Upgrades on a Couple Basic Gaming Rigs

[Eric Hardman]

Hey,

So a couple of years back I built a couple of basic boxes for the wife and I to game on. We don't do any serious games mostly WoW, ESO, Minecraft and Skyrim. My kids have started gaming more as well so I was looking to upgrade their machines and or ours and hand the existing ones down to them. I'm hoping to get some advice on being able to play the listed games at Ultra setting with the knowledge of the upcoming release of WoW Legion. I'm sure to give me this advice you will need to know what I have to work with. So to this I need to ask what is the best Utility to list my hardware? In the past I have used DXDIAG and done an export. Any help will be much appreciated. Keep in mind I will be doing upto 4 towers so I would like to save and reuse where I can. Thank you in advance.

[Mikius10001]

pcpartpicker.com is easiest as most people here are familiar with it.

 

Although what you have currently can just be listed out. It's the planning for purchases that are more likely to go through partpicker.

[Eric Hardman]

System One:

Optical Drive: is a Samsung OEM TS-H653N that I pulled out of an old machine I had.

CPU Cooler: The one that came with the CPU

Case: Ultra  ULT33178

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/66cvwP

 

System Two:

PSU: Ultra LSP450

CPU Cooler: The one that came with the CPU

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/jbtdjX
 

My kids run on two identical machines I picked up at an auction for cheap

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/servicetag/D7VHDQ1/configuration

[Mikius10001]

Those are the systems you currently have that you're handing down and want to upgrade? Because those rigs aren't bad.

[Streetguru]

12 minutes ago, Eric Hardman said:

 

Should upgrade the 2 main ones to skylake i5s, Also I can't see what's in the old dell thing, but if it's fine then wait for AM4 APUs potentially, and you could get some tiny low power capable gaming rigs, also what was your budget for all this?

 

and replace that 760 with a 380 4GB
 

and I threw in a PSU suggestion if you want a new power supply, I'd imagine those are getting old


Also did you actually get OEM keys? because you'll need new keys, you should have gotten full retail windows 10 keys, though I think you can try, or possibly do a reactivate thing on them when you swap motherboards
 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/TWF723
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/TWF723/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($194.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: MSI B150M Pro-VD Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($59.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: G.Skill NT Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($27.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 380 4GB NITRO Dual-X OC Video Card  ($189.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $542.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-04-27 13:38 EDT-0400

[Eric Hardman]

Well that is my dilemma it is more the kids machines. I know ours aren't bad but if I am doing upgrades I'm not giving my Teens better machines than us. lol. So my real problem is the Dells. I upgraded my PSU to the EVGA 500 when I did my GPU to the 960 three weeks ago. I tried to put my old 450PSU into one of the Dells (currently a 350) so I could upgrade one of the GPUs in them. The MB connector didn't fit and I could find any information on it actually was just the Dell part numbers and specs for it. To see the gear in the there is a components link on the configuration url I put in the list.

[Streetguru]

11 minutes ago, Eric Hardman said:

 

Could just build some 860K + 360 systems unless this was for later, then AM4 would be good

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2B8bnQ
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2B8bnQ/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock A88M-G/3.1 Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard  ($60.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($26.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($47.99 @ Micro Center)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R7 360 2GB Ultra Durable 2 Video Card  ($93.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($34.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($55.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $390.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-04-27 14:03 EDT-0400

[Eric Hardman]

So I found the requirements for Legion which is what I am mostly concerned about. And honestly I am not sure how the above systems line up with these.

 

Windows

	Minimum Requirements	Recommended Specifications
Operating System	Windows® XP / Windows Vista® / Windows® 7 / Windows® 8 / Windows® 10 with latest service pack	Windows® 10 64-bit with latest service pack
Processor	Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8500 or AMD Phenom™ II X3 720	Intel® Core™ i5-3330, AMD™ FX-6300, or better
Video	NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 440 or AMD™ Radeon™ HD 5670 or Intel® HD Graphics 5000	NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 750 Ti or AMD™ Radeon™ R7 260X or better
Memory	2 GB RAM	4 GB RAM
Storage	45 GB available hard drive space
Internet	Broadband internet connection
Media	DVD-ROM drive
Input	Keyboard and mouse required. Other input devices are not supported.	Multi-button mouse with scroll wheel
Resolution	1024 x 768 minimum display resolution

[Herman Mcpootis]

You can get a pair of gtx 750ti for around $200 for both, they should do fine for LoL.

[Streetguru]

23 minutes ago, herman mcpootis said:

You can get a pair of gtx 750ti for around $200 for both, they should do fine for LoL.

There's a 370 on sale for like $115 that would be probably the best budget GPU to get for now

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150735&cm_re=370-_-14-150-735-_-Product