[M33DLO]

Hey guys...
I'm after some advice from the PC gamers out there, if you'd be some kind..

I have my old PC gaming rig doing absolutely nothing and my nephew has started getting into PC building and gaming.

I'm considering offloading my rig to him as an upgrade project but I really have no idea if my rig is upgradable to a spec of today..
I'd hate to hand him a non-compliant base that he cannot go any further with..

If I list the spec below, can some tech look at it and point out any obvious problems, and also recommend what he can upgrade to todays standards??

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz
RAM: Corsair PC3-10700H (667 MHz) 4x 4096
Mainboard: Gigabyte Z68MX-UD2H-B3
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 270 Series 3GB GDDR5
HDD1: M4-CT128M4SSD2 SSD 120GB
HDD2: Samsung Magnetic 1TB
HDD2: SanDisk X300 128GB
A fancy alu Lian-Li black case.

I always had an issue where the machine would just immediatly power down when pushing hard on FarCry4. I suspected this as a PSU issue as all temps and everything else checked out OK. So the PSU will need replacing before I hand it over, or he can do it.

It's a PCIe 2x card slot but everything I read says PCIe 3x cards will work but with reduced BW..

Soooo... Would a new GPU and PSU bring my old machine up to a acceptable level for a minimul cost?
Could it play Doom Eternal at a decent rate?
With a proviso that to upgrade further he'd be looking at mainboard and CPU.

Any advice appreciated!

[M33DLO]

Bummer wrong forum, this should have gone in 'Off Topic'
Mods, can you move?

[Cilonen]

That spec would run Doom Eternal - it meets minimum spec for the game.

You can check here: https://www.pcgamebenchmark.com/doom...m-requirements

The issue is the GPU - it can't meet the recommended level.
You should be able to slot in a GeForce 1650 or similar which would do it comfortably (even a 1070 would be a big improvement).

There's still some headroom for component upgrades - CPU, GPU, Ram - so it would be a good system to learn from.
I think it will struggle with anything really heavy though, unless he can cope plaing at lower res & settings.
Forget anything VR unless you can fit a recent i5/i7/i9 and Geforce 2060 as a minimum.

If looking to change the PSU, look at Seasonic - v quiet and very highly regarded, with far fewer reported issues than Corsair units (replaced mine recently which had the known 5v rail failure!)

[mmarkk1990]

I was running a 2500k until earlier this year and it ran everything fine. Only upgraded because of the new Flight Sim, which is crippling even top spec modern machines.

If he just wants to play at 1080p medium-high settings with most mainstream games, the i7 2600k should be fine for a while. Make sure the cooling is OK and give it an overclock. I'd upgrade the GPU too. The vid below is Doom Eternal on a 2600k, not sure if overclocked, and a 1070.

[SuperHamz]

Originally Posted by Medslow

Hey guys...
I'm after some advice from the PC gamers out there, if you'd be some kind..

I have my old PC gaming rig doing absolutely nothing and my nephew has started getting into PC building and gaming.

I'm considering offloading my rig to him as an upgrade project but I really have no idea if my rig is upgradable to a spec of today..
I'd hate to hand him a non-compliant base that he cannot go any further with..

If I list the spec below, can some tech look at it and point out any obvious problems, and also recommend what he can upgrade to todays standards??

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz
RAM: Corsair PC3-10700H (667 MHz) 4x 4096
Mainboard: Gigabyte Z68MX-UD2H-B3
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 270 Series 3GB GDDR5
HDD1: M4-CT128M4SSD2 SSD 120GB
HDD2: Samsung Magnetic 1TB
HDD2: SanDisk X300 128GB
A fancy alu Lian-Li black case.

I always had an issue where the machine would just immediatly power down when pushing hard on FarCry4. I suspected this as a PSU issue as all temps and everything else checked out OK. So the PSU will need replacing before I hand it over, or he can do it.

It's a PCIe 2x card slot but everything I read says PCIe 3x cards will work but with reduced BW..

