Jump to content

I am looking to upgrade my bow-budget pc

Budget (including currency): 300$

 

Country: USA

 

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: gaming, mostly graphically demanding open world games at 1080p

 

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

 

Current specs:

 

CPU: Intel Pentium G4560

GPU: AMD RX 560

SSD: Kingston A400 120GB

HDD: Toshiba DT01ACA050 500GB

RAM: HyperX Fury DDR4 2133 C14 2x4GB

MBD: Gigabyte GA-H110M-S2H

 

Thanks in advance!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, stepa2800 said:

Budget (including currency): 300$

 

Country: USA

 

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: gaming, mostly graphically demanding open world games at 1080p

 

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

 

Current specs:

 

CPU: Intel Pentium G4560

GPU: AMD RX 560

SSD: Kingston A400 120GB

HDD: Toshiba DT01ACA050 500GB

RAM: HyperX Fury DDR4 2133 C14 2x4GB

MBD: Gigabyte GA-H110M-S2H

 

Thanks in advance!

The CPU is a very very low end part at this point, but if you just want to play and your budget is that low you're probably gonna want to just upgrade your GPU.

Citing the Tech Jesus, who did a great piece of testing the G4560 as a bottleneck: "With the G4560, buying anything beyond a 1060 or 580 is sort of unrealistic. Going $300 on a GPU and $70 on a CPU, unless planning to swap the G4560 at a later date, is not going to be a common scenario." (https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/2913-when-does-the-intel-pentium-g4560-bottleneck-gpu)

 

I would recommend going for a RX580 at around 160$, and if you want a better overall experience sell the RX560 and use the remaining 140$ + the sale value to get yourself a cheap new mobo and a Ryzen 3100/3300X when you can. This would give you a much better platform to work with. If then you can manage to sell the old mobo+cpu for a decent price, you can invest that amount into extra 2x4 ram or a bigger SSD (my personal choice) and now you have a quite capable 1080p machine ready to rock on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

you can upgrade cpu, mobo and gpu for that budget.

PCPartPicker Part List
Type Item Price
CPU AMD Ryzen 3 3100 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor $104.99 @ B&H
Motherboard Gigabyte B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard $72.99 @ Best Buy
Video Card ASRock Radeon RX 570 4 GB Phantom Gaming D Video Card $124.99 @ Newegg
  Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts  
  Total $302.97
  Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-06-04 05:18 EDT-0400  

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, 3rrant said:

The CPU is a very very low end part at this point, but if you just want to play and your budget is that low you're probably gonna want to just upgrade your GPU.

Citing the Tech Jesus, who did a great piece of testing the G4560 as a bottleneck: "With the G4560, buying anything beyond a 1060 or 580 is sort of unrealistic. Going $300 on a GPU and $70 on a CPU, unless planning to swap the G4560 at a later date, is not going to be a common scenario." (https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/2913-when-does-the-intel-pentium-g4560-bottleneck-gpu)

 

I would recommend going for a RX580 at around 160$, and if you want a better overall experience sell the RX560 and use the remaining 140$ + the sale value to get yourself a cheap new mobo and a Ryzen 3100/3300X when you can. This would give you a much better platform to work with. If then you can manage to sell the old mobo+cpu for a decent price, you can invest that amount into extra 2x4 ram or a bigger SSD (my personal choice) and now you have a quite capable 1080p machine ready to rock on.

Thanks, I was thinking very similarly. If I were to upgrade the CPU mobo combo and GPU a few months apart and add 50$ to the budget, what upgrade should I do first?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Update the CPU. 

1. Look on the supported CPU list here https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-H110M-S2H-rev-10/support#support-cpu

2. Look at cpu benchmark site here at the score of each cpu in the list above that you're interested in (ex quad cores or better): https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

3. Look on eBay or craiglist or whatever at the buy it now prices for the processors 

Pick the best performance for the money cpu that fits your budget ... I'd say don't spend more than around 70-85$ on upgrading cpu. 

Bonus if you find some listing with make an offer ... offer up to 10-15% less and if you're lucky you may get a good deal

 

You can still manage with 8 GB of memory, so upgrading memory can wait. Games can use the pagefile on SSD as ram replacement but your current 120 GB won't help much here, so eventually having 16 GB would be a good idea, but it can wait. 

 

Update the video card 

For 1080p gaming, RX 570 4 GB would be the minimum. RX 580 8 GB would be maybe 10-15% more powerful, and would work up to 1440p 

You can sell the RX 560 card for maybe 40-50$ on eBay, and will sell fast... so keep that in mind when deciding how much to pay for a video card. 

