Upgrading Build (6 years old)

Generic Dreadhead

Hi All,

With your help, 6 years ago I built my 1st gaming pc.
It's now come time to give it a new lease of life

I have already bought a more updated graphics card (listed below) and upgraded from Windows 7 to 10, but aside from that, the rest of the build is the same as it was 6x years ago.

My goal is to try get the most bang for my buck for a goal of ~€400 (with an absolute upper limit max of €500)
I'd like to upgrade to a 500gb SSD, change my tower for one that isn't so (physically) big.
The one I have is just too large and since I'm not really overclocking it I don't really need the level of air flow it has, so something more compact would suffice.

I'm fairly confident one of my RAM ports on my MOBO is dead, so hence why I'm using 1x8GB, so I don't know if adding more RAM is worthwhile or even an option (without getting another MOBO)

I generally only use the computer for general browsing, watching media and playing games. I don't do any sort of audio or video production on it.
The most taxing games I'm interested in playing would be (mainly Strategy games as opposed to FPS)

• Total War: Warhammer 1 & 2
• Overwatch
• X-Com 2
• Anno 1800 (maybe)
• Civilisation 6

So I guess my targets are (I could be way off the mark though)

• SSD - 500gb+
• Tower - Smaller, Good Air flow, room the optical drive and ~4 Hard Disk bays
• CPU - I'm wondering is this the biggest "bottleneck"?

Important Info
CPU Intel 3rd Gen Core i5-3570K CPU (4x 3.40GHz Turbo) processor
SSD Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5 inch SATA
Tower/Case FRACTAL DESIGN Gehäuse Arc Midi Tower
OS Windows 10 (64bit)
MoBo ASUS P8Z77-V PRO, Sockel 1155, ATX, DDR3
GPU Zotac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB Mini GDDR5
RAM 8GB Corsair Vengeance Low Profile
PSU Seasonic X-650, 650 Watt, 80PLUS Gold

Less Important Info
CPU Fan Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD
Tower Fans 3x BitFenix Spectre PRO 140mm Blue LED & 2x Xigmateck PWM 140mm Blue LED
HDD Seagate Barracuda 7200 2000GB, SATA 6Gb/s
Optical Drive LG CH10LS Blu-Ray ROM Bulk
Speakers Genius GX Gaming SW-G2.1 3000 - 70W 2.1
Monitor Samsung SE510C 27-Inch Full HD Curved LED Monitor (16:9, 3000:1, 250 cd/m, 1920 x 1080, 4 ms, VGA/HDMI)

Let me know any/all advice you have, it's greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance all

L

Overclock your CPU first and see how you're getting along. You've a decent enough cooler and that'd be the cheapest improvement by miles.

I wouldn't expect it to be a bottleneck - it's still a pretty decent chip and short of replacing it with a 3770K (dubious value given you're on a 3570K already), you'd need a new motherboard to get a CPU upgrade since you're up near the top of the LGA1155 socket chips.

Xenoronin

I don't really see much in need of an upgrade here tbh. You could stick in another bit of RAM, it helps in some cases, but most games don't use more than 8gb, though to my knowledge DDR3 really does like having two sticks for dual channel. You probably have 4 slots, so if one is a dud, just find two that pair (usually slot 1 & 3, and slot 2 & 4 pair). Make sure you use the same RAM model in dual channel.

I have a very similar build. I upgraded to the 3770K but only because I was running a media server at the same time as gaming, which was causing bottlenecking. Total War is meant to be CPU bound to my knowledge, so maybe it is worth an upgrade.

Honestly, for €500 you could probably upgrade everything and sell off the guts of your current rig. Allows you to get an mATX board, which in turn allows for a smaller case. You could go AMD with the 2600(X) CPU or Intel with the i5 8400 or 8600K.

TerrorFirmer

Given the i7-3770 is only about €100 2nd hand it's maybe worth it. Modern games are starting to choke on quad cores.

Warhammer is CPU heavy but not sure if it scales across cores/threads though, if it favors raw clockspeed/power per core over the number of cores, then your i5 is still OK, especially if overclocked.

Other games you've mentioned would run fine on your current CPU.

New stuff like Battlefield, Assassins Creed, etc all run much better on CPU's with extra cores or threads. From what you're describing I suppose you're not a heavy gamer so maybe a hefty overclock on the i5 is the first port of call.

Generic Dreadhead

Ok, I'm going to need to try overclocking firstly anyway.

It sounds like I need to reconsider that MOBO and go for a more modern one that will allow me use a smaller tower and a better CPU.
Then given I could trickle down my CPU + MOBO + 1x 8gb DDR3 ram to my 2nd machine (partners pc), perhaps I'd be best off investing a little bit more and refreshing those 3x parts.

