Upgrading older rig

schteve_666 · September 30, 2022

Budget (including currency): cheap

Country: Australia

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: it's currently being used as a second computer for me and the kids when the main rig is in use. My daughter plays the Sims on it and I play older and indi games on it maybe some Minecraft.

Other details I'm just getting back into PC building after almost 15 years and before I spend big money on all new parts I've been tinkering with our old gaming PC to refresh my skills. I started with a PC with a Asus H81m-plus mobo, a 2 gig amd gpu and an i5 in an Antec mid tower. It wouldn't get past mobo bios so I ended up binning the HDD and replaced it with 500gb ssd for os and a 500gb HDD for storage. A Corsair cx750 I picked up for $30 replaced the noisy no name blue led psu. Finally I replaced the two mismatched 4gb sticks with 16gb of crusal ddr3. It's like a whole different PC after that. Now I'm wondering if it's worthwhile replacing the i5 with an i7 4790 which is the best CPU the mobo will support. Keep in mind I've not done a CPU since the core 2 duo days. And also what would be a good 2nd hand gpu to get for it as I'm struggling to get my head around the world of graphics cards.

RONOTHAN## · September 30, 2022

1 hour ago, schteve_666 said:

Now I'm wondering if it's worthwhile replacing the i5 with an i7 4790 which is the best CPU the mobo will support.

Depends how cheap you get the i7. Hyperthreading does make a pretty large difference to performance for these old quad core chips for gaming. That said, if the Australian market is anything like the American market (am American, don't know the ins and outs of the Australian second hand market), those i7s are way too expensive to actually make sense, since you can usually get an i3 12100F (an all around faster CPU in every regard) for the same price as the 4790, or you could go for a used 10100F and board as well and probably get that similar to the cost of that i7, again being a faster CPU.

1 hour ago, schteve_666 said:

And also what would be a good 2nd hand gpu to get for it as I'm struggling to get my head around the world of graphics cards.

GTX 1060 or RX 480/580 are usually good options (the 6G and 8G models respectively being the better options) for roughly $100 US (though again, don't know how the Australian used market would line up), though used GPU pricing is really weird right now down near the low end, so you might be able to score a 2060 for cheap, or the best you can do is a 750Ti, it's really all over the place right now.

schteve_666 · October 1, 2022

On 10/1/2022 at 8:40 AM, RONOTHAN## said:

don't know the ins and outs of the Australian second hand market), those i7s are way too expensive to actually make sense,

Hey thanks for the reply. I've had a look at 2nd hand CPUs that the mobo supports and if I go down to a 4770k I can pick one up for somewhere between $60 to $80 which seems okay to me that's about the price of a pack of smokes here. I also had a look at the GPUs you suggested and they are around the $130 area for a 4gig card which should make it a pretty decent backup rig. Once again thanks for taking the time to reply.