Upgrading PC help

ArchangeI12 · April 22, 2022

I currently have an old pc that I am looking at upgrading, my goal is to eventually have a decent cpu, 32gb ram, motherboard that can support vga (old monitor to be used as side monitor), hdmi, 4 hdd, 1 ssd, 6 total USB slots (Case has 4, 2 3.0, 2 2.0) and a 1660 gpu or better. Currently I have 4 hdd, intel 17-3820, 8gb ddr3, ASRock X79 Extreme4, CD, 6 USB slots, NVIDIA GeForce GT 610, NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 and 600W psu. As I will be buying the parts seperately (I don't have the money to fully upgrade it at 1 time, currently my gpu is being used to it's full extent, so should I purchase the 1660 now and bottleneck it in my current setup as I save for a cpu, motherboard and ram to buy all at the same time? or should I wait until I get paid next and purchase a cpu, ram and motherboard, and continue to bottleneck them as I save for a gpu. I am fairly new to PC building so if I have made any mistakes or not provided enough details let me know. I should also note that my case supports atx, so size isn't an issue. The main things that I will keep in my setup are psu, case and hdd. Everything else is likely to get replaced, if you have any component suggestions please let me know. The main use for this setup is going to be gaming, which will be mainly valorant, rocket league and minecraft, but I would like a PC to be able to run almost any game at good graphics settings as I would like to be able to try everything.

Somerandomtechyboi · April 22, 2022

Budget?

Country?

Uses?

You can upgrade to an e5 1650 v2 6 core unlocked xeon that you can buy off ebay or aliexpress and oc to atleast 4.5g, 22nm intel spec is 1.55v but i doubt youll get anywhere near that due to heat so stay under 1.4v, and temps wise stay ubder 85c. Theres no danger in overclocking except when you start cranking vcore above 1.7v or something stupid like that. Bclk over 130 may help with clocks for a given volt so have a look at x79/99 bclk oc threads

The board has a removable bios chip to the right of the chipset fan so go buy a 4$ usb bios programmer like ch341a and flash the bios to a better bios, i suggest flashing bios to asrock x79 fatal1ty or asus x79 deluxe. If fatal1ty bios doesnt work you can use the extreme 11 bios instead. This may unlock extra options and/or just be better tuned so better oc ability, there is no risk of bricking since you can reflash the og bios with the bios programmer

If you are just gaming no need for 32gb and go for 16gb in 4x4 config, if you need more rams for productivity work then 8x4 config, youll want generic ram sticks since ics matter more than fancy pcbs + theyre cheap too, for 4gb sticks search for 2gbit samsung rev d (K4B2G0846D), for 8gb sticks search for 4gbit hynix mfr (H5TC/Q4G83MFR). Do not go over 2v for safety reasons, do not be overly conservative with volts as that will ruin your overclocks (pref be as close to 2v as possible), 2gbit rev d times better than mfr but mfr does ludicrous freq (3000+), you can also get single sided 4gb sticks with mfr but rev d will be better due to timings, have a look at Xtremesystems DDR3 thread for oc methodology, alternatives, and just generally info on ram oc

Gpu wise id suggest 3050/3060(ti) or 6600(xt), 1660 tends to be overpriced so those should usually be around the price of a 1660 while performing better

ArchangeI12 · April 28, 2022

On 4/22/2022 at 2:24 PM, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Budget?

Country?

Uses?

You can upgrade to an e5 1650 v2 6 core unlocked xeon that you can buy off ebay or aliexpress and oc to atleast 4.5g, 22nm intel spec is 1.55v but i doubt youll get anywhere near that due to heat so stay under 1.4v, and temps wise stay ubder 85c. Theres no danger in overclocking except when you start cranking vcore above 1.7v or something stupid like that. Bclk over 130 may help with clocks for a given volt so have a look at x79/99 bclk oc threads

The board has a removable bios chip to the right of the chipset fan so go buy a 4$ usb bios programmer like ch341a and flash the bios to a better bios, i suggest flashing bios to asrock x79 fatal1ty or asus x79 deluxe. If fatal1ty bios doesnt work you can use the extreme 11 bios instead. This may unlock extra options and/or just be better tuned so better oc ability, there is no risk of bricking since you can reflash the og bios with the bios programmer

If you are just gaming no need for 32gb and go for 16gb in 4x4 config, if you need more rams for productivity work then 8x4 config, youll want generic ram sticks since ics matter more than fancy pcbs + theyre cheap too, for 4gb sticks search for 2gbit samsung rev d (K4B2G0846D), for 8gb sticks search for 4gbit hynix mfr (H5TC/Q4G83MFR). Do not go over 2v for safety reasons, do not be overly conservative with volts as that will ruin your overclocks (pref be as close to 2v as possible), 2gbit rev d times better than mfr but mfr does ludicrous freq (3000+), you can also get single sided 4gb sticks with mfr but rev d will be better due to timings, have a look at Xtremesystems DDR3 thread for oc methodology, alternatives, and just generally info on ram oc

Gpu wise id suggest 3050/3060(ti) or 6600(xt), 1660 tends to be overpriced so those should usually be around the price of a 1660 while performing better

Thank you so much for the reply, I am from Australia with a budget of about $1000 AUD. I'm planning on upgrading the entire system to a lot newer specs (ddr4 ram hence the need for a new motherboard, the reason I want 32 is for streaming purposes. I found a really good deal on a 1660 ti, so that is kinda already in the specs for the rebuild. The pc will mainly be used for gaming and streaming. I currently have a fractal design define R4 case.

Jonathan Lee · April 28, 2022

On 4/21/2022 at 5:29 PM, ArchangeI12 said:

As I will be buying the parts seperately (I don't have the money to fully upgrade it at 1 time, currently my gpu is being used to it's full extent, so should I purchase the 1660 now and bottleneck it in my current setup as I save for a cpu, motherboard and ram to buy all at the same time?

I would wait and save up until you can afford a full upgrade. That way you can test the parts together and return things that don't work. It also makes sure that everything is time appropriate. At worst, yes get motherboard, ram and CPU together