Worth Upgrading PC to play Doom?

Sneachta

Hi all,
I am wondering if it is worth my while upgrading my pc or should I be spending some money on a new pc? I specifically would like to be able to play Doom.
Screenshots below.

Serephucus

I would say yes. My girlfriend plays Doom on a PC with a 750 Ti, and that has slightly better all around specs than yours, and she's only playing around 720p medium, I think.

The good news is that Doom is extremely well optimised, and doesn't need ridiculous hardware to run. What sort of budget do you have to throw at this? If you copy the first post from this thread, and stick your answers in here, we can help you out.

TerrorFirmer

The GTX750Ti could play it perfectly fine technically but the E6600 is a relic at this stage and totally incapable - that's a really bizarre matching of card to CPU!

To answer the question though, yes - just buy a Q6700 on Ebay for about €40 and you'll get through it fine. It'll also allow you to play a lot of newer games also that wouldn't run on the E6600 but would run just fine on a 750Ti with a better processor.

The latest and greatest games will still be out of the question due to the processor bottleneck but things like Doom and some other recent single player games like Fallout 4 will get along OK with the upgrade.

Sneachta

Lads thanks a million for the help.

Is it easy enough to install the Q6700?

Also should I be buying another 4gb of RAM and if so could you please point me in the direction of what and where to buy?

Serephucus

It's pretty easy, yeah. There's videos online with more details, but it boils down to:

Turn off system
Twist latches on CPU cooler to release
Remove CPU cooler
Lift CPU socket release
remove CPU
Do above in reverse with new CPU, as well as applying new thermal paste.

I'd say no more than 15-20 minutes for a complete noobie.

As for RAM, it looks like you're running 4x1GB sticks, so you'd need to get a new kit to have 8GB. Certainly wouldn't hurt things. I'd think about an SSD as well if you don't already have one though. It's the biggest single improvement you can make to a system, and you'll notice it in everything (except gaming framerates).

Sneachta

Thanks again for reply and useful info.

Do I buy the thermal paste separately?

Would you mind pointing me to a link for the memory I'd need to buy please?

Serephucus

Memory: http://www.adverts.ie/memory/4-gb-ddr2-pc2-5300p-memory/12194522

Pretty sure that should work fine. I'm sure one of the lads will point out if it doesn't. DDR2 is old enough these days that you pay quite a premium for it (if you can find it), so you're much better off getting it second hand.

As for the thermal paste, yeah, you'll get it separately. It normally comes pre-applied on the CPU cooler, so depending on if the cooler you get with it has been used before, you might not need it, though it's generally handy to have.

This stuff is decent, and doesn't expire, so you can keep it for ages.

TerrorFirmer

I think Doom should be OK with 4GB ram, if it helps to minimize cost for the time being.

Another seller here with good feedback.

Thing to remember though is that the more money you put into it, the better off you'd be just getting a different 2nd hand PC.

For around €180 you can get a decent enough 2nd hand Dell Optiplex with an i5 processor and 8GB DDR3 ram, just carry over your GTX750Ti and you have a decent budget gaming PC for all the latest games. And you'd get about €50 back for the rest of your current PC minus the 750Ti.

Even with the Q6700 you'll still be hard CPU bottlenecked, eg, the GTX750Ti will be limited in what it can achieve due to being held back by the CPU.

Doom will probably be 1080p low-medium at around 40-50fps at a guess, the 750Ti can push 60fps no problem but the Q6700 won't. Some newer games like Fallout 4 would work too but would run at 1080p 30fps (due again to the q6700, but similar to PS4 or XB1 so not bad really)

did you buy the current PC like that or add the GTX750Ti yourself? It's a very odd matching with an E6600, as in most games the GTX750Ti would be sitting idle 80-90% of the time due to CPU bottleneck.

Sneachta

Lads thanks a million for all the help.

I bought the pc from a friend.

When the graphics card died I bought the GTX750Ti

Didn't know what I was doing obviously.

@Terrorfirmer would this do the trick or should I hold out for the i5?

http://www.adverts.ie/desktops/dell-optiplex-7010-sff/12488229

TerrorFirmer

No, that's too small, even if it's a low profile GTX750Ti it won't fit as the cooler will be too big.

something like this would be ideal.

Just throw in your GTX750Ti and you're set.

Or else go to about 180 for the i5, but the i3-3220 should suit you just fine for now - and easy to upgrade to an i5 or i7 down the line, so realistically is viable for years to come.

Skerries

Optiplexes usually wouldn't have enough power connections for a dedicated card so the Vostro would be better

killanena

Sneachta wrote: »

Hi all,
I am wondering if it is worth my while upgrading my pc or should I be spending some money on a new pc? I specifically would like to be able to play Doom.
Screenshots below.

I bought an RX 480 today and came with Doom for free.
Cost 216 euro with postage to my parcel motel in northren ireland.