I'd encourage you to go for something a bit more powerful, look into 5500xt , 5600xt, 5700 , 1660 super, 2060 ko , 2060 super ... look at sites like techpowerup.com for reviews for these models and see how they fare.

factor in the money you'd get back from selling the rx560 into the price of this card.

 

Don't see the power supply mentioned 

Your current pc consumes little power ... maybe 30-40w for the cpu, around 50w for the video card, maybe 20w for everything else ... so your psu may be a shitty one rated for 150-200w and would still power your current system just fine..

A new video card would consume anything between 120w and 250w , and a decent cpu will consume up to around 80-100w , so you'd want at least a DECENT brand name 500w power supply to power the computer. 

 

If you still have money left, I'd suggest upgrading the SSD to at least 500 GB , then maybe getting a 2-4 TB mechanical drive because games are getting larger and with better video cards you'd want to play more games which are in the 50GB+ per game range. 

 

Somewhere around this maybe consider adding RAM to the system, but don't buy 2133 mhz ram ... go with at least 2666 Mhz... it will work fine at 2133 with your current ram. 

Ideally, you'd buy 2 x 8 2667-3200 Mhz sticks and sell your current 2x4 2133 mhz but the old sticks will have shitty resale value, nobody's gonna want 2133 mhz sticks.

intel cpus aren't so sensitive about frequency so it's not a big deal if you buy higher frequency sticks and run them at 2133 mhz with your old sticks... it's just dumb to buy on purpose 2133 sticks today

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, stepa2800 said:

Thanks, I was thinking very similarly. If I were to upgrade the CPU mobo combo and GPU a few months apart and add 50$ to the budget, what upgrade should I do first?

PCPartPicker Part List
Type Item Price
CPU AMD Ryzen 3 3300X 3.8 GHz Quad-Core Processor $127.99 @ B&H
Motherboard Gigabyte B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard $72.99 @ Best Buy
Video Card ASRock Radeon RX 5500 XT 4 GB Challenger D OC Video Card $159.99 @ Newegg
  Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts  
  Total (before mail-in rebates) $380.97
  Mail-in rebates -$20.00
  Total $360.97
  Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-06-04 05:29 EDT-0400  

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Update the CPU. 

1. Look on the supported CPU list here https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-H110M-S2H-rev-10/support#support-cpu

2. Look at cpu benchmark site here at the score of each cpu in the list above that you're interested in (ex quad cores or better): https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

3. Look on eBay or craiglist or whatever at the buy it now prices for the processors 

Pick the best performance for the money cpu that fits your budget ... I'd say don't spend more than around 70-85$ on upgrading cpu. 

Bonus if you find some listing with make an offer ... offer up to 10-15% less and if you're lucky you may get a good deal

 

You can still manage with 8 GB of memory, so upgrading memory can wait. Games can use the pagefile on SSD as ram replacement but your current 120 GB won't help much here, so eventually having 16 GB would be a good idea, but it can wait. 

 

Update the video card 

For 1080p gaming, RX 570 4 GB would be the minimum. RX 580 8 GB would be maybe 10-15% more powerful, and would work up to 1440p 

You can sell the RX 560 card for maybe 40-50$ on eBay, and will sell fast... so keep that in mind when deciding how much to pay for a video card. 

I'd encourage you to go for something a bit more powerful, look into 5500xt , 5600xt, 5700 , 1660 super, 2060 ko , 2060 super ... look at sites like techpowerup.com for reviews for these models and see how they fare.

factor in the money you'd get back from selling the rx560 into the price of this card.

 

Don't see the power supply mentioned 

Your current pc consumes little power ... maybe 30-40w for the cpu, around 50w for the video card, maybe 20w for everything else ... so your psu may be a shitty one rated for 150-200w and would still power your current system just fine..

A new video card would consume anything between 120w and 250w , and a decent cpu will consume up to around 80-100w , so you'd want at least a DECENT brand name 500w power supply to power the computer. 

 

If you still have money left, I'd suggest upgrading the SSD to at least 500 GB , then maybe getting a 2-4 TB mechanical drive because games are getting larger and with better video cards you'd want to play more games which are in the 50GB+ per game range. 

 

Somewhere around this maybe consider adding RAM to the system, but don't buy 2133 mhz ram ... go with at least 2666 Mhz... it will work fine at 2133 with your current ram. 

Ideally, you'd buy 2 x 8 2667-3200 Mhz sticks and sell your current 2x4 2133 mhz but the old sticks will have shitty resale value, nobody's gonna want 2133 mhz sticks.

intel cpus aren't so sensitive about frequency so it's not a big deal if you buy higher frequency sticks and run them at 2133 mhz with your old sticks... it's just dumb to buy on purpose 2133 sticks today

My PSU is 550W and it came with my RHINO PC case. Is it enough?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, stepa2800 said:

Thanks, I was thinking very similarly. If I were to upgrade the CPU mobo combo and GPU a few months apart and add 50$ to the budget, what upgrade should I do first?

