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Thread: Looking for some advice about inherited pcs please

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    Looking for some advice about inherited pcs please

    Hello folks,

    Got given a cache of components and older pcs and was wondering if any of these systems were worth upgrading?

    The specs are as follows -


    PC 1

    Motherboard- Asustek P8H1MX r2.0

    Processor- I5 3330

    GPU - Radeon R7200

    8 gig ram 2x4

    HD 1tb sata

    Os windows 10


    PC 2

    Motherboard- Asus PK5

    Processor - core 2 duo E6750 2.60 ghz

    Gpu - GT 240

    4 gig ram 2x2

    HD 500 gig data

    Os windows 10

    Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated, I would love to play destiny 2 on pc and possibly do a bit of faffing about on the guitar. I like a tinker but it's been over a decade since I was up with what current standards are so I'm a tad out of touch.

    Thanks for your time and may the force be with you

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    Re: Looking for some advice about inherited pcs please

    pc 2 is defiantly not worth doing anything with.

    pc 1 is capable as a basic computer but upgrading it to play destiny 2 would be a waste of funds imo

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    ALT0153™ Rob_B's Avatar
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    Re: Looking for some advice about inherited pcs please

    Don't bother with PC 2 unless it's office usage.

    PC 1 - Maybe a GPU upgrade would make things playable. This is a 3330 with an Rx470 in a few games. So it's budget dependent. Stick a small cheap SSD on there as a boot drive as well if you can.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jOp55Ut5GV4

    It's not going to be amazing but it'll work

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    Re: Looking for some advice about inherited pcs please

    Thanks for the advice chaps. I kinda thought the second one was a bit long in the tooth for anything other than a wee backup. If I can get my hands on a cost effective GPU for pc
    1 then it may have some purpose.

    Cheers again

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    ALT0153™ Rob_B's Avatar
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    Re: Looking for some advice about inherited pcs please

    Like the person on reddit said you can also drop a new cpu in but GPU should be the first thing to get replaced

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    Senior Member cptwhite_uk's Avatar
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    Re: Looking for some advice about inherited pcs please

    1: Install an additional 2x4Gb DDR3 1333 or 1600 (doesn't really matter which). This will cost £15 from CEX and comes with 2 year warranty.
    2: Install a 240Gb SSD. This will cost £23-25 typically, Kingston A400 is a good choice.
    3: Intall a Geforce GTX 1060 3Gb, buy second hand, don't pay more than £100. Also consider GTX 1060 6Gb, any RX 480, RX 570, RX 580, GTX 970, GTX 980. Depending on the power supply you may need to check what power connections you require for the GPU. I think most 1060 only require 1x 8 pin. Make sure the GPU has 3Gb vRAM minimum, ideally it would be 4Gb minimum but we're working to a budget so you can get away with 3Gb. Don't pay more than £100 for the GPU
    4: CPU could be upgraded to a 3770 which would give you 4 cores, 8 threads (considered bear minimum for a modern gaming PC), but that's an extra £90 or so and the benefit is deminished over the other upgrades

    Limit yourself to £150 for the upgrades, but you should be able to get a semi-reasonable gaming experience with the updates listed in points 1-3

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    Senior Member cptwhite_uk's Avatar
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    • cptwhite_uk's system
      • Motherboard:
      • MSI B450i Gaming plus Wifi
      • CPU:
      • AMD Ryzen 3700X
      • Memory:
      • 16Gb DRR4 Trident Z 3200 C16
      • Storage:
      • Adata XPG SX8200 Pro 1Tb NVME SSD
      • Graphics card(s):
      • RX 6800 16Gb
      • PSU:
      • Corsair SF600 Gold
      • Case:
      • Ncase M1 v6
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 10 Pro
      • Monitor(s):
      • Dell S2721DGF (2560x1440 144Hz Nano IPS)
      • Internet:
      • Bt 500 Mbps

    Re: Looking for some advice about inherited pcs please

    1: Install a 240Gb SSD. This will cost £23-25 typically, Kingston A400 is a good choice.
    2: Intall a Geforce GTX 1060 3Gb, buy second hand, don't pay more than £100. Also consider GTX 1060 6Gb, any RX 480, RX 570, RX 580, GTX 970, GTX 980. Depending on the power supply you may need to check what power connections you require for the GPU. I think most 1060 only require 1x 8 pin. Make sure the GPU has 3Gb vRAM minimum, ideally it would be 4Gb minimum but we're working to a budget so you can get away with 3Gb. Don't pay more than £100 for the GPU
    3: CPU could be upgraded to a 3770 which would give you 4 cores, 8 threads (considered bear minimum for a modern gaming PC), but that's an extra £90 or so and the benefit is deminished over the other upgrades

    Limit yourself to £150 for the upgrades, but you should be able to get a semi-reasonable gaming experience with the updates listed in points 1-2


    The Motherboard only has 2 dimm slots, so to upgrade to 16Gb RAM is going to be about £40, which I think at this point is a little too much to advise investing into this system.

