Tech tips for a begginer

[Frazet]

Hey.

i bought my pc second hand and at the time i thought i had a pretty good deal, but now i am not so sure 

this is the specs i have at the moment:

OS: Windows 10 x64 no key
CPU: i7-2600k @ 3.40GHz socket 1155
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8 GB 1600MHz (2x4) DDR3 XMP
MB: Asus P8h61-MX R2.0
GPU: XFX AMD Radeon 6950 with a costom cooler
PSU: Corsair TX-650w
HDD: Unused 250GB Samsung

i was mainly looking at the CPU when i bought it ( just seeing the word i7 made me forget everything else on the page) now when i got it i had a good expirience, but since i want atleaist the possibility to play newer games i wanted to upgrade the graphics card.

Luckly for me my dad works with alot of gamers oneog wich was willing to sell me his r9 290x for 60 usd(nice guy) now he was nice enough to let me try the graphics card first to check if it worked with my setup something it dident seem to do. now i was wondering if it was the mother board that was the problem or the power supply.

so now i am thinking of upgrading to something like an 1060 and upgrading to a nice case. do you have any tips on what i should buy or upgrade about my build? i was hoping to keep it around the 450 dollar price point ... i can if neccasery go to 600

any help is appriciated

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Frazet said:

Hey.

i bought my pc second hand and at the time i thought i had a pretty good deal, but now i am not so sure 

this is the specs i have at the moment:

OS: Windows 10 x64 no key
CPU: i7-2600k @ 3.40GHz socket 1155
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8 GB 1600MHz (2x4) DDR3 XMP
MB: Asus P8h61-MX R2.0
GPU: XFX AMD Radeon 6950 with a costom cooler
PSU: Corsair TX-650w
HDD: Unused 250GB Samsung

i was mainly looking at the CPU when i bought it ( just seeing the word i7 made me forget everything else on the page) now when i got it i had a good expirience, but since i want atleaist the possibility to play newer games i wanted to upgrade the graphics card.

Luckly for me my dad works with alot of gamers oneog wich was willing to sell me his r9 290x for 60 usd(nice guy) now he was nice enough to let me try the graphics card first to check if it worked with my setup something it dident seem to do. now i was wondering if it was the mother board that was the problem or the power supply.

so now i am thinking of upgrading to something like an 1060 and upgrading to a nice case. do you have any tips on what i should buy or upgrade about my build? i was hoping to keep it around the 450 dollar price point ... i can if neccasery go to 600

any help is appriciated

defenetly your cpu and gpu... i would start with cpu, get a 6600k or a pentium g4400, that way your upgrade pth is really good...

[Frazet]

Just now, lolimpol said:

defenetly your cpu and gpu... i would start with cpu, get a 6600k or a pentium g4400, that way your upgrade pth is really good...

what gpu do you think i should get?

 

[Guest]

Just now, Frazet said:

what gpu do you think i should get?

 

that heavily depends on your budget... for about $250 there is a 1060 or rx 480, for about $150 there's rx 470/60/second hand gtx 970. you choose.

[Castdeath97]

Well if your motherboard supports the 6950 there is no reason it wouldn't work with the R9 290X. Same thing the PSU it seem quite decent to hold itself with a R9 290x.

 

2 minutes ago, lolimpol said:

defenetly your cpu and gpu... i would start with cpu, get a 6600k or a pentium g4400, that way your upgrade pth is really good...

No please don't get a G440, that's probably a downgrade. 

 

1 minute ago, Frazet said:

what gpu do you think i should get?

 

Something like a 1060 or a RX 480 is enough for 1080p, so I would get that.

[Guest]

Just now, Castdeath97 said:

No please don't get a G440, that's probably a downgrade. 

i mean, i depends on your budget. he could get a 6600k, or a 6700k lateron, that's why.

[Frazet]

1 minute ago, lolimpol said:

i mean, i depends on your budget. he could get a 6600k, or a 6700k lateron, that's why.

so the motherboard is ok ?

 

[Guest]

Just now, Frazet said:

so the motherboard is ok ?

 

yes

[Castdeath97]

1 minute ago, Frazet said:

so the motherboard is ok ?

 

You will need to change it as well if you want a new CPU like the i5 6600K. I personally would get the 1060/RX 480 now and save up for the CPU and platform upgarde down the line if you can't afford it now.

[Guest]

Just now, Castdeath97 said:

You will need to change it as well. I personally would get the 1060/RX 480 now and save up for the CPU and platform upgarde down the line if you can't afford it now.

the motherboard would probably be fine, i only upgraded for fan control... further i didn't notice a difrence 

[TetraSky]

The only thing he should/need to upgrade on that build, is the GPU and possibly the RAM to 16GB.

The CPU is still perfectly capable of handling today's games. The few extra FPS he'd gain by upgrading the CPU is just not worth it when 99% of games out there are GPU bound anyway.

 

PSU is probably why the new GPU isn't working.

[Sauron]

Wait, let's clear this first: your CPU is not responsible for the graphics card not working. That's probably the power supply, or the card is defective.

 

Secondly, the cpu does not need an upgrade. At least not nearly as much as your gpu. The 2600k at stock speed is about 25% slower than a modern desktop i7. Since it can be overclocked, I suggest you buy an aftermarket cooler and turn it up to 4..2-4.3GHz, which will remove any potential bottleneck.

5 minutes ago, Frazet said:

what gpu do you think i should get?

