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Upgrading old PC

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bluntzMastah

Joined
Apr 15, 2023
Messages
30 (0.04/day)
Hello. :) i was wondering where I could ask this question and I remembered this forum. :) I have a system which I bought for 70€ maybe half a year ago, and I kept upgrading for a little. Now it is:

I7-870
Asus P7P55-M motherboard
RX580 4gb sapphire gpu
650w cheap PSU
16gb ( 4 x 4 ) Kingston DDR3 1600Mhz
250gb adata su630 ssd
500gb crucial mx500 ssd
1tb patriot p220 ssd
1tb wd hdd ( dying one ), planning on upgrading to 2

now from what it was I upgraded ram and ssd, added extra fan for pc box and was thinking what would be next one or two steps upgrading my oldie? I am using this pc for video editing, photoshop, illustrator and some gaming. Was thinking about upgrading gpu, but now thinking maybe cpu upgrade would be nice first, but then as far as I know my mb basically reached it’s limits with that i7, sooo… confused now, lol. Any suggestions and why?
Thanks!
 
If you want to reuse the ram it shouldn't be much to get a used 4th gen Intel mobo and cpu. Otherwise you need new ram and cpu and motherboard.
 
Is this your only computer or is it like a retro fun thing? If it's your only system and you're on a tight budget I'd look into finding a Haswell system (Intel iX 4xxx).
 
It is my only one computer except my laptopt. I would like it to be a little bit faster. I am not looking for best graphics in game or etc., BUT it would be nice to edit 4k videos lol. Now premiere doesn’t have a lot of problems with 2.7k, but 4k is impossible. :/
Is it worth upgrading rams to DDR4 as this would mean basically new and fast set up, and with new and fast money starts playing it’s role lol.
I guess it would be nice to have an upgrade and mb, but what would be your advice for max performance and budget friendly?

also, it would be nice to get a noticable upgrade, not like 2-5 percent faster. :)
 

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bluntzMastah said:
It is my only one computer except my laptopt. I would like it to be a little bit faster. I am not looking for best graphics in game or etc., BUT it would be nice to edit 4k videos lol. Now premiere doesn’t have a lot of problems with 2.7k, but 4k is impossible. :/
Is it worth upgrading rams to DDR4 as this would mean basically new and fast set up, and with new and fast money starts playing it’s role lol.
I guess it would be nice to have an upgrade and mb, but what would be your advice for max performance and budget friendly?

also, it would be nice to get a noticable upgrade, not like 2-5 percent faster. :)
Click to expand...
4th gen i5 or i7 would be noticeable upgrade and save money on ram. Newer cpu with dd4 would probably be very noticeable above that, but more expensive and need new ram. I noticed a big difference going from i7 4790k ddr3 1600 to i5 11600k ddr4 3200, but that's not a budget oriented jump. If I only got a gen or two newer it wouldn't have been worth the trouble.
 
bluntzMastah said:
It is my only one computer except my laptopt. I would like it to be a little bit faster. I am not looking for best graphics in game or etc., BUT it would be nice to edit 4k videos lol. Now premiere doesn’t have a lot of problems with 2.7k, but 4k is impossible. :/
Is it worth upgrading rams to DDR4 as this would mean basically new and fast set up, and with new and fast money starts playing it’s role lol.
I guess it would be nice to have an upgrade and mb, but what would be your advice for max performance and budget friendly?

also, it would be nice to get a noticable upgrade, not like 2-5 percent faster. :)
Click to expand...
Given that DDR5 ram and the new platforms that uses it are getting more cost effective, getting DDR4 ram and platforms are getting cheaper and will probably bottom out by the holiday season.

In short, yes, getting on DDR4 is worth it.

I, well my parents, had an i7-870 too in the form of an OptiPlex, they too got sick of it's low performance and asked for my old pc which is an R5 1600 with a 1080Ti.

As for what DDR4 chipset you're gonna with, that'll depend on your budget. But imo I strongly suggest with something like an i5-10400 (and budget mobo) or R5-3600 (again with a budget mobo). Since you'll be buying these parts used, there's a chance that you might find this as mobo, cpu, and ram combo.

This is coming from the perspective of someone living in North America and in a major city, so I'm reasonably spoilt for choice for used hardware and I consider the above to be in low budget territory. Your local market may vary.

And while you didn't ask for a gpu upgrade, should you be open to that idea, I suggest going for at least a 2060 or an AMD equivalent. I'm biased towards the 2060 because DLSS 2 is such a big deal in favor of RTX cards.
 
i'd grab a ryzen 5 7600 with 32gb ddr5 ram 6000 and a decent motherboard either a x570e or b560
that should set you up for upgrades in the future for cpu's
this combo is around i think under 500 or could be less when there is sale

i wouldnt go with ddr4 (1. its coming end of line, later on when you have issues you need to buy second hand ram for ddr4)
theres nothing wrong with ddr4, just i prefer to buy something current and wont go out of production in 3-4 years time
 
500 doesn’t sound like budget. 100-200 is max what I am planning on spending.
If not lga 1150, then maybe a gpu upgrade for that money would be the best choice?
 