    GPU prices are currently insanely bad value new and second hand, so be warned.

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    Re: Looking for some advice about inherited pcs please

    Thanks so much for the replies and advice folks. I'm now on the hunt for bang for buck parts

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    root Member DanceswithUnix's Avatar
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    Re: Looking for some advice about inherited pcs please

    Just to add, the second PC could be quite good for a kid who wants to play Minecraft if you know any youngsters. Possibly home schooling, but mainly Minecraft

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    Senior Member Pob255's Avatar
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    Re: Looking for some advice about inherited pcs please

    case and psu's? that's my main question, are they half decent? standard (ie atx, matx) or non-standard/uncommon standard (ie dtx, older dell's or hp's or slim case big brand are often non-standard)

    8gb ram is fine as long as you don't have too much crap running in the background, 16 is better but 8 is ok
    for gpu the gtx970 can be got 2nd hand for around £90-120 where as the gtx1060 6gb is going for closer to £160-180 atm
    in general the gtx970 outperforms the gtx1060 slightly.

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    Re: Looking for some advice about inherited pcs please

    Quote Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix View Post
    Just to add, the second PC could be quite good for a kid who wants to play Minecraft if you know any youngsters. Possibly home schooling, but mainly Minecraft
    PC 2 has been requisitioned to my 11 year old nephew for the above purpose. I have also shoved some roms on for some 16 bit console goodness!

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    Re: Looking for some advice about inherited pcs please

    Hello a fellow pob! PC 2 is in a surprisingly nice tower case I think it's a lian li and it has a 550 psu. PC 1 is in a zoo storm smaller effort and it has a 450 psu.

    Thanks for the advice

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    Senior Member cptwhite_uk's Avatar
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    Re: Looking for some advice about inherited pcs please

    I think I have a Q8200 processor which would be a real boost for PC2, as it's quard core, yours for the price of postage (£2?). It is untested as it was an inherited part, but believe it should work.

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    Senior Member Pob255's Avatar
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    Re: Looking for some advice about inherited pcs please

    Unfortunately manufacture and model can often be more important for psu's than quoted number, it's less of a worry now we have the 80plus standard, as long as the 80Plus is not faked then it should be able to sustain the wattage it claims, unlike the bad old days where manufactures/brands would just claim any old number.

    Zoostorm use purely off the shelf standard components, so upgrading anything shouldn't be an issue.
    Now a good 450w psu will be able to take something like a gtx970 with that i5 however I'm not sure about the quality of it, I seem to remember that they used decent psu's not high quality, you might need to upgrade that, shouldn't need to go crazy I still find that the rule of thumb is £10 per 100w so a good 500w will be about £50, some times you can get get a good unit for less eg https://www.scan.co.uk/products/500w...mm-fan-atx-psu note that's on pre-order
    I'd say anything 500-600watt range, 80+ Bronze minimum, single rail and a decent brand/model
    However before you do that please post the details on the side(or top) of the psu look for make, model and power table, it might be good enough already.

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    Re: Looking for some advice about inherited pcs please

    Thank you cpt that is very kind of you. That would be brilliant. Ping us a PM and I will happily sort that out

  16. #16
    Senior Member cptwhite_uk's Avatar
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    • cptwhite_uk's system
      • Motherboard:
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      • CPU:
      • AMD Ryzen 3700X
      • Memory:
      • 16Gb DRR4 Trident Z 3200 C16
      • Storage:
      • Adata XPG SX8200 Pro 1Tb NVME SSD
      • Graphics card(s):
      • RX 6800 16Gb
      • PSU:
      • Corsair SF600 Gold
      • Case:
      • Ncase M1 v6
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 10 Pro
      • Monitor(s):
      • Dell S2721DGF (2560x1440 144Hz Nano IPS)
      • Internet:
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    Re: Looking for some advice about inherited pcs please

    therealpob:

    Please enable them, and send my your address, I'll post for free

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