The 290x is a good upgrade for the gpu if you can make it work. If you know anyone with a pc that has a beefy power supply, try asking them to try the card out - if it doesn't work on theirs either you may have paid 60 bucks for a dead card, which would explain the low price.

5 minutes ago, lolimpol said:

defenetly your cpu and gpu... i would start with cpu, get a 6600k or a pentium g4400, that way your upgrade pth is really good...

The pentium is about 4 times slower than the 2600k, please don't make this sort of suggestion... just because it's newer doesn't mean it's better despite being 5 times cheaper.

1 minute ago, lolimpol said:

i mean, i depends on your budget. he could get a 6600k, or a 6700k lateron, that's why.

Why would you change the motherboard in advance? That doesn't make sense. If he's going to upgrade the cpu he might as well get the better one straight away, not do a massive downgrade first - what's the point in that?

[Castdeath97]

3 minutes ago, lolimpol said:

the motherboard would probably be fine, i only upgraded for fan control... further i didn't notice a difrence 

It's fine now, but you can't fit a skylake CPU in it. I'm just saying if he gets a new CPU in the future he needs to change it along. 

 

Edit: For or now he can stick with that sandy i7.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Castdeath97 said:

It's fine now, but you can't fit a skylake CPU in it. I'm just saying if he gets a new CPU in the future he needs to change it.

yes, i agree

[Frazet]

2 minutes ago, Sauron said:

The 290x is a good upgrade for the gpu if you can make it work. If you know anyone with a pc that has a beefy power supply, try asking them to try the card out - if it doesn't work on theirs either you may have paid 60 bucks for a dead card, which would explain the low price.

no i did not pay for the card as it did not work i sent it back and asked him to try it to check if it was defected or it was something wrong with my pc, it turns out that it did work on his.

[LogicalDrm]

41 minutes ago, lolimpol said:

defenetly your cpu and gpu... i would start with cpu, get a 6600k or a pentium g4400, that way your upgrade pth is really good...

 

CPU doesn't need upgrade. If it needs something, that would be some nice cooler and bit of OC.

 

26 minutes ago, Frazet said:

no i did not pay for the card as it did not work i sent it back and asked him to try it to check if it was defected or it was something wrong with my pc, it turns out that it did work on his.

What was the issue when GPU was in your machine? No video or nothing at all (no LEDs/fans)? GPU and storage are weak points of that build. PSU should be able to run 290X, if its working ok. So after GPU go for 1tb storage or SSD. Which case you have now?

[Frazet]

1 minute ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

CPU doesn't need upgrade. If it needs something, that would be some nice cooler and bit of OC.

 

i dont understand

 

1 minute ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

What was the issue when GPU was in your machine? No video or nothing at all (no LEDs/fans)? GPU and storage are weak points of that build. PSU should be able to run 290X, if its working ok. So after GPU go for 1tb storage or SSD. Which case you have now?

no all fans were running(including the gpu) but no video was shown to my monitor. did spend about two days searching around on the internet and pretty much every site gave me one way to fix it (wich didnt work) and if that dident work i was to buy another graphics card

[Sauron]

38 minutes ago, Frazet said:

no i did not pay for the card as it did not work i sent it back and asked him to try it to check if it was defected or it was something wrong with my pc, it turns out that it did work on his.

Then it's probably your power supply (assuming you mounted it correctly).

4 minutes ago, Frazet said:

i dont understand

You can overclock your cpu pretty easily, however the stock cooler (the metal thing with a fan on top that covers your cpu) is not good enough to handle the extra heat overclocking would cause. With a good cooler you could make your cpu signficantly faster.

[LogicalDrm]

11 minutes ago, Frazet said:

i dont understand

 

Overclocking can bring bit more juice to CPUs. And since that CPU is known to be good overclocker, getting aftermarket cooler and going for it means you are not in hurry of getting new mobo, CPU, RAM combo (which will be bigger upgrade).

 

11 minutes ago, Frazet said:

no all fans were running(including the gpu) but no video was shown to my monitor. did spend about two days searching around on the internet and pretty much every site gave me one way to fix it (wich didnt work) and if that dident work i was to buy another graphics card

PSU or cable then. Too bad.

[Frazet]

54 minutes ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

PSU or cable then. Too bad.

it probably,is thank you all anyway 

 

[Frazet]

3 hours ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

PSU or cable then. Too bad.

but it was still spinning could it still be the cable

 

[Frazet]

5 hours ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

Overclocking can bring bit more juice to CPUs. And since that CPU is known to be good overclocker, getting aftermarket cooler and going for it means you are not in hurry of getting new mobo, CPU, RAM combo (which will be bigger upgrade).

 

do you know any good coolers for overclocking my cpu?

[LogicalDrm]

12 minutes ago, Frazet said:

do you know any good coolers for overclocking my cpu?

Anything from 212 Evo, H7 and Pure Rock to D15. Depending on what fits in your case. If you can measure it, its distance from CPU to case side panel. In metric, if you can.

[Frazet]

5 minutes ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

Anything from 212 Evo, H7 and Pure Rock to D15. Depending on what fits in your case. If you can measure it, its distance from CPU to case side panel. In metric, if you can.

the problem is my case is old, ugly and not made for gaming i am planning on buying a new case 

 

[LogicalDrm]

1 minute ago, Frazet said:

the problem is my case is old, ugly and not made for gaming i am planning on buying a new case 

Most cases list max cooler height on their product page. Coolers list their height also on product page. H7 is 145mm, Evo and Pure Rock 159mm. All are under $50 (USD...). You can get some good OC going with them.