Upgrading a hand me down.

[HarryZ]

Budget (including currency):  $USD 600 V.Flexible. I don't need to be at the very top of the market, note below may help explain. 

Country: USA, East Coast

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Mostly gaming, online poker w/ some data basing and general surfing. PC gaming is typically RPG (skyrim, cyberpunk etc) and Grand Strat (paradox) 

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): 

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/FB7PDq

 

I've become interested in trying to learn PC building as a hobby (skill?) and I think a great place to start would be making some upgrades to my current setup. My current extent of experience has been installing 2 of the SSDs. 

I have been watching LTT and some other videos, and I'm guessing my likely starting point should be the GPU or CPU. Like I said I don't need to be at the top but I would like to make some sensible upgrades. I feel as the monitor I have may be under utilized a bit. Anyways any and all guidance is appreciated. 

 

Thank you! 

 

[191x7]

54 minutes ago, HarryZ said:

Budget (including currency):  $USD 600 V.Flexible. I don't need to be at the very top of the market, note below may help explain. 

...

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/FB7PDq

...

 

Ok, you have a great base for an upgrade. And easy upgrades on top of that.

 

CPU: AMD Rayzen 5 5600, Ryzen 7 5700X or Ryzen 7 5800X3D

GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6700, 6700XT, 6800 or the nVidia GeForce RTX 3060Ti, 3070, 3070ti. Eventually a Radeon RX 6650XT or RTX 3060 but I wouldn't go below that.

 

A combination like the 5800X3D and a 6700XT would probably have the smoothest frametime graph while a combination of a 5700X and a 6800 would have the highest average framerates.

 

You could go the other route, keeping the 2700X and upgrading it with a used part or a new platform in a couple years, but that CPU would bottleneck most of the mentioned cards, not to mention stronger ones.

 

To upgrade the CPU, just make sure you have the latest BIOS on the motherboard before upgrading.

 

If you're keen on just playing single player games like you've mentioned, you'd do fine with a Ryzen 5 5600 (non-X, non-G) and a strong GPU.

[Ryuikko]

As I understand it the list as a whole is your current pc and you're looking for upgrades?

I'd either go with a 5700x and 6700xt 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/q6f7Bj

Or with a 5600 and a 6800 mostly sticking near 600 us

[GeorgeMKane]

1 hour ago, HarryZ said:

Budget (including currency):  $USD 600 V.Flexible. I don't need to be at the very top of the market, note below may help explain. 

Country: USA, East Coast

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Mostly gaming, online poker w/ some data basing and general surfing. PC gaming is typically RPG (skyrim, cyberpunk etc) and Grand Strat (paradox) 

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): 

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/FB7PDq

 

I've become interested in trying to learn PC building as a hobby (skill?) and I think a great place to start would be making some upgrades to my current setup. My current extent of experience has been installing 2 of the SSDs. 

I have been watching LTT and some other videos, and I'm guessing my likely starting point should be the GPU or CPU. Like I said I don't need to be at the top but I would like to make some sensible upgrades. I feel as the monitor I have may be under utilized a bit. Anyways any and all guidance is appreciated. 

 

Thank you! 

 

I would recommend holding off on upgrading the monitor, and upgrade the cpu and gpu like others have suggested. A Ryzen 5 5600X would be a good upgrade, but a 5700X would be even better for not that much more. I also added a cpu cooler for the cpu, and a new gpu upgrade as well.

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/C6t6Vw

 

If you want to just use stock cooler for cpu still, you can do that. Just get a Ryzen 5 5600 and a RTX 3060Ti. For the rpg games and AAA gaming, the RTX 3060Ti would be more worth it.

 

[HarryZ]

Awesome thank you everyone. Seems like 5700x seems like a great consensus starting point and I have decision to make on the GPUs. Also heard about the BIOs update. 

 

I do realize I left off my CPU fan - it looks like the AMD Prism but I couldn't find it on PC Picklist. Would you stull recommend on getting one of the ones that you suggested or am I good here? 

[GeorgeMKane]

11 hours ago, HarryZ said:

Would you stull recommend on getting one of the ones that you suggested or am I good here? 

If you're a little over budget and can't do it, the stock cooler with the new cpu should be fine. Otherwise, the Vetroo V5 is a good option for the cpu cooler.