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New graphicscard with otherwise old hardware?

Saphyrus
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Hey guys,

I recently got an offer to buy a 5 year old system for ~25$. The specs are kinda shitty:

asus p7p55d motherboard

i3 540 CPU

GTX 240 GPU

4gb ram

500gb hard drive

My question is, is it possible to revive this PC by reaplcing the i3 with an i5 and the GPU with a GTX 960? Or would the CPU just bottleneck the 960 too much?

I would appreciate any advise, I'm new in the whole PC building business

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Depends on which cpu you're gonna get. But most intel i5 CPUs will not bottleneck the GTX960

Main gaming pc: Lian-Li Lancool II Mesh Performance - Ryzen 5 5600X - MSI GTX1080Ti Armor - AMD Wraith Spire RGB - ASUS TUF Gaming B550 Plus - Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 2x8GB 3200MHz - 500GB M.2 (and a few other drives)

 

Gaming laptop: ASUS GL552VW: i7 6700HQ - GTX960M 2GB - 8GB DDR4 2166Mhz RAM - 1TB 7200RPM HDD

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Posted

Hey guys,

I recently got an offer to buy a 5 year old system for ~25$. The specs are kinda shitty:

asus p7p55d motherboard

i3 540 CPU

GTX 240 GPU

4gb ram

500gb hard drive

My question is, is it possible to revive this PC by reaplcing the i3 with an i5 and the GPU with a GTX 960? Or would the CPU just bottleneck the 960 too much?

I would appreciate any advise, I'm new in the whole PC building business

An i5 and a 960 shouldn't bottleneck, though I warn you: the R9 380 is better than the GTX 960 for a similar price.

That 4GB of RAM is a little low though, can you switch to 8?

Project White Lightning (My ITX Gaming PC): Core i5-4690K | CRYORIG H5 Ultimate | ASUS Maximus VII Impact | HyperX Savage 2x8GB DDR3 | Samsung 850 EVO 250GB | WD Black 1TB | Sapphire RX 480 8GB NITRO+ OC | Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV ITX | Corsair AX760 | LG 29UM67 | CM Storm Quickfire Ultimate | Logitech G502 Proteus Spectrum | HyperX Cloud II | Logitech Z333

Benchmark Results: 3DMark Firestrike: 10,528 | SteamVR VR Ready (avg. quality 7.1) | VRMark 7,004 (VR Ready)

 

Other systems I've built:

Core i3-6100 | CM Hyper 212 EVO | MSI H110M ECO | Corsair Vengeance LPX 1x8GB DDR4  | ADATA SP550 120GB | Seagate 500GB | EVGA ACX 2.0 GTX 1050 Ti | Fractal Design Core 1500 | Corsair CX450M

Core i5-4590 | Intel Stock Cooler | Gigabyte GA-H97N-WIFI | HyperX Savage 2x4GB DDR3 | Seagate 500GB | Intel Integrated HD Graphics | Fractal Design Arc Mini R2 | be quiet! Pure Power L8 350W

 

I am not a professional. I am not an expert. I am just a smartass. Don't try and blame me if you break something when acting upon my advice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...why are you still reading this?

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you'd need a new chipset. that chipset is long gone, I don't think it'd work well 

you can try something like this

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 
CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($159.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock H97M Anniversary Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($57.80 @ SuperBiiz) 
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card  ($152.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $370.78
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-29 14:45 EST-0500
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The true quad i5s will bottleneck it. My chip is like a i7 860 and it bottlenecks my 780 in GTA 5 and Project Cars a little. I'd also advice getting a good PSU and picking up a R9 380 instead of a 960 as the R9 is faster.

