Cpu or gpu upgrade

[HunterH1012]

Budget (including currency):  75 dollars

Country: United States

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Minecraft and 720p fortnite

Other details: i3-2130, 10 gigs ddr3 1333mhz, 300 watt psu, and a acer ipimb-ar 1.02ar, no gpu currently

 

Hi all, I am looking to upgrade my little brother's computer but I don't know if I should up grade the cpu or gpu. He wants to run fortnite and minecrraft so I think gpu is the way to go like 760 or something... and if i were to uprade the cpu i would get an i5-2400. Any help is apreciated

 

[Slottr]

You can probably get a pcie powered card like a 1050 ti?

 

75 isn't much to work with and im assuming that power supply isn't the greatest thing in the world 

[HunterH1012]

1 minute ago, Slottr said:

You can probably get a pcie powered card like a 1050 ti?

 

75 isn't much to work with and im assuming that power supply isn't the greatest thing in the world 

nope the psu isn't it is stock dell

 

[boggy77]

go for a second hand pcie powered gpu. 1050, 1050ti, 1650 are options, depends on what you find on the used market for your budget

[Jurrunio]

Check the back of the board and see if the PCIe x16 slot (assume it has one) has solder points through out the whole slot. Some prebuilts have it wired to only 4x (in that case solder points will be much shorter than the slot itself), limiting power draw to 25w and also your card options.

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Check the back of the board and see if the PCIe x16 slot (assume it has one) has solder points through out the whole slot. Some prebuilts have it wired to only 4x (in that case solder points will be much shorter than the slot itself), limiting power draw to 25w and also your card options.

I think @Jurrunio is referring to the computer’s motherboard rather than the board on a potential card if there is any confusion.

[HunterH1012]

1 hour ago, Jurrunio said:

Check the back of the board and see if the PCIe x16 slot (assume it has one) has solder points through out the whole slot. Some prebuilts have it wired to only 4x (in that case solder points will be much shorter than the slot itself), limiting power draw to 25w and also your card options.

yes it does have a pcie x16 slot, thanks

[Bombastinator]

19 minutes ago, Le monke said:

yes it does have a pcie x16 slot, thanks

Sure it has a 16x slot, but what I think was being asked is are all the 16Xes actually powered?  Presence of the connector apparently does not equate necessarily to actual connections.  This is much more common in slots other than the #1 slot on whitebox boards but this is an acer(?) board which implies it is not whitebox. The issue seems to be not the bandwidth but if the connector will actually provide enough power to run the card.

[HunterH1012]

Yes it is powered, when I got it it the previous owner some old ati card in it it gave an output but crashed to desktop whenever I tried to run games, so I took it out.

[Jurrunio]

1 hour ago, Le monke said:

Yes it is powered, when I got it it the previous owner some old ati card in it it gave an output but crashed to desktop whenever I tried to run games, so I took it out.

so all looks like the top and not the second and third ones (if not shorter)?

 

This is a board with x16 x8 x1 x8 wired PCIe slots even tho the slots themselves (seen on the other side) are x16 x16 x1 x16.

[HunterH1012]

2 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

so all looks like the top and not the second and third ones (if not shorter)?

 

This is a board with x16 x8 x1 x8 wired PCIe slots even tho the slots themselves (seen on the other side) are x16 x16 x1 x16.

Yes, exactly.