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Upgrade advice needed

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grdonulas

New Member
Joined
Nov 8, 2013
Hello,

I put a quick computer together during my first year of university, with the main aim of it being cost effective. I don't have a lot of money to spend but have slowly been investing money into it when possible. I am really looking to get parts that will last but I already feel like there are a few issues with the build.

My build is below (if you need anymore information let me know):

Summary
Operating System
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
CPU
Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.67GHz 47 °C
Bloomfield 45nm Technology
RAM
6.00GB Triple-Channel DDR3 @ 600MHz (9-9-9-22)
Motherboard
Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. EX58-UD3R (Socket 1366) 34 °C
Graphics
DELL E196FP (1280x1024@60Hz)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 630 (MSI) 38 °C
Hard Drives
77GB Hitachi HDS728080PLA380 ATA Device (SATA) 35 °C
149GB Seagate ST3160212AS ATA Device (SATA) 37 °C
932GB Seagate ST1000DM003-1CH162 ATA Device (SATA) 30 °C
Optical Drives
No optical disk drives detected
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

Cooling right now is a Noctua Noctua NH-U12P

Powersupply is a Corsair Gs700

Corsair Carbide 300r case on the way. ( As I am using a case I found and am not happy with temperatures)

Have some issues with Metro last Light game freezing too ( my feeling is that its the Graphics card) . Whereas games like DayZ run Perfectly.

Also worried about the future of the slot 1366 I have as there arent too many motherboards for it, but picked the cpu motherboard and ram up for 50 quid so no complaints there.

New to the forum to don't bite me :p

Thanks in advance guys, realistic cost effective upgrades needed.
 
I still run my 950 in my daughters rig and have no problems. 1366 is prob dead or dying but still relevant. I will never give mine up. Seems to me, and my knowledge is limited, that it is your gpu. Nothing else you have in that rig would slow your games down other than the GPU. I would overclock the cpu mildly to 3 - 3.2 GHz but I think the main prob is the gpu.
 
what's your budget? I wouldn't touch the PC you own now if someone paid me to use it. (no offense). Well your ram needs a definite upgrade, your motherboard is blegh, and I'd pick larger hard drives but that's just my personal taste. Those are the main issues I see with this. And to what uses are you using this build for? Gaming? General use?
 
what's your budget? I wouldn't touch the PC you own now if someone paid me to use it. (no offense). Well your ram needs a definite upgrade, your motherboard is blegh, and I'd pick larger hard drives but that's just my personal taste. Those are the main issues I see with this. And to what uses are you using this build for? Gaming? General use?

Are you serious? Board is fine, cpu is fine RAM is fine. And you didn't even mention the outdated GPU?
 
Ram needed more work than the outdated GPU tbh. Plus I didn't mention the GPU because I didn't know if this was for gaming or not. If this is just a general use or if he wanted to play games a little slowly 3-4 years old his GPU he would be fine. If he wants to do good gaming sessions with more recent games, yeah he's going to need an upgrade. But 600mhz ram (and generic on top of it) is so 2006 this is almost 2014.

Gigabyte boards need to be cremated in a fire as well imo. If he wants to go cheap, he could go with MSI or super micro some ASUS boards are under $50 as well that would suit basic computing needs. And would last longer than Gigabyte's short life span and horrible customer support. But hard to give him help until he responds anyway.
 
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New GPU for sure. A GT630 is a low end GPU at best.

Rest of the system is still pretty solid. That motherboard is nice, I have one for a benching system.
 
I agree with rainman....CPU is fine, MB is fine, RAM is fine. If OP wants better performance in games, a new GPU is the way to go. If OP wants to improve overall performance, grab an SSD for OS and games. OP can use his current HDD's as storage. I'd upgrade the RAM last.
 
Ram needed more work than the outdated GPU tbh. Plus I didn't mention the GPU because I didn't know if this was for gaming or not. If this is just a general use or if he wanted to play games a little slowly 3-4 years old his GPU he would be fine. If he wants to do good gaming sessions with more recent games, yeah he's going to need an upgrade. But 600mhz ram (and generic on top of it) is so 2006 this is almost 2014.

Gigabyte boards need to be cremated in a fire as well imo. If he wants to go cheap, he could go with MSI or super micro some ASUS boards are under $50 as well that would suit basic computing needs. And would last longer than Gigabyte's short life span and horrible customer support. But hard to give him help until he responds anyway.

He said it was for a game in the original post. Everything in his PC is still relevant except the gpu. grdonulas didn't mention which RAM he has so we do not know if it is generic or not. He also said he did not have much money so he is looking for his best upgrade option that will last him a while.

EDIT:and "realistic cost effective upgrades needed" explains his budget.
 
