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Gaming PC First Worthy Upgrades

kylewwefan
kylewwefan
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I’ll start with I know a little about PC building, but I really don’t follow the trends.

My son wants to get into PC gaming for some reason and he bought a cheap, older “gaming” PC from some guy online that claimed it played fortnite and GTA fine. The important specs he has are:

Intel i5 (first gen probably)
8 gig ram ( not the cool looking heat sink gaming ram. Regular generic stuff.)
1 gig ddr Generic looking graphics card
2 tb HDD
Windows 10
Cool looking gaming PC case w/glass side 3 fans and cool led lights


I know nothing about the Mobo or power supply. It basically looks like a cheap budget pc with a mediocre graphics card in a cool gaming pc case to me. But he’s excited about it. Downloads steam and try’s to play oblivion on it. Gets choppy at times. Not impressed at all. I doubt it could handle newer games.

So anyways, he’s looking at upgrade stuff straight away. My thaughts are graphics card w/4 gig ram as all the newer ones seem to have. And jump ram up to 16 gig gaming type stuff. And a small SSD to put the games on.

Minimal investment. Would that be enough to get him into more modern games. Possibly eso for dad? Hehehe

Oh yeah, and then overclocking. Would that be something that could be considered even? And how do you even go about doing that?
  • anitajoneb17_ESO
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    The specs information you provided looks very vague.

    Maybe you could try installing something like Aida64 (https://www.aida64.com/downloads) for more accurate info ?

    Also, forget about overclocking unless you're a really experienced techie - which you admit not to be :-)

    Edited by anitajoneb17_ESO on August 3, 2019 12:54PM
  • ghastley
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    kylewwefan wrote: »

    I know nothing about the Mobo or power supply.
    These could be the limitations. A better video card may overload the PS, and not run at full speed because the PCI slot doesn't have the bandwidth. And that's if it fits at all.

    SSD would help for program loading, but make sure it's not getting wasted with stuff like screenshots.
  • Bladerunner1
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    Look up the Motherboard model number and Google it to see what sort of CPU socket is used, usually LGA ###. Or you could Google the processor model number that shows up in the system info. There are many different versions of an i5. This game and a few others rely a lot on CPU. You could also see which video card slots are supported by the mobo.

    Before spending money it wouldn't hurt to make sure you're getting a nice upgrade for a decent price

    You could look up video cards here
    https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

    And CPUs here
    https://m.cpubenchmark.net/
  • Pontypants
    Upgrading the GPU is going to give you the most noticeable difference when it comes to gaming - a game like ESO is quite CPU heavy so that i5 is probably going to struggle. 8gb of ram is still OK for gaming but 16GB is definitely preferred for modern games.

    First thing to do is upgrade the GPU. Next thing is to probably buy a new computer :P The CPU socket is probably outdated and the mobo probably can't handle much more than what is already in it. The good news is - your new GPU will be transferable to the new pc :)
  • starlizard70ub17_ESO
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    Honestly, given the info you provided, I don't think it's worth it to upgrade your current PC. Basically you'd have to gut the entire thing and replace all the components. The power supply being the biggest concern. I'm guessing the power supply isn't strong enough to handle any real modern upgrades you'd want to make.

    You're best bet is to go to your local PC stores and check out their open box or manager sales. You can get a PC that can run ESO and other higher end games for $500 - $800. You could easily spend that much or more trying to upgrade what you have now. Your power supply and motherboard will be the biggest factors in determining what you can upgrade and by how much.
    Edited by starlizard70ub17_ESO on August 9, 2019 7:40PM
    "We have found a cave, but I don't think there are warm fires and friendly faces inside."
  • kylewwefan
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    Thanks for all the input!

    After doing a little research, the PS4 GPUs has 8 gig ddr5 so I figure that would be the best place to start. There’s a fairly inexpensive ($150) Radeon one on the market I got my eyes on. The off brand ones have terrible quality control issues I’ve read.

    Am I wrong looking at the amount of ram on the graphics card as my bottom line? There’s a ton out there with half this much for the same price and I gotta wonder why?

    I hadn’t given much thaught to if the power supply could handle it? That’s another thing I need to look into now.

    Might do the RAM after that, but I kind of doubt it will make any kind of noticeable difference.

    I learned this i5 cpu is “locked”, so no over clocking going on. After checking out cooling systems and requirements, that’s something I’m not likely ever going to be attempting.
  • anitajoneb17_ESO
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    kylewwefan wrote: »
    Thanks for all the input!

    Thanks for the thanks, but to be honest, it doesn't look like you've actually read it...
  • Watchdog
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    @kylewwefan - I would wholeheartedly recommend that you ask some techie you know personally, or that you do some reserch on the Internet, on websites like this:
    https://www.pcbuildadvisor.com/what-parts-are-most-important-for-a-gaming-pc-understanding-your-computer-hardware/

    It was the first result for a quick Google search for "what is important for a gaming pc".

    Don't buy stuff you have no idea what it does, how it does it, or whether it can do it in your son's PC at all.

    Edited by Watchdog on August 11, 2019 3:52PM
    Member of Alith Legion: https://www.alithlegion.com
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