*Upgradding after 9 years!*

[Denam89]

Hello everyone!

 

I made my first ever PC build roughly 8 - 9 years ago and, for my mild usage, it's still running pretty good, but now I've been facing some performance issues, and to get rid of that I think it's time to change some components.

 

My build

 

Housing - Cooler Master HAF 922

MB - Asus RoG Crosshair V Formula

Processor - AMD FX 8120 8 core 3.11GHz

GPU - XFX Radeon 6870 1G DDR3

RAM - 2x Corsair XMS 3 DDR3 4G

Power - Corsair GS 800W

Storage - ST500DM002 - 500G (sorry idk the speed of this thing)

OS - Win10 64b

 

I use it most for gaming and day-to-day stuff, no video editing or more demanding tasks.

 

I don't even run triple A games on it, just some indie titles

and ocassionaly a more robust game. Lately I can't even run a cellphone emulator with the effects on and most of the slow indie titles runs with lag =(

 

The build was made in Brazil and I currently live in Germany.

 

I thought about swapping the GPU, add a SSD and slapping more 8G Ram on it. But, since I'm not familiar with builds and the current pieces I am not sure if that will help solve my problems.

 

I was thinking of: 

Asus GeForce GTX 1050TI Cerberus 4G DDR5

Crucial MX500 - 500G or Samsung 960 EVO 250G

 

What you guys think? Sorry for the long post and for my poor english =)

Thanks!

[GoldenLag]

what is your budget for this upgrade?

[Spotty]

You would likely be better off building a new PC from scratch. That PC is quite old and your money would be better spent on replacing it rather than trying to upgrade it.

 

What is your budget?

[Denam89]

1 minute ago, GoldenLag said:

what is your budget for this upgrade?

 

Around 400 - 500 euros

[GoldenLag]

1 minute ago, Denam89 said:

 

Around 400 - 500 euros

Id recommend getting a system overhaul to something current gen and an SSD and a new PSU

[Spotty]

15 minutes ago, Denam89 said:

I use it most for gaming and day-to-day stuff, no video editing or more demanding tasks.

 

I don't even run triple A games on it, just some indie titles

 

9 minutes ago, Denam89 said:

Around 400 - 500 euros

Given your budget and what you plan on doing with it, you could build a new system that will be able to handle your use within your budget.
 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  (€94.90 @ Caseking)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  (€78.44 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (€155.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Crucial - MX500 250GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  (€61.45 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: be quiet! - Pure Power 10 400W 80+ Silver Certified ATX Power Supply  (€54.47 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €445.15
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-23 21:51 CEST+0200

 

If you want you can reuse your current case the HAF 922 or shop for a new one.
You can reuse your current graphics card as well, or just use the integrated graphics within the 2200G. If you're just playing indie games and not graphically demanding AAA titles, you should be okay with either.

(Edit: Upgraded to 16GB of RAM since there was room in the budget. )

[Denam89]

5 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

Id recommend getting a system overhaul to something current gen and an SSD and a new PSU

Is it really that bad? =( I hope that I could at least save the motherboard and the processor 

A new build would increase my costs quite a bit

[AT0MAC]

1 minute ago, Denam89 said:

Is it really that bad? =( I hope that I could at least save the motherboard and the processor 

A new build would increase my costs quite a bit

look what @Spotty just recommended, looks like a solid option within your budget and much much much better than what you have on hand now

could even recoup some of the investment in trying to sell your parts used, win win

[Taf the Ghost]

Just now, Denam89 said:

Is it really that bad? =( I hope that I could at least save the motherboard and the processor 

A new build would increase my costs quite a bit

You really need a new platform. The 7 year old build (the CPU came out in 2011) doesn't have much of an upgrade path.

 

However, what performance issues are you facing? That'll handle a mid-range GPU without bottlenecking, and you can add a SSD (which is going to be about the biggest performance increase available anyway). 

 

You could do a GPU, new PSU and SSD for fairly cheap.

[Spotty]

3 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

You could do a GPU, new PSU and SSD for fairly cheap.

Wouldn't hurt to start with an SSD, since if you are going with a new build you would need one anyway.
Keep in mind you'll need a 2.5" SATA SSD and not a M.2 socket SSD to be compatible with the older board.

