What to upgrade?

[lolstorm]

Hi there,

I'm planning to upgrade my PC. I know the PC itself it very old and shitty in general, but it does the job most of the time and I don't have the money for a new PC. I mostly play MMOs such as WoW and I think upgrading the CPU would be my best bet? At least, that's what I've been hearing. I checked passmark and my CPU is very much meh. I was thinking of getting this one? My question basically is, what would be the best upgrade for around ~$150 I could make?

Here are my specs:

[Beckers]

Save your money, and wait till you can do a complete overhaul.

[Lathais]

Hi there,

I'm planning to upgrade my PC. I know the PC itself it very old and shitty in general, but it does the job most of the time and I don't have the money for a new PC. I mostly play MMOs such as WoW and I think upgrading the CPU would be my best bet? At least, that's what I've been hearing. I checked passmark and my CPU is very much meh. I was thinking of getting this one? My question basically is, what would be the best upgrade for around ~$150 I could make?

Here are my specs:

For just $150, you are not gonna get much. If you were to buy the CPU you mentioned, you would also need a new Motherboard, since your old CPU is AM3 and the new CPU is AM3+, it's a different socket and won't work. For just $150 you'll be hard pressed to get a CPU and a motherboard. You could possibly do somehting like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($78.89 @ B&H)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-B250-HD3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($61.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $140.87
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-31 16:50 EDT-0400

But then you on a Dual Core system. For just WoW, it would be ok. Certain other games are starting to struggle a bit on dual cores. For a bit more you could do this :

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 1200 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($108.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-A320M-HD2 ATX AM4 Motherboard ($69.49 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $178.38
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-31 16:52 EDT-0400

Which would give you a true 4-core system that when OCed will match or slightly beat the G4560 in most things.

Either one of those systems though and you also need to get some DDR4 RAM. So add about $80-90 to both of those "builds."


In all honesty though, I agree with @Beckers, save up and get yourself a decent system. Coffee Lake is coming soon and you'll be able to get a 6-core i5, a current motherboard and RAM for it and a decent Graphics Card like a 1050ti or 1060.

[lolstorm]

snip

Thanks for the detailed response. Much appreciated. I have to admit that I do not understand PC talk very much, but I think I got the gist of it. I could possibly stretch my budget up to 200, maybe 250, although I highly doubt it will get me much further. I also realize saving up for a complete new one would be better, however, I just don't plan on buying a new PC anytime soon even if I were to have the money for it. And what is this Coffee Take you're speaking of?

[Thunderball]

Thanks for the detailed response. Much appreciated. I have to admit that I do not understand PC talk very much, but I think I got the gist of it. I could possibly stretch my budget up to 200, maybe 250, although I highly doubt it will get me much further. I also realize saving up for a complete new one would be better, however, I just don't plan on buying a new PC anytime soon even if I were to have the money for it. And what is this Coffee Take you're speaking of?

Coffee Lake is Intel's 8th gen where they are increasing core counts all over the board. So 4c/4c i3s, 6c/6t i5s and 6c/12t i7s. As you mostly play WoW Ryzen is not really an attractive option for you as it is for a general gamer, so just wait.

[Lathais]

Thanks for the detailed response. Much appreciated. I have to admit that I do not understand PC talk very much, but I think I got the gist of it. I could possibly stretch my budget up to 200, maybe 250, although I highly doubt it will get me much further. I also realize saving up for a complete new one would be better, however, I just don't plan on buying a new PC anytime soon even if I were to have the money for it. And what is this Coffee Take you're speaking of?

I'll start with the easiest question. Coffee Lake is the next generation of CPUs intel is releasing in the next couple of months. Even if you want to buy something NOW, I would highly recommend waiting for it to release. Rumors have it coming in October, so if what you have right now works, it's worth waiting for. Normally, I do not think waiting for new tech is a good idea, but this is an exception to the rule. i3's will be true quad cores, i5's will be 6 cores, i7's will have even more cores. It's a huge generational leap and worth waiting for.

If you could stretch it to $250 and wait for Coffee Lake to release, you should be able to get an i3(which as stated will be a true quad core, like the i5's of today) a motherboard and RAM for it. Check back with us in Oct once we have some real numbers and not just rumors to work from and we'll help you pick something that will suit your needs. If you absolutely must get something right now I'd recommend this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($78.89 @ B&H)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-B250-HD3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($61.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill - Aegis 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($65.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $206.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-31 17:44 EDT-0400

Just keep in mind that if you wait until October you could likely get something better for around the same price or slightly more.

[chazus]

Alternatively, you could get an SSD for that price range, which would be a general improvement on things, and could be carried over tot he new system when you do get around to it. Otherwise... Yeah, save up.