Soooo... Would a new GPU and PSU bring my old machine up to a acceptable level for a minimul cost?
Could it play Doom Eternal at a decent rate?
With a proviso that to upgrade further he'd be looking at mainboard and CPU.

Any advice appreciated!

Well, you're nephew will need to upgrade pretty much everything as you've pretty much got the top end of the Sandy bridge CPU's, which isn't worth swapping for any of the others in the range IMO (the tech is discontinued and is 7 years old now).

Then it really depends how much you want to spend and how serious a gamer your nephew is/wants to be. You can go for a decent budget system for £400-500 with upgrade possibilities, or you can brake the bank and spend thousands on one.

You can save some money by transferring over the case, the HDD's and PSU (assuming it's 80+ bronze rated and a decent power - 600W minimum IMO).

I'm not up to date with latest PC gaming requirements, but I'm sure there'll be people on here you will know.

Also, you can refer to this recent thread:
https://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1720784

[g9icy]

It would probably be OK with an RX580 as a very cheap gfx card upgrade, but really anything beyond that is going to start being bottlenecked by the CPU.

Perhaps a used 9 or 10 series nVidia card would also work. (970 might be a good bet).

I could run VR on my i5 3000 series Intel, with a 970, but it began to struggle, so went all in on Ryzen.

So really it's probably fine for low-medium gaming for anything new, but it might begin to struggle going forward, now we have a new console generation (so the graphics and cpu usage for cross platform games can stop being held back by inferior console hardware).

[jimbobiggens]

I would consider replacing the motherboard; it is the limiting factor in this build. You are limited to DDR3 ram and PCIEX16 with that board.
DDR4 and PCI Express 3.0 is out now. M.2 NVME is the name of the game with hard drives today, anything Sata just cannot compare.

This is a good choice, there are many others
https://www.newegg.com/asus-rog-stri...82E16813119269

I would keep the case and maybe the power supply (if it is compatible with the new motherboard) and build from there. The motherboard is the foundation of any build. Spend the money on the latest/strongest/fastest motherboard you can and you have upgrade-ability built in. This motherboard and some cheap DDR4 and a middle of the road i7 processor will be a good gaming machine today that will last a while and still be capable of upgrades five years or so from now.

Of course, this is just my opinion. One reason I suggest this amount of upgrades is the new games coming out that demand an up-to-date machine to play them. You know your nephew will be wanting to play the latest and greatest.

[Kermit]

Originally Posted by mmarkk1990

I was running a 2500k until earlier this year and it ran everything fine. Only upgraded because of the new Flight Sim, which is crippling even top spec modern machines.

If he just wants to play at 1080p medium-high settings with most mainstream games, the i7 2600k should be fine for a while. Make sure the cooling is OK and give it an overclock. I'd upgrade the GPU too. The vid below is Doom Eternal on a 2600k, not sure if overclocked, and a 1070.

Still running my 2500k! Finally time to upgrade shortly though I think...

[Kermit]

Originally Posted by Medslow

Hey guys...
I'm after some advice from the PC gamers out there, if you'd be some kind..

I have my old PC gaming rig doing absolutely nothing and my nephew has started getting into PC building and gaming.

I'm considering offloading my rig to him as an upgrade project but I really have no idea if my rig is upgradable to a spec of today..
I'd hate to hand him a non-compliant base that he cannot go any further with..

If I list the spec below, can some tech look at it and point out any obvious problems, and also recommend what he can upgrade to todays standards??

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz
RAM: Corsair PC3-10700H (667 MHz) 4x 4096
Mainboard: Gigabyte Z68MX-UD2H-B3
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 270 Series 3GB GDDR5
HDD1: M4-CT128M4SSD2 SSD 120GB
HDD2: Samsung Magnetic 1TB
HDD2: SanDisk X300 128GB
A fancy alu Lian-Li black case.

I always had an issue where the machine would just immediatly power down when pushing hard on FarCry4. I suspected this as a PSU issue as all temps and everything else checked out OK. So the PSU will need replacing before I hand it over, or he can do it.