Try find something like i7-6700

I found one, HP Z240 Workstation, i7 6700, 16GB 1TB HDD for €150
 
Probably I’ll be keeping the one that I have for now and probably will be going for bigger upgrade later.
was thinking… that I could overclock my cpu? I7-870 maybe new cooler for cpu and quality termal paste? What numbers should I aim to achieve?
 
bluntzMastah said:
Probably I’ll be keeping the one that I have for now and probably will be going for bigger upgrade later.
was thinking… that I could overclock my cpu? I7-870 maybe new cooler for cpu and quality termal paste? What numbers should I aim to achieve?
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Even with an overclock, that rig isn't going to perform like what you need. Sorry, just the nature of the age.
 
Indeed.

Overclock and cooler isnt really gonna help you.
Save that money, for a better rig.
For €100 you can find a Haswell with mobo that performs a lot better.
 
I mean, sure the OC will be good but again, it's not going to keep up. I have a x5675 that I'd clock to 4.5ghz and even then it just wasn't enough to keep up with many workloads. Great for heat though.
 
Toothless said:
I mean, sure the OC will be good but again, it's not going to keep up. I have a x5675 that I'd clock to 4.5ghz and even then it just wasn't enough to keep up with many workloads. Great for heat though.
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+ with video editing you want a stable system
 
You could buy used from Amazon/ebay/etc. to get a fairly newer system now, or try to save up for something much newer with upgradeability. One example (I didn't do exhaustive search):
used z490 - $99
used 10600k - $99
16GB DDR4 - $32
So that's just over your $200 budget, but it should work with your other parts, assuming there are no problems with the used parts. If you go older still, I have a 5820k I could sell you on the cheap cheap, but you'd need to find an x99 motherboard and quad-channel DDR4 and I just don't think it'd be worth what you'd spend on it.

Saving up and buying newer stuff that'll perform better:
New z690 - $109
32GB DDR5 - $72
12400F - $150
So here you have a system that's $331, all new parts, and has upgradeability. You will be able to upgrade that in the future all the way to 14900k theoretically. You can save a little going with the DDR4 version of that motherboard ($99) and buying the same DDR4 as above (total cost $281), but if you want to upgrade it down the line, being on DDR5 is ideal. That said, $281 over the $230 used parts seems like a no-brainer to me as well lol.

There are of course other options out there, but I just figured I'd give you a couple cheap options forward.
 
P4-630 said:
Don't skimp on buying a CPU without iGPU...
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I don't, but if you're really cutting dollars out, it's one way to go. They also have a dGPU. Sure, the back-up is nice (and I've used it before), but if you're really trying to save money, it can be a good option. That whole post was about skimping on the cheapest viable option lol
 
Bobaganoosh said:
I don't, but if you're really cutting dollars out, it's one way to go. They also have a dGPU. Sure, the back-up is nice (and I've used it before), but if you're really trying to save money, it can be a good option. That whole post was about skimping on the cheapest viable option lol
Click to expand...

That isn't good advise imo, low budget or not...
 
Bobaganoosh said:
hey, everybody has an opinion, that's fine. TPU seems to think it was a good CPU for budget-builds and they're not the only ones. If they want an iGPU, $16 more gets you an iGPU.
Click to expand...

If someone only has a Desktop PC and there's something wrong with your dGPU, you're SOL and your PC became useless until you get a new dGPU....

And what is $16.... If you don't have 16$ extra to spend you shouldn't be buying new PC parts imo....
 
P4-630 said:
If someone only has a Desktop PC and there's something wrong with your dGPU, you're SOL and your PC became useless until you get a new dGPU....

And what is $16.... If you don't have 16$ extra to spend you shouldn't be buying new PC parts imo....
Click to expand...
I feel like you're addressing me with this when I'm not the one who literally said "100-200 is max what I am planning on spending". My CPU has an iGPU. OP's current CPU doesn't have one...so you're saying they shouldn't have even bought that one? Did you go after everyone who bought a 5600x, 5800x, 5900x, 5950x, and 5800X3D? Nobody should have bought those? It's too bad, because I heard they were pretty good.../s

Jokes aside, I'm not saying your wrong about the benefit of having a backup in case something goes wrong. It's super handy, I agree. Thing is, sometimes a budget is a budget. it's not up to you or I what their budget is. My computer was stupid expensive. Most people can't spend that money, and I totally understand that. A large portion of my life wouldn't have allowed me to spend the money I spent on my computer. It isn't abnormal. The cool thing about PCs is that there are options available to most budgets. They may not always be new or the most ideal PC parts, but you can save a few bucks here and there and still have a fully functional PC. As I said above, and even OP said at one point, they might be better saving up until that budget is a little higher to get something better. That's usually a good option. I was just trying to work within the parameters I was given (I even went outside those by $30 the first time, so $46 seemed like pushing it).
 
MSDOS Retro said:
+ with video editing you want a stable system
Click to expand...
It was stable. Just because someone overclocks something doesn't mean it's instantly unstable.
 
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