Advice for upgrading 10yo PC

[Alex8skg]

Hi guys, so i have an old 10yo pc.

I'd like to upgrade it a little bit.
I don't generally play very demanding games.
To give some examples, WoW(solo), Baldur's Gate 3, Dark & Darker, Valheim.
 

The current setup is this:
Corsair RM750x (I like it)
MSI H170 Gaming M3 (1151 socket)
16GB DDR4 2666 (four sticks Vengeance LPX)
i7 6700 3.4GHz (6th gen)
AMD Sapphire R9 390 (unsupported, and often problematic)

main SSD is Kingston NV2 SSD 1TB M.2 NVMe PCI Express 4.0
Monitor is LG 27GQ50F which I think has FreeSync

Can I get away with changing only the CPU and GPU? Or maybe even just the GPU.
And which ones should I get? Cheap ones. Say... around €/$ 400 max for both GPU and CPU, but go as low as possible.
My goal is to play games like those at a minimum of 60 fps on max(ish?) settings at 1080p.
 

Any advice/suggestions?
Thanks

 

[rx560]

i dont know whats the best value gpu currently, but for the CPU you could go with like a Ryzen 5 5600 or i5-12400F / 13400F / 14400F with a budget but good motherboard and probably new DDR4 at atleast 3200MHz CL16.

 

the RM750X sounds like a pretty good psu still but not enough power for something like an i9-14900K(S) and RTX 4090 lol

 

that SSD is also good enough for you to not have to buy a new one.

 

probably the thing you'd want to upgrade first is the R9 390 to something like an used RTX 3060(Ti) / 2080(Super/Ti), or like a Radeon RX 6600XT / 6650XT / 6700(XT)

 

if someone thinks im saying bs then feel free to correct me lol

[manikyath]

describe "unsupported" for your R9 390.. because i'm still rocking a GTX970, and that does just fine.. presuming i adjust game settings accordingly.

 

i'd say it depends on which side is the most taxed by the games you play, and your own willingness to reduce graphics settings in newer games.

you can "graphics settings" your way around an old GPU struggling, but an old CPU struggling is kind of just something you're stuck with.

[Alex8skg]

7 minutes ago, manikyath said:

describe "unsupported" for your R9 390.. because i'm still rocking a GTX970, and that does just fine.. presuming i adjust game settings accordingly.

 

i'd say it depends on which side is the most taxed by the games you play, and your own willingness to reduce graphics settings in newer games.

you can "graphics settings" your way around an old GPU struggling, but an old CPU struggling is kind of just something you're stuck with.

Well, I must install their legacy drivers instead of the latest ones.
And most games are like "are you sure you want to launch this game? your R9 drivers are outdated, install version <the actual latest one, bad>".
But i should not install the latest ones, I've tried, not good.
Shouldn't have listened to Steam error messages.

And the latest game I play, Dark and Darker (Oblivion level graphics) is acting really strange with this GPU after a certain update of theirs.
Meaning, there's shadow rays where light rays should be, and random blotches of shadow everywhere.

[Fasauceome]

1 hour ago, Alex8skg said:

Can I get away with changing only the CPU and GPU? Or maybe even just the GPU

Yes, a graphics card upgrade would be decent. Your budget can get you a lot of different options but a pretty large upgrade can be had for well below the budget, like an RX 6600 or 6650 XT

[Biraj Lamsal]

1 hour ago, Alex8skg said:

Hi guys, so i have an old 10yo pc.

I'd like to upgrade it a little bit.
I don't generally play very demanding games.
To give some examples, WoW(solo), Baldur's Gate 3, Dark & Darker, Valheim.
 

The current setup is this:
Corsair RM750x (I like it)
MSI H170 Gaming M3 (1151 socket)
16GB DDR4 2666 (four sticks Vengeance LPX)
i7 6700 3.4GHz (6th gen)
AMD Sapphire R9 390 (unsupported, and often problematic)

main SSD is Kingston NV2 SSD 1TB M.2 NVMe PCI Express 4.0
Monitor is LG 27GQ50F which I think has FreeSync

Can I get away with changing only the CPU and GPU? Or maybe even just the GPU.
And which ones should I get? Cheap ones. Say... around €/$ 400 max for both GPU and CPU, but go as low as possible.
My goal is to play games like those at a minimum of 60 fps on max(ish?) settings at 1080p.
 

Any advice/suggestions?
Thanks

 

I think that with your budget , try selling your old GPU and can get a used 1080 in good condition easily with some few hundred left back  . If you can add more I suggest you on getting a good mobo and cpu combo selling old ones  as 6th gen might bottleneck 1080 in modern games. 

 

[Biraj Lamsal]

1 hour ago, rx560 said:

i dont know whats the best value gpu currently, but for the CPU you could go with like a Ryzen 5 5600 or i5-12400F / 13400F / 14400F with a budget but good motherboard and probably new DDR4 at atleast 3200MHz CL16.

 

the RM750X sounds like a pretty good psu still but not enough power for something like an i9-14900K(S) and RTX 4090 lol

 

that SSD is also good enough for you to not have to buy a new one.

 

probably the thing you'd want to upgrade first is the R9 390 to something like an used RTX 3060(Ti) / 2080(Super/Ti), or like a Radeon RX 6600XT / 6650XT / 6700(XT)

 

if someone thinks im saying bs then feel free to correct me lol

I think dude didn't read full thing .

[Somerandomtechyboi]

1 hour ago, 8tg said:

I would just dump your budget into a GPU and do a platform upgrade later. Smaller steps for better hardware.

€400 for both won’t get you far, but in 1080p the 6700 shouldn’t be too limiting of a factor, and you can always go a bit overboard on the GPU now and balance it out later.

If you’re down to buy used, you can get RTX 3080’s for under $400 USD, not entirely sure what it’s like in other markets. 
New, any 4060ti should fit under that budget and would also be a good choice, just not as good as a 3080. Especially not for 1080p where the extra 6gb of vram isn’t vital.

^^^

used 3080 or 6800xt for <400$ and 6950xt for 400-450$ though do keep in mind good deals and haggling are a thing on the used market

 

for new id pick a 6800 usually around 360$, anything below a 6700xt or 4070 is trash if you are buying new due to the existance of used gpus

[manikyath]

2 hours ago, Alex8skg said:

Well, I must install their legacy drivers instead of the latest ones.

if that's true... that's a very sad statement about AMD drivers...

 

i'm still using a GT640 in one of my systems... and that technically was an old card when it first released.

[Alex8skg]

Hmm, I am tempted to get an RX6600.
I look at max settings benchmarks and for some reason they seem to have almost the same FPS as a 4060ti, for the games that I play. Give or take 5 frames.

A month ago I built a PC for my nephew to play fortnite/valorant/LoL.
I might slowly build the same. (B550 xV2, rx6600, Ryzen 5600x)

Starting with the rx6600.

Meanwhile, I want to thank everyone for their time and advice!