Oh I missed that part of his post, my bad. Alright I'll throw out upgrades then since nobody's really throwing anything out. If he wants to keep his motherboard (I wouldn't but this isn't me) I would recommend upgrading to some Kingston Hyper-X 1333mhz ram it's an extremely cheap upgrade ($60 for an 8gb kit) and it would speed up his desktop considerably.

As for a GPU,the gtx 650 TI would probably be the "best single card bang for his buck" under a $100 price tag.
 
Anyway, with the price of GPU's falling you can grab a good gpu for not much money. You can get an EVGA 760 (if you like nvidia) for around $250. That will last you a while. Hardcore gamers and enthusiates might get 2 and SLI them. I would leave the rest of your set up alone for now and just focus on getting an upper end gpu, or 2. Even an Asus 7870 is around $219. There are a bunch of different ways you can go.
 
Ram needed more work than the outdated GPU tbh. Plus I didn't mention the GPU because I didn't know if this was for gaming or not. If this is just a general use or if he wanted to play games a little slowly 3-4 years old his GPU he would be fine. If he wants to do good gaming sessions with more recent games, yeah he's going to need an upgrade. But 600mhz ram (and generic on top of it) is so 2006 this is almost 2014.

Gigabyte boards need to be cremated in a fire as well imo. If he wants to go cheap, he could go with MSI or super micro some ASUS boards are under $50 as well that would suit basic computing needs. And would last longer than Gigabyte's short life span and horrible customer support. But hard to give him help until he responds anyway.

I believe RAM is 1600CL9, not 600...

BTW, a lot of people would like to play with such a computer, only with a GPU upgrade. It's still faster than a FX in many games...

You are a bit rude (no offense), that's maybe why he did not reply!
 
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Sorry if I came across as rude, it wasn't my intention. I can see how you think that I was rude though, I apologize. Anyway, if this guy is on a budget do you think he has $250 to spend on a card? I know when I was still in college like he his, I hardly had anything.

Get the 650ti it's cheap, and would give him the best bang for his buck. If he made a typo on the ram he can avoid getting what I threw out. So $80 to make it gaming worthy is pretty cheap IMO. Or, if he wants to get a EVGA 760 that'd be good too. It's all on what he's willing to dish into a GPU really.
 
Going from a GT 630 -> a GTX 650 Ti would be about a 5x performance jump on most titles, I would say that's worth it for as cheap as the 650 Ti is.
 
Thanks for the replies

I thought that it was the GPU and will look into the ideas you guys have for them ...and also I think that speccy gave the wrong reading for the mhz of my ram either that or its not working properly Without having to open it all I think I have 3x 2gb corsair xsm3 1333mhz.

I followed a tutorial online about bringing it up to 3 ghz which seems to have worked some what.

I know this PC isn't the best but it was just what I could put together for the right price.I will have to use program's like 3ds max soon and I would like to play games like Metro...without it freezing :/
 
Also I do have a 1tb hard drive the other two are from older computers, I have my operating system on the one and the rest of my data on the larger HD.

I hope I made the right decision with regards to the case and psu as I want them to be the basis of whatever changes that happen. Anyone think its worth eventually getting a ssd to run my operating system worthwhile investment or not ?
 
Yes, an SSD is a worthwhile investment in the life and performance of your computer. I love my SSD aside from it only being 128gb. If you want one, I would suggest something in the range of 256gb as those can now be had under $200. I like my Crucial M4, its quite stable however there are faster SSD's out now. Check out the Samsung 840 EVO series, Corsair Force or Neutron (wait for a sale, still over $200), Crucial M4 or M500 series and I've heard Intel SSD's are quite good too.
 
I use ssd for my O/S and a couple of games and programs I use the most, than the rest go onto my HDD. SSD is worth it but like previously stated they are a bit pricey. The real benefit of SSD is when it is used in SATA3 as regular HDD (from what I understand) cannot fully benefit from SATA3 as they can only spin up so fast, even the 10,000 rpm velociraptors.
 
Yeah I'd definitely upgrade the GPU, still using a I-7 920 myself here.

ATMIN helped me out with that the other day and it's incoming.

You could easily double that ram speed too for reasonable I'd imagine, but the gpu yeah.

*edit* no one bites in here, one of the best forums in the world.

People love helping each other out.

:welcome:

As far as SSD's I've always been tempted and still haven't myself *shrug*
 
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Thanks guys...will just have to decide between the cards you mentioned and look at whats available but they all seem to be within grasp never really could get my mind around what differentiates graphics cards...looks like the 650ti is more realistic.

and hopefully some kind person will bestow upon me a ssd for christmas haha! or i will find one heavily discounted in sales.
 
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