Upgrades to PCS PC from 2020

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backscrubber

Member
Hi All,

Would you be able to suggest some possible upgrades to my current PC please. I mainly use it for gaming.

I suspect RAM and Processor might be likely candidates? Although admitedly, I don't know a huge about components. However, I do not require top of the range with a premium price, I'm happy with mid-range and good value for money.

Case Corsair 4000D Airflow Mid-Tower ATX Case
Processor (CPU) AMD Ryzen 5 3600X Six Core CPU (3.8GHz-4.4GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard ASUS® PRIME A320M-K: Micro-ATX, AM4, USB 3.0, 6GB/s
Memory (RAM) 16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card 8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3070 - HDMI, DP
1st Storage Drive 256GB PCS 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (500MB/R, 400MB/W)
2nd Storage Drive 1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
3rd Stortage Drive 1TB SSD
Power Supply CORSAIR 850W RMe SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Processor Cooling Noctua NH-D15 CPU Cooler
Wireless Network Card WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0

Thanks in advance.
 
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TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
You'd have to throw away the RAM you have as that motherboard only has 2 RAM slots, but even 16GB of decent speed RAM (i.e. 2x8GB or 2x16GB of 3600MHz CL14) would help performance as 2400Mhz is very low for a gaming PC and could be losing you 30% of your performance.

It has 1 PCIe 3.0x4 m.2 slot, so you could upgrade the very slow PCS 256GB SATA SSD, which I'm assuming you're using as the Windows/apps drive to a much speedier NVME m.2 SSD (a 1TB gen 3 drive, giving 3000MB/s, will be about £60).

Finally, the fastest gaming CPU you could install would be the 5700X3D - as that's the last X3D CPU available for the AM4 platform. It would probably require a BIOS update (before you install the new CPU, or it won't boot) and was supported in BIOSes later than 6043.
 
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backscrubber

Member
I edited my post - I do not require top of the range with a premium price, I'm happy with mid-range and good value for money.

With that in mind, what processor would you suggest?

Are there particular brands of RAM I should consider? Also, can I buy anything, no capability issues?

TIA.
 
B

backscrubber

Member
Sorry, making dinner so rushing my responses!

Monitor - Gigabyte 27" G27Q-EK 2550x1440 IPS 144Hz 1ms

In terms of budget, I’d say up to £300, but can go higher if necessary.
 
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backscrubber

Member
Ouch. I don’t necessarily have a budget, I could spend £1k+ on it, however it’s just not a priority for me at the moment. Rather spend it on other stuff.

I’d be happy to spend £400. However, to “future proof” for the next 5 years, I could spend more (£600+)

I only play Football Manager, Counter Strike, PUBG etc, so I don’t need top of the range.
 
BlessedSquirrel

BlessedSquirrel

We love you Ukraine
backscrubber said:
Ouch. I don’t necessarily have a budget, I could spend £1k+ on it, however it’s just not a priority for me at the moment. Rather spend it on other stuff.

I’d be happy to spend £400. However, to “future proof” for the next 5 years, I could spend more (£600+)

I only play Football Manager, Counter Strike, PUBG etc, so I don’t need top of the range.
Click to expand...
We need a fixed maximum budget please, just a singular number, it doesn't change.
 
Ekans2011

Ekans2011

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
backscrubber said:
£500 would be my max I think.
Click to expand...
In this case, you must decide whether to upgrade only the GPU or the CPU, SSD, and RAM while keeping the 3070 8GB.

This is what I believe you could do, in order of importance.

1) SSD Crucial P3 1TB - £55 (Gen3 - Re-usable)
www.awd-it.co.uk

Crucial P3 1TB M.2 SSD NVMe PCIe Solid State Drive - CT1000P3SSD8

With NVMe™ performance that’s nearly 6x faster than SATA and storage capacities up to 4TB, the P3 leaves older storage technology in the dust.
www.awd-it.co.uk www.awd-it.co.uk

2) RAM Patriot Viper Steel 32GB 3200Mhz CL16 - £60 (not-reusable)

3) GPU 7800XT 16GB - £465 (Old Gen - Re-usable but soon will be obsolete)

4) CPU 5700X3D - £200 (not-reusable)
 
B

backscrubber

Member
OK. I think I've just realised what's happened. I bought this PC back in early 2021 and somehow, I've only just realised that 4 years is quite a long time, so I'm probably due an overhaul. It only felt like yesterday I bought my 3070 during COVID. For some reason, I thought it would last forever.

