage	Western Digital Blue 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	$79.99 @ Canada Computers
Video Card	Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6 GB Twin Fan Video Card	$309.00 @ Canada Computers
Case	Cougar MX330 ATX Mid Tower Case	$59.50 @ Vuugo
Power Supply	be quiet! System Power U9 500 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply	$69.98 @ Amazon Canada
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$777.96
	Mail-in rebates	-$30.00
	Total	$747.96
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-10 18:27 EDT-0400

You have enough room for something like a used RX 480/80 from eBay, and you could also spring for an i7-4770 or 4790S or something since it'll hang on a little longer than a quad core i5. If you were targeting strictly new, this would offer the same performance level as the 580

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/product/R8H8TW/msi-geforce-gtx-1650-super-4-gb-aero-itx-oc-video-card-gtx-1650-super-aero-itx-oc