NO, it's not really feasible in your case, because with almost every new generation of processors intel wants new motherboard.

For example, your current motherboard only supports up to 7th generation processors (kaby lake) if you update the bios

If you want a newer cpu like 8th or 9th gen, you need to update the motherboard also. 10th gen cpus require yet another socket (lga1200)

 

A good option for you would be to make the jump and change all three together by going Ryzen and socket AM4 board and high frequency ram, maybe with a b550 motherboard, but if you decide on this wait at least a couple weeks until after b550 boards are launched, so that the initial high prices go away or you get discounts. 

You could stick with B450 chipset based boards, but at the moment the prices are a bit inflated due to coronavirus and low stocks. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, stepa2800 said:

My PSU is 550W and it came with my RHINO PC case. Is it enough?

 

Absolutely no idea if those 550w are real, of if they're lying to you. Power supplies that come with cases are most of the time cheap and overrated, so assume at best your power supply is a 400-450w power supply. 

 

I would have to see a screenshot of the label on the power supply, to see how much power it can output on 12v (which is what's used to power the processor and video card) and how much power it can provide on 3.3v and 5v. 

On some power supplies, they say 450-550w but in reality only 200-250 watts are available on 12v where modern computers have the most power hungry components, and the rest of 250-300w are reserved for 3.3v and 5v, or they're just not there (the numbers being fake) ... the important bit is how much the power supply can give on the 12v output ... modern computers only need 50-75w in total on 3.3v and 5v. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

47 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Absolutely no idea if those 550w are real, of if they're lying to you. Power supplies that come with cases are most of the time cheap and overrated, so assume at best your power supply is a 400-450w power supply. 

 

I would have to see a screenshot of the label on the power supply, to see how much power it can output on 12v (which is what's used to power the processor and video card) and how much power it can provide on 3.3v and 5v. 

On some power supplies, they say 450-550w but in reality only 200-250 watts are available on 12v where modern computers have the most power hungry components, and the rest of 250-300w are reserved for 3.3v and 5v, or they're just not there (the numbers being fake) ... the important bit is how much the power supply can give on the 12v output ... modern computers only need 50-75w in total on 3.3v and 5v. 

 

 

Sorry for the blurry image, hope you can read it.

DSC_4679.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, so you definitely have to replace the power supply. 

The chart is misleading.  They put there "Peak load" to make you think that the power supply is capable of 12v x 21A = 466 watts , but that peak load is not really defined and it's not a "legal" term you could sue for, it could be any length of time like... "over the length of half a second" or it could be 5-10 seconds...  

 

The real capability is revealed by that line at the bottom :  The continuous power of 12v1 is 190W max 


So you more or less have a 250-300w "real"  power supply, which should not be used with any video card which requires additional pci-e power connectors.

This is again pointed out by that other line of text "The continuous total output power is 245W delivered to components." 

 

Notice how they never say 550w anywhere, you just assume... if anyone asks they can say RS-550A is just the model name of the power supply ... like you'd name a motorbike Suzuki GTX-1000cc-PRO but in reality it actually has a 125cc engine. 

 

It would probably barely work with processors that have integrated graphics, so office computers, but nothing fancier.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, stepa2800 said:

Thanks, I was thinking very similarly. If I were to upgrade the CPU mobo combo and GPU a few months apart and add 50$ to the budget, what upgrade should I do first?

Go for a Ryzen 3100 and a cheap A320/B450 motherboard (ask the vendor to pre-apply the latest bios for you) then you can go for the GPU. New GPUs are expected before the end of the year, so if you don't mind waiting.. it might be worth checking back later. Otherwise, you should aim for a RX590 at minimum or a 1660 Super for a better performer than what already suggested

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Yeah, so you definitely have to replace the power supply. 

The chart is misleading.  They put there "Peak load" to make you think that the power supply is capable of 12v x 21A = 466 watts , but that peak load is not really defined and it's not a "legal" term you could sue for, it could be any length of time like... "over the length of half a second" or it could be 5-10 seconds...  

 

The real capability is revealed by that line at the bottom :  The continuous power of 12v1 is 190W max 


So you more or less have a 250-300w "real"  power supply, which should not be used with any video card which requires additional pci-e power connectors.

This is again pointed out by that other line of text "The continuous total output power is 245W delivered to components." 

