CPU

[The_Jonkler]

So i need to get a better cpu than i was originally going to get an amd athlon x4 950 but i realised it wont perform very well so i need a cpu under £55 for roblox studio, roblox, minecraft and a bit of fortnite the gpu im getting is an rx 460 2gb im on a tight budget and cant afford an amazing gaming pc so i gotta do with what i have

 

 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Current pc specs?

Budget?

I assume you are british but could you confirm country?

Uses?

[Fasauceome]

29 minutes ago, Deprssedgamer said:

amd athlon x4 950

So, do you already have the motherboard that you were going to put this CPU into? If so, what's the specific motherboard?

 

There are a lot of cheap CPUs for AM4 luckily, if you go on eBay you might get a Ryzen 3 1200 or 1300X for your budget. Or, if you're very lucky, a local listing for a Ryzen 5 1600 might pop up in your price range.

[The_Jonkler]

6 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Current pc specs?

Budget?

I assume you are british but could you confirm country?

Uses?

Yes I'm From the uk ill be using it for light gaming like roblox minecraft fortnite csgo and general use like wathing youtube

my overall budget is £350

 

My Current PC is:

 

• CPU
  i7 4770 3.40GHz
• Motherboard
  Dell Optiplex 9020
• RAM
  16GB 1333MHz
• GPU
  GT 1030 2GB
• PSU
  Dell 80 Plus Gold 250W

[The_Jonkler]

Just now, Fasauceome said:

So, do you already have the motherboard that you were going to put this CPU into? If so, what's the specific motherboard?

 

There are a lot of cheap CPUs for AM4 luckily, if you go on eBay you might get a Ryzen 3 1200 or 1300X for your budget. Or, if you're very lucky, a local listing for a Ryzen 5 1600 might pop up in your price range.

The motherboard will be an Asus Prime A320M-K

[Somerandomtechyboi]

3 minutes ago, Deprssedgamer said:

Yes I'm From the uk ill be using it for light gaming like roblox minecraft fortnite csgo and general use like wathing youtube

my overall budget is £350

 

My Current PC is:

 

• CPU
  i7 4770 3.40GHz
• Motherboard
  Dell Optiplex 9020
• RAM
  16GB 1333MHz
• GPU
  GT 1030 2GB
• PSU
  Dell 80 Plus Gold 250W

The 950 is a massive downgrade compared to that 4770, i suggest you can just run w/o sidepanel, upgrade psu (you may need adapters due to proprietary power connectors), then upgrade gpu (though this may require abit of destruction to the case frame to make a full height gpu be usable aka cutting some metal)

[The_Jonkler]

1 minute ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

The 950 is a massive downgrade compared to that 4770, i suggest you can just run w/o sidepanel, upgrade psu (you may need adapters due to proprietary power connectors), then upgrade gpu (though this may require abit of destruction to the case frame to make a full height gpu be usable aka cutting some metal)

I did consider upgrading my current pc but its an sff optiplex so it would be really hard to do

[Needfuldoer]

Which model Optiplex is it?

 

Honestly I think you're better off putting more budget into a much better GPU and power supply (and an SSD) than building a whole new machine. The RX 460 is barely more than a lateral move from your 1030, and you'd have to go with a much better CPU than that Athlon to be appreciably faster than your i7.

 

 

Look at it this way: if you get a good video card and power supply now, you can take them with you if you build a new PC later.

[Fasauceome]

9 minutes ago, Deprssedgamer said:

The motherboard will be an Asus Prime A320M-K

Instead of going for bare minimum, I recommend saving a bit more. Get yourself a proper B450 motherboard with a heat sink that can support more powerful CPUs in the future.

 

If you save £400 or so, you could manage a decent system. And hopefully in the future prices of graphics cards will continue to drop.

Edited May 21, 2022 by Fasauceome

[The_Jonkler]

Yeah i guess i could do that the optiplex is 9020

13 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Honestly I think you're better off putting more budget into a much better GPU and power supply (and an SSD) than building a whole new machine. The RX 460 is barely more than a lateral move from your 1030, and you'd have to go with a much better CPU than that Athlon to be appreciably faster than your i7.

 

 

Look at it this way: if you get a good video card and power supply now, you can take them with you if you build a new PC later.

 

[The_Jonkler]

2 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

Instead of going for bare minimum, I recommend saving a bit more. Get yourself a proper B450 motherboard with a heat sink that can support more powerful CPUs in the future.

 

If you save £400 or so, you could manage a decent system. And hopefully in the future prices of graphics cards will continue to drop.

so i could upgrade my pc i have now by doing a case swap and getting a new motherboard then i have the cpu ram and ssd and i already have a 1tb hdd for extra storage so i just need to get a motherboard and case and gpu and a new psu with £350 but i dont have to get a new cpu

[The_Jonkler]

5 minutes ago, Deprssedgamer said:

so i could upgrade my pc i have now by doing a case swap and getting a new motherboard then i have the cpu ram and ssd and i already have a 1tb hdd for extra storage so i just need to get a motherboard and case and gpu and a new psu with £350 but i dont have to get a new cpu

from the parts ive found i now have £150 to spend on a gpu

[Needfuldoer]

2 hours ago, Deprssedgamer said:

so i could upgrade my pc i have now by doing a case swap and getting a new motherboard then i have the cpu ram and ssd and i already have a 1tb hdd for extra storage so i just need to get a motherboard and case and gpu and a new psu with £350 but i dont have to get a new cpu

If you want the best bang for the buck pound you have to think creatively, like you're on Scrapyard Wars.