Something like this https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product/4mkj4D/crucial-mx500-250gb-25-solid-state-drive-ct250mx500ssd1
would be a good option to install the operating system on to speed up the system, and is fairly inexpensive upgrade at 60 euros.
If you find you still need to upgrade other parts after that, you can go with a new build and carry the SSD over to the new system. You would have been buying one anyway, so you haven't lost anything.

[GoldenLag]

Just now, Taf the Ghost said:

You could do a GPU, new PSU and SSD for fairly cheap.

He can get an HD7970 or R9 280 for quite cheap. An crucial mx500 250GB is an good SSD. 

 

5 minutes ago, Denam89 said:

Is it really that bad? =( I hope that I could at least save the motherboard and the processor 

A new build would increase my costs quite a bit

A new build is probably the better bet.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 1200 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor  (€77.59 @ Alza) 
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  (€78.44 @ Mindfactory) 
Memory: Patriot - Viper 4 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (€87.89 @ Alternate) 
Storage: Crucial - MX500 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (€59.90 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (€64.90 @ Caseking) 
Total: €368.72
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-23 21:56 CEST+0200

 

This plus a used GPU (like one i mentioned above) is a good contender. Though the build Spotty recommended is more or less the best choice

[Taf the Ghost]

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/jW9NYT

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Storage: Crucial - MX500 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (€89.90 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Video Card: Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Video Card  (€172.84 @ Mindfactory) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (€85.99 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Total: €348.73
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-23 21:58 CEST+0200

 

The PSU is the one part I'd go to upgrade first, then SSD, and then GPU.

 

As the others said, looking through the Used market would be a good idea. Especially after Nvidia launches their next gen in a few months.

[Spotty]

28 minutes ago, Denam89 said:

Lately I can't even run a cellphone emulator with the effects on and most of the slow indie titles runs with lag

On another note, when was the last time you cleaned your PC? Dusted out the CPU cooler inside and checked that the fans are clean and spinning properly?
Older systems have a tendency to start collecting dust which can cause temperatures to rise, and when it gets hot your CPU will slow down and start to feel sluggish. The CPU you have puts out a lot of heat, so if it's dusty inside the computer it might not be able to cool the CPU effectively.

[Taf the Ghost]

1 minute ago, Spotty said:

On another note, when was the last time you cleaned your PC? Dusted out the CPU cooler inside and checked that the fans are clean and spinning properly?
Older systems have a tendency to start collecting dust which can cause temperatures to rise, and when it gets hot your CPU will slow down and start to feel sluggish. The CPU you have puts out a lot of heat, so if it's dusty inside the computer it might not be able to cool the CPU effectively.

He's got a great case which might also need some new fans.

[Denam89]

10 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

You really need a new platform. The 7 year old build (the CPU came out in 2011) doesn't have much of an upgrade path.

 

However, what performance issues are you facing? That'll handle a mid-range GPU without bottlenecking, and you can add a SSD (which is going to be about the biggest performance increase available anyway). 

 

You could do a GPU, new PSU and SSD for fairly cheap.

4 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/jW9NYT

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Storage: Crucial - MX500 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (€89.90 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Video Card: Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Video Card  (€172.84 @ Mindfactory) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (€85.99 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Total: €348.73
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-23 21:58 CEST+0200

 

The PSU is the one part I'd go to upgrade first, then SSD, and then GPU.

 

As the others said, looking through the Used market would be a good idea. Especially after Nvidia launches their next gen in a few months.

My OS takes forever to boot up and to start running normally.

Some of my games don't run on normal or high specs, only on low (Divinity Original Sin 2 for instance) and the really indie ones, like Dead Cells, they get lagged on the screen, like something was pushing the image back.

 

Is it worth it to get used parts? The components that you suggested is the same price as the new builds suggested above! o_o

 

7 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Wouldn't hurt to start with an SSD, since if you are going with a new build you would need one anyway.
Keep in mind you'll need a 2.5" SATA SSD and not a M.2 socket SSD to be compatible with the older board.