 

Notice how they never say 550w anywhere, you just assume... if anyone asks they can say RS-550A is just the model name of the power supply ... like you'd name a motorbike Suzuki GTX-1000cc-PRO but in reality it actually has a 125cc engine. 

 

It would probably barely work with processors that have integrated graphics, so office computers, but nothing fancier.  

Does this mean that even my current rig is being slowed down by the PSU?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, stepa2800 said:

Does this mean that even my current rig is being slowed down by the PSU?

No, it doesn't work like that. 

 

Components will take as much power as they need. They either take the power or they won't work, they can't take less than what they need. 

 

If the power supply can not supply that power, the pc would shut down or randomly reset and in rare situations the power supply could blow up and die.  Basically the power supply says "Yeah, I see you processor dude want 100 watts, and you video card chick want 200 watts, but I can only make 245 watts in total so you guys are asking too much and I give up" and if the power supply is nicely designed, it shuts down and sets an internal protection which is reset only when you remove the power cable for a few seconds and then plug it back in.  You see the PC turning off all of the sudden. 

 

Currently your computer doesn't consume a lot of power, it probably averages less than 100 watts as I explained in previous post, which is below the maximum amount of power your power supply can produce and give to your components (if the label isn't even lying about those lower numbers) so everything works fine.

 

However, if you add a power hungry video card or a much more powerful processor, the total amount of power all your components demand may exceed the maximum power the power supply can produce, so you'll have problems.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, mariushm said:

No, it doesn't work like that. 

 

Components will take as much power as they need. They either take the power or they won't work, they can't take less than what they need. 

 

If the power supply can not supply that power, the pc would shut down or randomly reset and in rare situations the power supply could blow up and die.

 

Currently your computer doesn't consume a lot of power, it probably averages less than 100 watts as I explained in previous post, which is below the maximum amount of power your power supply can produce and give to your components (if the label isn't even lying about those lower numbers) so everything works fine.

 

However, if you add a power hungry video card or a much more powerful processor, the total amount of power all your components demand may exceed the maximum power the power supply can produce, so you'll have problems.

 

What brands can I trust to actually have the advertised power?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Even good brands have some models which are shit. 

 

There's a list of brands and series on this forum somewhere,a sort of "grade a / premium , b , c , d , avoid , firecracker etc" 

 

some ok brands 

evga (as long as it's not the cheapest models... also they have a huge amount of series, and probably only about 70% of series are worth buying) 

corsair

seasonic

bequiet

superflower (cheapest models are not that good but won't blow up on you)

cooler master (cheap stuff is not good)

fsp/fortron source/fsp group (same company)

fractal design, bitfenix (they rebrand psus from decent manufacturers)

Silverstone

Sirtec/Highpower (less known in US, more popular/common in Europe)

ThermalTake (this one's a hit and miss, a few very good series, quite a few cheap series which are not good and should be avoided... I'd recommend sticking to the other brands unless it's a really good deal)

 

Rosewill (brand name of Newegg) basically rebrands stuff from various manufacturers (OEMS) like ATNG, FSP, Huntkey... the middle to high end stuff is decent... avoid the cheap stuff, like under 50$, basically if they're 3-4 years warranty or more, they're ok to buy, but models from other brands may be better value/performance for money 

 

These brands won't lie on labels and specifications ... except maybe cheapest evga models which may have too little information on labels trying to trick you into thinking they're more capable than in reality. 

 

main things to look for 

 

avoid anything under 45-50-ish dollars. Sometimes you may get a 5-10$ coupon for a 50$ psu... ask people if the psu is a good model worth buying.

at least 80% bronze efficiency ... 

at least 3 years warranty ... anything with 2 years or less is not worth buying

check label (see pictures on page, or specifications) and make sure the power supply can provide at least 80-85% of its output on 12v  ... multiply 12v with the current which is the number with A at the end ... for example, a 500w power supply should be able to provide at least around 420 watts on 12v 

 

The cheapest models are often only capable of that power at low temperatures, so look on the label or specifications to see the operating temperature. Try to avoid power supplies rated for 25c or 35c ... aim for 40c or better. The default should be 40c for bronze efficiency, 50c for good gold efficiency power supplies. 

 

Basically, what they're not telling you (except in fineprint or manual) is that you're supposed to derate the power by 10-20% for every 10c increase.  So for example, a 650w power supply rated at 25c ambient temperature should be considered a 500-550w power supply if the temperature inside the case goes above 25c by a few degrees.

 

I think some old Corsair VS series were rated for 25c, these days they're rated for higher temperatures ... CV series is supposed to be a refreshed VS series.  EVGA N1 or B1 or something like that was also low temperature rating. 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×