 

Here's a 9020 tower with an i5 and 8 gigs of RAM for £60 plus postage:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284821167521

 

You could get that, a power supply, and a nice video card. Then swap your CPU, RAM, and storage into it, and put the tower's parts in the SFF machine. Then you can resell the SFF machine for around what you paid for the tower (after doing a clean Windows install on it). Bam! There's your case swap for almost free (plus some elbow grease).

 

EDIT: Budget £13 for a power supply adapter cable.

https://www.moddiy.com/products/Dell-OptiPlex-9020-PSU-Main-Power-24-Pin-to-8-Pin-Adapter-Cable-30cm.html

Edited May 21, 2022 by Needfuldoer
I forgot the power supply adapter

[The_Jonkler]

24 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

If you want the best bang for the buck pound you have to think creatively, like you're on Scrapyard Wars.

 

Here's a 9020 tower with an i5 and 8 gigs of RAM for £60 plus postage:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284821167521

 

You could get that, a power supply, and a nice video card. Then swap your CPU, RAM, and storage into it, and put the tower's parts in the SFF machine. Then you can resell the SFF machine for around what you paid for the tower (after doing a clean Windows install on it). Bam! There's your case swap for almost free (plus some elbow grease).

Ive just looked into that thanks ill probably do that. ive just wored it all out and i have £400 now for just the psu and gpu so thankyou for your help

[Somerandomtechyboi]

16 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

If you want the best bang for the buck pound you have to think creatively, like you're on Scrapyard Wars.

 

Here's a 9020 tower with an i5 and 8 gigs of RAM for £60 plus postage:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284821167521

 

You could get that, a power supply, and a nice video card. Then swap your CPU, RAM, and storage into it, and put the tower's parts in the SFF machine. Then you can resell the SFF machine for around what you paid for the tower (after doing a clean Windows install on it). Bam! There's your case swap for almost free (plus some elbow grease).

Unfortunately the tower still has a proprietary psu and board so you can get the same thing by just sawing off the current sff expansion slots, though if you can find a better dell psu with the same pinout as your mobo like in the tower then you can upgrade to that, add a molex/sata to 6/8 pin (get a decent crimped one and non moulded as moulded seem to just burn and catch fire, maybe someone can share pics comparing em), then just choose a gpu.

 

Choosing gpu wise the 4770 will max out prob ~105w so just add an extra 30w to that for stuff like hdds, ram, etc. Then find a gpu that fits your budget and power budget given by the psu, you can shove more powerful gpus with slightly higher tdp than the psu can handle if you do some undervolting with vram overclock, for gpus that dont exceed the power budget just oc the balls off them

[The_Jonkler]

29 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

If you want the best bang for the buck pound you have to think creatively, like you're on Scrapyard Wars.

 

Here's a 9020 tower with an i5 and 8 gigs of RAM for £60 plus postage:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284821167521

 

You could get that, a power supply, and a nice video card. Then swap your CPU, RAM, and storage into it, and put the tower's parts in the SFF machine. Then you can resell the SFF machine for around what you paid for the tower (after doing a clean Windows install on it). Bam! There's your case swap for almost free (plus some elbow grease).

so is there any way to get adapters for all the proprietary connectors

[Fasauceome]

1 hour ago, Deprssedgamer said:

so i could upgrade my pc i have now by doing a case swap and getting a new motherboard

Sounds like you have an LGA1150 motherboard and I don't recommend getting one of those as an "upgrade." Keep your current setup until you can do a full replacement

[Needfuldoer]

5 hours ago, Deprssedgamer said:

so is there any way to get adapters for all the proprietary connectors

 

5 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Unfortunately the tower still has a proprietary psu and board so you can get the same thing by just sawing off the current sff expansion slots, though if you can find a better dell psu with the same pinout as your mobo like in the tower then you can upgrade to that, add a molex/sata to 6/8 pin (get a decent crimped one and non moulded as moulded seem to just burn and catch fire, maybe someone can share pics comparing em), then just choose a gpu.

 

You can solve the power supply problem with a very inexpensive adapter cable. Physically, the screw holes should be in the normal places on the back of the chassis.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gintai-Supply-Adapter-Replacement-Optiplex/dp/B08ZXWP2WP

 

https://www.moddiy.com/products/Dell-OptiPlex-9020-PSU-Main-Power-24-Pin-to-8-Pin-Adapter-Cable-30cm.html

 

Don't worry about the proprietary front panel connectors, you've already got USB 3 type A ports, and when you build a fully custom PC you'll want a new case anyway. (If you keep the Dell power supply, you can put this machine back together and either sell it or use it for something else when the time comes.)