Partial Upgrade for an Old PC

[EsElle]

Budget: i'll say <$150 USD, but honestly no idea

Country: US

Use case: Gaming (fortnite, Minecraft) and ClipStudio

Current parts:

• i7-6700k
• Gigabyte 1080 ti
• ASUS z170-a
• 500gb WD hhd
• 1080p monitor

Background:

For xmas, we cleaned up an old PC that had been in a closet for a while. The HHD was empty and we did a clean install of windows.  It worked for like a week but today it stopped booting and got stuck in a boot loop. Currently running diagnostics, but I think we will need to replace something. 

My partner and I are going back and forth on the best way to upgrade. We will definitely buy a SSD, but not sure if we should get a new mobo/cpu also. This is a light use PC for a 10yr old, so we aren't looking to sink a lot of money into it. It's been so long since we built our PCs that its hard to tell what a good price is anymore. 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Hinjima]

9 minutes ago, EsElle said:

Budget: i'll say <$150 USD, but honestly no idea

Country: US

Use case: Gaming (fortnite, Minecraft) and ClipStudio

Current parts:

• i7-6700k
• Gigabyte 1080 ti
• ASUS z170-a
• 500gb WD hhd
• 1080p monitor

Background:

For xmas, we cleaned up an old PC that had been in a closet for a while. The HHD was empty and we did a clean install of windows.  It worked for like a week but today it stopped booting and got stuck in a boot loop. Currently running diagnostics, but I think we will need to replace something. 

My partner and I are going back and forth on the best way to upgrade. We will definitely buy a SSD, but not sure if we should get a new mobo/cpu also. This is a light use PC for a 10yr old, so we aren't looking to sink a lot of money into it. It's been so long since we built our PCs that its hard to tell what a good price is anymore. 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Put an SSD in it as you say and thats about it. Upgrading to anything more powerful would cost more than 150usd as you would require a new graphics card or a CPU that would require a new motherboard.

[8tg]

Ssd, spend the remaining budget on stuff like a cooler, fans, etc.

After diagnosing what’s causing the boot loop.

[podkall]

31 minutes ago, Hinjima said:

Put an SSD in it as you say and thats about it. Upgrading to anything more powerful would cost more than 150usd as you would require a new graphics card or a CPU that would require a new motherboard.

6700k is 4/8 CPU, next step up would be 5600+MB+RAM, which costs roughly ~250-300$

 

but SSD is very good start (or maybe all you need), the older the HDD the higher chance it's the cause of all the trouble