It's a PCIe 2x card slot but everything I read says PCIe 3x cards will work but with reduced BW..

Soooo... Would a new GPU and PSU bring my old machine up to a acceptable level for a minimul cost?
Could it play Doom Eternal at a decent rate?
With a proviso that to upgrade further he'd be looking at mainboard and CPU.

Any advice appreciated!

The GPU is really the only upgrade path available to you, plus an overclock on the CPU if you're feeling brave. Very effective though, my 3.3Ghz 2500k has been running at 4.5Ghz since it bought it 10 years ago! Your mileage may vary though. You'll need a larger CPU cooler too, and I'm not sure how easy they are to come by for this vintage of socket. Maybe ebay.

Only worry about the PSU if you suspect it's insufficiently powerful.

VR is very much possible with a GTX1070 if you can find one (that's what I use), but again, go much higher than this and you'll not see the full return as the system architecture becomes the limiting factor.

SATA SDD drive will be fine for now (perhaps get a bigger one and make sure the OS runs from it). Good luck!

[jackstrath]

Yeh as others have said your mother board is old, and ties everything you can and cant do in this case. Its a 2nd gen intel socket, we are away to go to 11th gen Q1 next year.

I know youll be gutted as i bet it was a pretty penny back in the day but computer tech moves sooooo fast! I bought my RTX2080 GPU when they first came out thinking it was the bee's knee's, and what there now RTX3090 haha!

[stefan4]

I'd stick a used 980ti in it and let your Nephew overclock the hell out of it (learning a lot if lessons on the way). The cutting out could be psu, could also be heat related, might be worth re seating the cpu with some fresh thermal paste.

[M33DLO]

Excellent advice guys, thaks.

Yes it's becoming clear that the board and CPU wil be the limiting factor, and PSU.
(But that Doom Eternal video proves the i7-2600K CPU can really do well! )

I could upgrade the PSU and GPU to a mid range GTX 1250 Super (as I've been recommended by a mate) and it'll do another few years. Probably 250pounds ish.

I built it 6 years ago with parts at very good prices so I've not suffered much depreciation. It's done me very well.

I fired it up today and installed Boarderlands2 on it. Everything at full and it was running like a dream. It's not a intensive game anyway but worth a test. But after 5 mins it just instantly died and rebooted.
Doom 2016 runs really well on it too.. But after 10 mins, boom, instant shutdown.

I did some diag on it ages ago and all the temps were stable with no peaks. I think it's PSU.

[g9icy]

Originally Posted by Medslow

Excellent advice guys, thaks.

Yes it's becoming clear that the board and CPU wil be the limiting factor, and PSU.
(But that Doom Eternal video proves the i7-2600K CPU can really do well! )

I could upgrade the PSU and GPU to a mid range GTX 1250 Super (as I've been recommended by a mate) and it'll do another few years. Probably 250pounds ish.

I built it 6 years ago with parts at very good prices so I've not suffered much depreciation. It's done me very well.

I fired it up today and installed Boarderlands2 on it. Everything at full and it was running like a dream. It's not a intensive game anyway but worth a test. But after 5 mins it just instantly died and rebooted.
Doom 2016 runs really well on it too.. But after 10 mins, boom, instant shutdown.

I did some diag on it ages ago and all the temps were stable with no peaks. I think it's PSU.

This definitely sounds like a PSU issue. What wattage is it?

[skipraider]

Give it to him, let him upgrade the PSU/GPU which will probably be sufficient. I'm not a massive gamer but my system with an i5 6500 (similar speed to your processor) and a GTX1060 8GB runs everything I want in high quality - although I only really run F1 2020, and occasionally Forza 4 an a FPS.


If it isn't - he can use the new GPU and PSU in the new build.

[Harryg]

Your cpu is probably running on the 1150 socket so even upgrading the cpu you would need to change the motherboard as 1150 chipset is outdated now and should the board fail it is difficult to find good replacements your best bet to squeeze some extra life out of it is to upgrade the gpu but also check the cpu cooler is adequate and the psu