OS
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
CPU
- Intel Core i7 2600 @ 3.40GHz 43 °C
- Sandy Bridge 32nm Technology
RAM
- 4.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 532MHz (7-7-7-18)
MOBO
- Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. Z68X-UD3R-B3 (Socket 1155) 37 °C
GFX
- VX2240w-2 (1680x1050@59Hz)
- 1023MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 (Gigabyte) 39 °C
PSU
- Thermaltake Smart Power 750W 80 Plus Bronze
STORAGE
- 1863GB Seagate ST2000DL003-9VT166 ATA Device (SATA) 33 °C

I'm living cheaply so not looking for a brand new comp unless I really need one, just enough to play things like Overwatch and Black Desert on high.

Any tips? Friend said to get 2x 4GB ram and new graphics card, but not sure what Mhz or DDR to get. Would be keen for 10x series but maybe wait for it to get cheaper.. ?

Because you're on old DDR3, 16GB is gonna cost ~$190.

That GPU is old as hell. A 1050 will set you back pocket change, but a 1070 will give you heaps of room for future upgrades.

Overwatch on high, unless you're running 100% render scale with no FSAA, must be like a slideshow on that system.

Yeah, ram and a 1070 would be a nice upgrade, and if you could stretch the budget to get an SSD as well, you'll notice a huge improvement in the speed that windows and games load. The low to mid range 10xx cards are already nice and cheap, so no real need to wait

Intel lists support for that CPU as End of Life.

Future Windows 10 updates may not support your CPU/Motherboard.
i.e. investing anything in to that might be a bad idea.

XBox One or a PS4 might be a better option

Haha yeah I have to run overwatch on lowest settings, if I have anything else open the character models only load about 2 mins into a match which can be funny.

It sounds like I might need to stretch the budget then.. Would I need to get a new mobo as well if I'm upgrading SSD and CPU?

If you upgrade the CPU it'll be a cascading thing, cos you'll need a new motherboard and new motherboards use DDR4 ram so you'll need all new ram. A new video card will work on your existing hardware and any new hardware you get later, same with an SSD. If you buy new ram now though it wont work on any future motherboard/cpu you upgrade too so that'll be wasted dollars a bit, but a video card and SSD will carry forward with whatever else you buy in the future so they're pretty safe upgrades.

Also AMD is now worth considering when it comes to CPUs, so make sure you have a look at them before plonking cash on an Intel.

I'm pretty sure you can just download that stuff dude, my dad who works at Nintendo told me.

http://i.imgur.com/aPzIgGS.jpg

you'll just need some basic DDR3 modules for it

i have some here but i actually gave them away last night so they're as good as gone and you can't have them so no

just get some used ones from Facebook Marketplace or whatever


http://img0.pconline.com.cn/pconline/1305/15/3298958_18.jpg

they're dual channel so when you install them in the board, make sure you read the mem_bank labeling printed near the dimm module risers and plug them in sequence eg: mem0 + mem2 / mem1 + mem3



last edited by trillion at 19:23:29 08/Aug/17

last edited by trillion at 19:23:59 08/Aug/17

Almost sounds like you need to get a new PC, Even just a budget gaming one.

You can get a GTX 1050 Ti for $200, So that will cover the GFX.

Single 8GB stick of DDR3 can be had for $80 or so.

Kingston 120gb SSD for $80 should give you nice performance in general.

These prices are from Umart.

Hey Phooks, do you have a budget for upgrades?

The thing about modern PCs is they're so fast and the rate of improvement is now so small percentage wise that a new PC lasts way longer than it used to back in the Pentium days. As you yourself are seeing - a i7 2600 still has life, but lacks upgradeability. A new system, however - a modern Ryzen or an i7 7600, is going to give you 4 years easy. The only reason I went from a 3770 to a 6700 was the motherboard died.

The other thing I would recommend - I absolutely agree with everything Khel has said and would echo that. The single biggest performance improvement you can bring a modern PC is an SSD. It won't help your framerates, but for load times the difference is phenomenal. I now have 1x 500GB Intel 600p NVMe drive, 2x 500GB Samsung 840/850 EVOs - they're becoming cheap enough that you can justify adding 500GB drives at a time for ~$250/ea.

If we know what you'd like to spend, we can probably give better reccommendations. Also, I have a 750Ti and a few 60 and 120GB SSDs kicking around. I *might* be willing to help a fellow QGLer if you came to the table with upgrading other bits and pieces - no promises.

I'm still running my 3770K I just put a 1080ti into it, near doubled my frames on most games.

RAM really is the issue to your upgrade-ability. 4GB isn't enough but buying DDR3 seems like a massive waste, maybe try sourcing some secondhand DDR3 so you can just go the SSD and GFX upgrade.

Also try Neweeg, especially for RAM if you decide to do a full upgrade, way cheaper than the usual suspects like MSY and Umart.

Thanks for all the tips, particularly regarding the cascading components that helps for my long term budgeting/saving needs. Considering that, my budget is still very small for now so I'm talking to a friend about borrowing his second hand 4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 (would be pretty stoked, still a huge upgrade to my 460), and heading into Umart now for these bad boys http://www.umart.com.au/newsite/goods.php?id=29065 , was told they should work with my current setup. I know it's not much and certainly not future proof, but it should get the job done for now. Looking into a cheap SSD next.

Opened up my PC last night to check specs and it wouldn't start afterwards, and for about 20 mins was concerned my mobo had failed, unplugged everything and no fix... Turned out my RAM needed to be forced in a bit harder for a satisfying 'click' and I didn't want to be rough with it the first time around.

mem0 + mem2 / mem1 + mem3

Cheers for this would totally have missed it, will figure it out this arvo

Raven I would be extremely keen on one of the SSDs, never had one and partitioning/transferring drives is not my strong suit, but I'll be researching it tonight to see what's up with them

A lot of people say you only need 60 or 120GB for a boot drive, but I stronly disagree. I wouldn't suggest anything less than a 500. BUT, 60 is plenty sufficient to store a hiberfile and pagefile, use as a tmp dir, and MAYBE junction a heap of common directories to.

yeah it can be easyily overlooked if the ram mods don't have heat spreaders covering and are just the IC on PCB format. like those kingies you're going to pickup look alright but like you mentioned won't give you much cascade investment into the next build where you'll probably want better/more ddr3 or ddr4

Sweet baby jesus. There are pillows on the maps in overwatch guys. Pillows. Just lyin around, for those with PC power to handle rendering them

Don't even get me started on the skybox

Hahaha, its like those videos of colorblind people who see colour for the first time :p

so i found some old ddr3 mods you can has if you haven't already

32gb 1600's

http://i.imgur.com/toKTTLR.jpg