I guess I should first nail down the SSD, is there a particular one I should be looking at?

Here's 2 examples:

£51 - SanDisk SSD PLUS 480 GB Sata III
https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-PLUS-Sata-Inch-Internal/dp/B01F9G46Q8/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1542296219&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=SanDisk+Extreme+Pro+480GB&psc=1
£79 - Samsung MZ-76E500B/EU 500 GB 860 EVO Sata III
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-MZ-76E500B-EU-Solid-State/dp/B078WQT6S6?pd_rd_wg=9PWuL&pd_rd_r=180da179-c853-4a52-92cc-61a5d91f9f98&pd_rd_w=7cbLu&ref_=pd_gw_simh&pf_rd_r=H43DJG5YN81WP1GDT0Q5&pf_rd_p=14f91171-0541-58ad-938b-3aec945f4cb7

Also, if I go with a new MOBO, 1x 8GB DDR4 would probably do me. So what would be a good value option there?

K.O.Kiki

i7-3770 is €95 on CEX
You can also find Xeon E3-1270 (same CPU) for around €65-70 on eBay/AliExpress.
Those extra threads should help you in your strategy games.

For case, the Raijintek Arcadia II is the closest I can find in terms of downsized cases that still take ATX motherboards & most of your hardware; however it only fits 2x 3.5" HDDs.

To test if your RAM slot is dead or not, simply remove 1 RAM stick, try to boot; swap to other slot, try to boot; and then repeat both with the 2nd RAM stick.
That lets you nail down if it's the RAM slot or the RAM stick.

LGA 1155 motherboards are still dirt cheap on eBay however, so if you need to replace it's easy.

Generic Dreadhead

Slot 1 is 100% dead. It was actually Dead on Arrival.
I was just too lazy to bother doing a return since it would (at the time) leave me without a computer until the whole return & replace cycle could happen. 27yo me was an impatient f**ker tbh

Also, maybe I'm a naive fool, but I didn't realise upgrading my MOBO would mean I could get a smaller MOBO and hence a smaller tower.
2x Hard Drive slots might be a little small, I'd rather see if I can get one that has 3 or more (1x SSD and 2x HDD), even if it's slightly bigger physically that the Raijintek Arcadia II

K.O.Kiki

The Arcadia II has 2x 3.5" as well as 2x 2.5" slots.

Or do what I do: stuff the 2.5" SSDs anywhere out of the way. There's no moving parts so as long as they get a little airflow they'll be grand! :pac:

Generic Dreadhead

Doh! Didn't realise that

K.O.Kiki

There's also the Riotoro CR1080 which is as short an ATX case can be (360mm), however you'd need a new CPU cooler too.

Xenoronin

The Fractal Design C / Meshify, are both excellent cases. You sacrifice the optical drive space, which isn't an issue if you don't have/need a CD drive. SSDs are nicely tucked away behind the motherboard. If you take time setting up the wires back there, you can make it super easy to add up to 3 SSDs.
I went from the Bitfenix Shinobi to the Meshify and it was a great move.

Generic Dreadhead

I ended up settling on the below for now, which comes in around 500

Type Description Price Link
CPU AMD 4.25 Ghz 19 MB RYZEN5 2600X Socket AM4 CPU Processor 220 https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07B428V2L/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_5?smid=AFXON1SGSPLH4&psc=1
SSD SanDisk SSD PLUS 480 GB Sata III 2.5 Inch Internal SSD 60 https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01F9G46Q8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Tower/Case Corsair Carbide Series 88R Windowed mATX/Mini-ITX Case 51 https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01550Y9GA/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_2?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1
MoBo AMD Ryzen CPU AM4 Socket DDR4 PCIe Micro ATX 80 https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B06WWGLF66/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_4?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1
RAM Corsair Vengeance LPX 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4 2400 MHz 65 https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01ARHBBPS/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1

K.O.Kiki

Can you still cancel the order?

You can get a better B450 motherboard for less today:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-B450M-GAMING-PLUS-Motherboard/dp/B07FNMLBF9/ref=sr_1_6?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1542373238&sr=1-6&keywords=b450+matx

Generic Dreadhead

Oh I haven't ordered anything aside from the SSD.
I kind of realised from my missus face when I told that her mouth was saying "ok" but her eyes were saying "is this REALLY necessary right before Christmas?"
So I'm holding tough and will pick stuff up if it goes on sale soon, but will likely finish it all off in early January

K.O.Kiki

Get yourself the i7-3770 or Xeon so; maybe she won't notice if you only buy 1 component & tell her you're simply replacing the thermal paste