Something like this https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product/4mkj4D/crucial-mx500-250gb-25-solid-state-drive-ct250mx500ssd1
would be a good option to install the operating system on to speed up the system, and is fairly inexpensive upgrade at 60 euros.
If you find you still need to upgrade other parts after that, you can go with a new build and carry the SSD over to the new system. You would have been buying one anyway, so you haven't lost anything.

Thanks for the explanation, I was in doubt if I could run that SSD type.

500G SSD would be more than enough to run the OS+games? or is it better to just get a small SSD and reuse the old SATA?

 

[Bananasplit_00]

For €500 I'd go find an I7 4790K + mobo and cooler and then get a used 1060. At least where I'm at that should be doable if you just wait for deals but I have no clue about the German used market beyond that they rarely ship to Sweden and won't take offers when they have crazy pricing

[Taf the Ghost]

1 minute ago, Denam89 said:

My OS takes forever to boot up and to start running normally.

Some of my games don't run on normal or high specs, only on low (Divinity Original Sin 2 for instance) and the really indie ones, like Dead Cells, they get lagged on the screen, like something was pushing the image back.

 

Is it worth it to get used parts? The components that you suggested is the same price as the new builds suggested above! o_o

 

Thanks for the explanation, I was in doubt if I could run that SSD type.

500G SSD would be more than enough to run the OS+games? or is it better to just get a small SSD and reuse the old SATA?

 

Keep the old HDD. There's no reason to get rid of it. 250 Gb is normally more than enough for the OS + Games for most people. The basic assumption, normally, is people will download a lot of video.

 

You need at least a new SSD and a PSU. Those are the two things that are going to go first. A good PSU is always the basic foundation of a build. After that, a good, midrange GPU. And maybe another 8gb of memory.

[Denam89]

4 minutes ago, Spotty said:

On another note, when was the last time you cleaned your PC? Dusted out the CPU cooler inside and checked that the fans are clean and spinning properly?
Older systems have a tendency to start collecting dust which can cause temperatures to rise, and when it gets hot your CPU will slow down and start to feel sluggish. The CPU you have puts out a lot of heat, so if it's dusty inside the computer it might not be able to cool the CPU effectively.

It was about 2 months ago I think.

I have a CPU cooler - Zalman CNPS10X Optima 2011

I try to be as efficient as possible with cleaning, but my case gets to much dust, specially the GPU. 

Regarding the heat, i dont have idea how to measure it, sorry =(. But my usage is really mild - low, really ocassional. 

 

The emulator never ran on regular specs, only without effects, so I thought that maybe the problem could be with my GPU

2 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

He's got a great case which might also need some new fans.

I have a big one on top, another in the front, one smaller on the back and two smaller on the side.

In the beggining I was having trouble with the CPU noise, but after I bought this cooler no more.

[Spotty]

2 minutes ago, Denam89 said:

500G SSD would be more than enough to run the OS+games? or is it better to just get a small SSD and reuse the old SATA?

500GB should be plenty.
I have a 500GB SSD and it has Windows, a bunch of programs, and 4 or 5 very large AAA games installed on it like GTA V, Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Witcher 3 which takes up a lot of space. Some of those large games take up more than 50GB each. I still have 160GB free space on that drive.
If you need any space beyond that, then you could also reuse your old HDD to store things like extra games, videos, pictures, and music - things that that take up a lot of space but won't benefit from the extra speed of the SSD.

[Spotty]

1 minute ago, Denam89 said:

Regarding the heat, i dont have idea how to measure it, sorry =(. But my usage is really mild - low, really ocassional. 

There are ways to measure your CPU temperatures using software. Programs such as HWinfo64, CoreTemp, Aida64 (trial version), and plenty others. You just need to download and install it, open it up and it will show you your CPU temperatures.

 

3 minutes ago, Denam89 said:

The emulator never ran on regular specs, only without effects, so I thought that maybe the problem could be with my GPU

Which emulator are you running and we can possibly find out what hardware/specifications it requires to run.

[Denam89]

1 minute ago, Spotty said:

Which emulator are you running and we can possibly find out what hardware/specifications it requires to run.

Nox app player - version 6.2.2 I think

[Spotty]

2 minutes ago, Denam89 said:

Nox app player - version 6.2.2 I think

That has some of the most vague system requirements I've ever seen.

