Upgrading on a budget.

[Dotme]

I inherited my brothers rig and want to upgrade it to play games at optimum / peak performance.

Can I get some advice as to what to upgrade first?

P.S. I am on a monthly budget of one hundred a month!

 

Operating System
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
CPU
    Intel Core i5 2500K @ 3.30GHz  O/C to 4Ghz  34 °C
    Sandy Bridge 32nm Technology
RAM
    8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 665MHz (7-7-7-21)
Motherboard
    ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 (CPUSocket)    33 °C
Graphics
    ASUS ML239 (1920x1080@60Hz)
    Intel HD Graphics 3000 (ASRock)
    2048MB ATI AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series (MSI)    42 °C
    CrossFire Disabled
Storage
    59GB M4-CT064M4SSD2 ATA Device (SSD)
    465GB Seagate ST500DM002-1BD142 ATA Device (SATA)    33 °C

Thanks in advance!

[The Sloth]

save up and get a rx480/580 8gb, a 2600k or save up for a while and get a new ryzen system. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Dotme said:

P.S. I am on a monthly budget of one hundred a month!

Wait a year and ask again.

 

On a serious note, it sounds old. I wonder how much of it can be re-used. Some intel fanbois should reply about CPU advice.

[The Sloth]

1 minute ago, Dutch-stoner said:

intel fanbois should reply about CPU advice.

i am not a fanboy but 

 

[Colin Donoghue]

just save and get a new system

[Not_Sean]

What PSU? and yeah man you good with that CPU, maybe even throw some good air cooling at it and play around with some very relaxed overclockes and see if you enjoy that. 

 

Also yeah RX470/480 would be the only upgrade that system would need. 

 

Everything else is actually really decent, nothing the top dogs on here would run but with a solid GPU you'll be enjoying that one and put the $100 a month away every month into your "New PC Jar" and than year in a year or two do new MB+CPu+RAm and just move the PSU+SSD+GPU into that. 

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, nerdslayer1 said:

i am not a fanboy but 

I think that's true. But concerning the vid... Kyle used an I7 2600k. Me thinks that's not the same as an I5 2500k.

[The Sloth]

Just now, Dutch-stoner said:

I think that's true. But concerning the vid... Kyle used an I7 2600k. Me thinks that's not the same as an I5 2500k.

... i was trying to say upgrading the cpu instead of the whole system. 

[Delicieuxz]

What you should be aiming for partially depends on what games you want to be able to play.

 

The first thing to do, though is to overclock that i5 2500K more - because that's something you don't even have to spend money for, so long as there's already an aftermarked cooler on the CPU. If there isn't, a Cooler Master 212 cooler is like $35, and is good enough to give that CPU an OC of 4.6 Ghz.

 

Is your RAM really running at 665 Mhz? If your Mobo supports 1866 Mhz, maybe with an XMP profile, I'd get 16 GB of RAM that runs at that speed.

 

There are a lot of high gain upgrade opportunities for your system. Here's what I'd aim for:

- Increase your 2500K's OC to 4.5 or 4.6 Ghz. Or, sell the 2500K CPU, and buy a used 2600K and OC it to 4.5 or 4.6 Ghz (around $100)

- 16 GB 1866 Mhz or faster RAM (around $100)

- A new GPU, after Vega releases and prices adjust (more than $100)

 

13 minutes ago, Dutch-stoner said:

I think that's true. But concerning the vid... Kyle used an I7 2600k. Me thinks that's not the same as an I5 2500k.

A 2600K is the same as a 2500K, but with hyper-threading - which makes a big difference in some games, and less in others. It also makes a significant difference in how quickly OS tasks complete.

[Aereldor]

14 minutes ago, Dutch-stoner said:

Wait a year and ask again.

 

On a serious note, it sounds old. I wonder how much of it can be re-used. Some intel fanbois should reply about CPU advice.

A 2500k is still good to go, and at 4GHz, there's no doubt that it can more than handle any modern title.

[Not_Sean]

4 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

What you should be aiming for partially depends on what games you want to be able to play.

 

The first thing to do, though is to overclock that i5 2500K more - because that's something you don't even have to spend money for, so long as there's already an aftermarked cooler on the CPU. If there isn't a Cooler Master 212 cooler is like $35, and is good enough to give that CPU an OC of 4.6 Ghz.

 

Is your RAM really running at 665 Mhz? If your Mobo supports 1866 Mhz, maybe with an XMP profile, I'd get 16 GB of RAM that runs at that speed.

 

There are a lot of high gain upgrade opportunities for your system. Here's what I'd aim for:

- Increase your 2500K's OC to 4.5 or 4.6 Ghz. Or, sell the 2500K CPU, and buy a used 2600K and OC it to 4.5 or 4.6 Ghz (around $100)

- 16 GB 1866 Mhz or faster RAM (around $100)

- A new GPU, after Vega releases and prices adjust (more than $100)

 

A 2600K is the same as a 2500K, but with hyper-threading - which makes a big difference in some games, and less in others. It also makes a difference in how quickly OS tasks complete.

Very good info there, 

 

only thing I would argue on is he should be more than good enough with 8Gb ram, sort out its speed or its a miss type as at lowest it would be 1333, and even that going up to 1600/1866 (around the max supported on those old boards is not going to make much difference) I'd rather put that $100 into the New MB+CPU Jar for a year or christmas. 

 

For me OP can accept that he can game more than well enough on here but that a upgrade would be needed to keep going in a year, so aim for in a year having enough to buy new CPU+RAM+MB and than just move the GPU you buy now over. Stagger the upgrades  

[Dotme]

Wow! thanks for the info all. Very quick and some good advice.

I'm not too comfortable overclocking as I know nothing about how to do it. I've just bought a Star Citizen game so hopefully I will be playing that soon.

I got all this info from Speccy, so i'm not sure how accurate the RAM speed is, is it slow?

As for cooling, It is water cooled. Hydro 100 or something..? And has a 800W PSU

Also it's very dusty inside