In your opinions, is it best to just start afresh? Just buy a new PC? I don't want to just buy parts for them to be obsolete soon.

The only thing is, my PC does everything I need it to at the moment. It plays all the games I want to. I haven't seen a particular drop in performance, but I don't play taxing games. I just thought about upgrading a few parts here and there to speed things up a tad.

If I'm looking a complete re-build, what cost am I looking at? £1000+? Also, are there any parts in my current build that are good enough to be used in a new build?

And if I did just want to speed things up a tad in the interim, what would you suggest? RAM Patriot Viper Steel 32GB 3200Mhz CL16 and SSD Crucial P3 1TB - £55?
 
Ekans2011

Ekans2011

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
backscrubber said:
OK. I think I've just realised what's happened. I bought this PC back in early 2021 and somehow, I've only just realised that 4 years is quite a long time, so I'm probably due an overhaul. It only felt like yesterday I bought my 3070 during COVID. For some reason, I thought it would last forever.
Click to expand...
Actually, four years is less than halfway through the lifespan of a well-designed custom PC, which should last seven to ten years.
Your one is limited by the very low-end MB.

backscrubber said:
In your opinions, is it best to just start afresh? Just buy a new PC? I don't want to just buy parts for them to be obsolete soon.
Click to expand...
backscrubber said:
The only thing is, my PC does everything I need it to at the moment. It plays all the games I want to. I haven't seen a particular drop in performance, but I don't play taxing games. I just thought about upgrading a few parts here and there to speed things up a tad.
Click to expand...
If it were my money, I'd spend nothing on an almost-dead platform except the SSD, which I could reuse on a new build (in that case, I'd aim for at least a 2TB).

backscrubber said:
If I'm looking a complete re-build, what cost am I looking at? £1000+? Also, are there any parts in my current build that are good enough to be used in a new build?
Click to expand...
As @Martinr36 said, an entry-level 1440p is likely to cost around £1900-2,000.
The only components you can keep are the case, the HDD for tiny storage, and possibly the cooler if the new CPU is not high-end (7800X3D/9800X3D or higher may require AIOs).

backscrubber said:
And if I did just want to speed things up a tad in the interim, what would you suggest? RAM Patriot Viper Steel 32GB 3200Mhz CL16 and SSD Crucial P3 1TB - £55?
Click to expand...
Yes, however the RAM will not be reusable on a modern platform; nonetheless, it will undoubtedly benefit your current setup.
 
Ekans2011

Ekans2011

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
BlessedSquirrel said:
I wouldn’t get a new pc, there’s plenty of life left in your current one, it’s only half way though it’s lifecycle
Click to expand...
To be honest, with that MB and an old ATX2 PSU, I'm not sure there will be much room for upgrades, but maybe with £900-1000, it could easily last another couple of years. :)
 
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BlessedSquirrel

BlessedSquirrel

We love you Ukraine
Ekans2011 said:
To be honest, with that MB and an old ATX2 PSU, I'm not sure there will be much room for upgrades, but maybe with £900-1000, it could easily last another 2-3 years. :)
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Any less that another 5 years I would consider a waste of the pc personally.

It is a god awful board but at 1440p should throttle too much.

PSU would need Replacing but OP seems to be looking to do this themselves so much better au fair with building
 
B

backscrubber

Member
Alright. So the consensus appears to be that building a new PC is a bit of a stretch for a 4 year old computer. Equally, I don't want to spend a lot of money on something that would probably be obsolete in a few years time.

Is it possible to semi-build a new PC? So the new parts I purchase now, would also be useful in a re-build in a few years time?

I don't know a huge amount about computers, so I may be wrong here (probably). But the MB sounds like it's an issue, so if I bought a new MB, CPU, RAM and SSD, that would get be somewhere close? Although would I also require a new Power Supply and Processor Cooling? I could then buy a new GPU at a later date?

Essentially, could I get everything but the GPU, which I'd look to upgrade in a few years time? And/or is there anything good about my current build that could be used in a new build?

Sorry if that sounds muddled, it's because I am!

Obviously I should have sought better advice before purchasing my original PCS PC.
 
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