 

 

"At least dual core processor, both Intel and AMD are OK"
"The higher performance the better" <-- well I should hope so

 

It seems to have fairly minimal system requirements, so I can't see any obvious reason why it would struggle to run on your current system.

[xriqn]

Get a nice new SSD in that rig, a 1060 or 1070 and upgrade to 16gb ram, that machine will last you for a good few more years. Despite it being on fail... I mean bulldozer, the 8120 is still a very usable CPU when coupled with the right GPU and overclocked a bit. I know people will disagree with me on that but you can't hide from the fact that it's still an ok chip to use for multi threaded stuff like games.

[Denam89]

2 minutes ago, Spotty said:

That has some of the most vague system requirements I've ever seen.

 

"At least dual core processor, both Intel and AMD are OK"
"The higher performance the better" <-- well I should hope so

 

It seems to have fairly minimal system requirements, so I can't see any obvious reason why it would struggle to run on your current system.

Maybe the problem is me heheheheheh

 

To be fair this app has a lot of problems, specially with this VT tool, but the funny thing is when I watch other running the same on youtube evrything's fine =( oh well

 

In resume: I can either do what I intended in the first place (SSD+GPU+RAM and PSU) or building a new one from scratch within the same price range

On both cases, what would be the life spam? Should I be safe for more 4+ years?

 

To be fair and honest: I feel really bad getting rid of this parts, mainly because they still run pretty well for my purposes, you know? If it was the case that nothing worked, but it's not. I just get frustated that some games, low and mid ones, don't run at least in normal settings =(

[Spotty]

37 minutes ago, xriqn said:

Get a nice new SSD in that rig, a 1060 or 1070 and upgrade to 16gb ram

A GTX 1070 starts at 400 euro which is their budget. An SSD and 16GB of DDR3 ram would be way over their budget. Would also definitely want to replace the PSU as well if you were powering a GTX 1070 as well which would add to the cost even more. At the point of spending approximately 600 euros you would be better off looking at a platform (CPU/mobo) uprade from AM3+.
OP also only does light gaming, so a GTX 1070 would be overkill for their needs. If they were to buy a dedicated GPU at all and not use integrated graphics or reuse their current card, then a 1050ti (or equivalent used card) should be plenty for their use.

 

29 minutes ago, Denam89 said:

In resume: I can either do what I intended in the first place (SSD+GPU+RAM and PSU) or building a new one from scratch within the same price range

On both cases, what would be the life spam? Should I be safe for more 4+ years?

The FX 8120 CPU is getting quite old, so even if you did upgrade PSU + SSD + RAM + GPU now, and even if things were great, you would still be looking at upgrading the CPU, motherboard and RAM sometime relatively soon down the line anyway.
Modern budget CPUs will perform much better than your current CPU, and will also be much more efficient using less power and generating less heat.
When you do upgrade the CPU & motherboard, the new platform will be using DDR4 memory. This means any new DDR3 memory you buy for your current system won't be able to be carried over to the new system - you will have to buy all new RAM again - and at the moment RAM prices are quite high.
However, you will be able to carry over things like the SSD, GPU, and PSU to the new system.

 

If you purchase a new system now, with a new motherboard and CPU, you will get the newer platform (AM4) that is planned to be supported for the next few years with new CPUs. You will also be buying DDR4 memory which will be compatible for the next several years. This means that even if you want to ugprade your CPU in a few years time, you may only need to upgrade the CPU, rather than upgrading the Motherboard + CPU + RAM. You will have much more flexibility in upgrading, and you should get longer life out of it as a result.

 

If you're unsure about what you want to do just now in relation to upgrading or building new, or want to save up a bit of extra money before building a new system, I'd recommend getting an SSD now and installing it in your current system.

Adding an SSD to an old build is a quick and cheap way to help it feel more responsive, and will also greatly help with some of those issues you've described such as taking a long time to boot. If/when you do build a new PC, you can just take it out of that machine and plug it in to the new machine.

But, I probably wouldn't recommend buying things such as DDR3 RAM for your current system if you are considering building new soon, as you won't be able to use it in the new system and any money you spend on it now will be effectively wasted when you upgrade.