Main Gaming PC - i9 10850k @ 5GHz - EVGA XC Ultra 2080ti with Heatkiller 4 - Asrock Z490 Taichi - Corsair H115i - 32GB GSkill Ripjaws V 3600 CL16 OC'd to 3733 - HX850i - Samsung NVME 256GB SSD - Samsung 3.2TB PCIe 8x Enterprise NVMe - Toshiba 3TB 7200RPM HD - Lian Li Air

 

Proxmox Server - i7 8700k @ 4.5Ghz - 32GB EVGA 3000 CL15 OC'd to 3200 - Asus Strix Z370-E Gaming - Oracle F80 800GB Enterprise SSD, LSI SAS running 3 4TB and 2 6TB (Both Raid Z0), Samsung 840Pro 120GB - Phanteks Enthoo Pro

 

Super Server - i9 7980Xe @ 4.5GHz - 64GB 3200MHz Cl16 - Asrock X299 Professional - Nvidia Telsa K20 -Sandisk 512GB Enterprise SATA SSD, 128GB Seagate SATA SSD, 1.5TB WD Green (Over 9 years of power on time) - Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2

 

Laptop - 2019 Macbook Pro 16" - i7 - 16GB - 512GB - 5500M 8GB - Thermal Pads and Graphite Tape modded

 

Smart Phones - iPhone X - 64GB, AT&T, iOS 13.3 iPhone 6 : 16gb, AT&T, iOS 12 iPhone 4 : 16gb, AT&T Go Phone, iOS 7.1.1 Jailbroken. iPhone 3G : 8gb, AT&T Go Phone, iOS 4.2.1 Jailbroken.

 

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I was planning on an i5 760 and the 4gb version of the 960.

And I forgot to mention there is a 500w PSU installed, don't know which one though.

My plan was to buy a new PC later when I have enough money and then transfer the GPU to the new one. And for that build I would prefer the 960^^

Also, how much of an issue will the PCIe 2.0 slot be?

Edit: I will upgrade to 8gb of ram once I have a 64bit version of windows, currently it's only 32...

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I was planning on an i5 760 and the 4gb version of the 960.

And I forgot to mention there is a 500w PSU installed, don't know which one though.

My plan was to buy a new PC later when I have enough money and then transfer the GPU to the new one. And for that build I would prefer the 960^^

Also, how much of an issue will the PCIe 2.0 slot be?

Edit: I will upgrade to 8gb of ram once I have a 64bit version of windows, currently it's only 32...

The cpu is a bottle neck but not bad. Pick up an R9 380 as it's faster and you are good to go.

Main Gaming PC - i9 10850k @ 5GHz - EVGA XC Ultra 2080ti with Heatkiller 4 - Asrock Z490 Taichi - Corsair H115i - 32GB GSkill Ripjaws V 3600 CL16 OC'd to 3733 - HX850i - Samsung NVME 256GB SSD - Samsung 3.2TB PCIe 8x Enterprise NVMe - Toshiba 3TB 7200RPM HD - Lian Li Air

 

Proxmox Server - i7 8700k @ 4.5Ghz - 32GB EVGA 3000 CL15 OC'd to 3200 - Asus Strix Z370-E Gaming - Oracle F80 800GB Enterprise SSD, LSI SAS running 3 4TB and 2 6TB (Both Raid Z0), Samsung 840Pro 120GB - Phanteks Enthoo Pro

 

Super Server - i9 7980Xe @ 4.5GHz - 64GB 3200MHz Cl16 - Asrock X299 Professional - Nvidia Telsa K20 -Sandisk 512GB Enterprise SATA SSD, 128GB Seagate SATA SSD, 1.5TB WD Green (Over 9 years of power on time) - Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2

 

Laptop - 2019 Macbook Pro 16" - i7 - 16GB - 512GB - 5500M 8GB - Thermal Pads and Graphite Tape modded

 

Smart Phones - iPhone X - 64GB, AT&T, iOS 13.3 iPhone 6 : 16gb, AT&T, iOS 12 iPhone 4 : 16gb, AT&T Go Phone, iOS 7.1.1 Jailbroken. iPhone 3G : 8gb, AT&T Go Phone, iOS 4.2.1 Jailbroken.

 

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Thanks for your replies, now I know I'm not wasting my money on a build that won't even work!

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