Upgrading from 8 year old PC.

[Ghanir]

So I've been meaning to upgrade/build a new/buy a new PC for a long time now, and after I read on these forums about the upcoming AMD Zen 3 generation I decided to put it on hold.

I have over the months & years scavenged various pieces like RAM sticks & PSU from other PCs lying around the house but my PC has more or less reached its limit, not being able to play games like Dead By Daylight & Diablo 2 Ressurected for more than a few minutes before it starts to lag & then my monitors reboot & remain in a black screen.

Budget $2000-$2200 range, with a max limit of $2500.
Resolution 1080p, 1440p. Bigger is better, but not unreasonable to skip out on.
System Purpose (gaming, workstation, HTPC, etc) Primarily gaming, but might wanna dabble with streaming/video editing later on.
If a gaming system, what games and settings are desired? I have primarily been playing WoW, LoL, Dead By Daylight as well as D2R as of late, and have no specific game in mind to add but keeping settings on the higher end for both low-mid range-demanding games as well as more high-end-demanding games like Cyberpunk, Horizon ZD and RDR2
Any other intensive software or special things you do (Frequent video encoding, 3D modeling, etc)? Nothing of the sort for the moment, and no plan to start with this rig.
Do you plan to overclock? No.
Country: Sweden.
Preferred Stores / Sites No preference.
Parts that can be reused Peripherals & Storage (I think). I specified my monitors under peripherals below, but for storage I am using a Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB as well as, what I think is, a Seagate Barracuda 4TB 3.5' SATA. It's a Seagate Barracuda 4TB but not sure which one exactly.
Do you need an OS? Yes. I think Home will do fine.
Do you need peripherals (e.g. monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc)? I have a mouse & keyboard I'm happy with, and afaik my monitors work fine but perhaps they could be upgraded later on.

Monitors: ACER K272HL / ACER V243H
Would love to hear if my monitors need some upgrading aswell in order to not hold back a new PC.


Thanks in advance for any and all help. <3

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I have been doing a little research of my own, looking at various YT clips on what to think about when picking various PC parts, as well as a few things to keep in mind when doing your own build; like CPU/GPU/PSU lengths fitting your case, and have come up with this build I did on Newegg:
newegg dot io/a259287 | coming at a cost just below $2300 according to their own website.

Do you think this build looks good or would you change any/all of it?

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Felt it would be good to add the info of my old PC aswell if anything seems salvagable

CPU (brand, model, speed) AMD FX(tm)-8320
Motherboard (brand, model, chipset) MSI 970A-G46 SLI
RAM (amount, type, speed) 16GB
Graphics Card (brand, model) NVIDIA Geforce GTX970
Power Supply (brand, model, wattage) Cooler Master 700W ATX RS-700-ACAB-L3 SATA Molex
Operating System Windows 10 Home. Although I am using this one already it's not me who owns it which is why I added it to the list of things I'd like to buy up above.

[Temp name]

before you go out buying a whole new computer, do you have access to another one you could borrow? Just to test what is actually failing and causing the monitor to go black. Because if you're generally satisfied with performance, then it seems rather a waste to buy a new of everything if you can get away with just replacing the parts that are failing.

If you don't, or just don't want to, I'd probably suggest buying a prebuilt at the moment. GPU pricing and availability are both insane, so you're going to be overcharged anyway, but you might not be able to find anything in a proper price range if you buy each component separately.

You also gave a price in USD, but said you live in Sweden. Can you give a price in SEK instead, or perhaps Euro? It's a lot easier to find parts in budget if we don't have to do the conversion ourselves, especially when already converted once

[Wramp]

i was going to type basically what Temp Name said above me, so go with that - I would also add that you should probably explore (if you havent already) the event viewer in Windows. It will help you determine what caused the shutdowns you are experiencing and give a direction to look in to see what component(s) are failing, or if its simply a driver issue.
Lastly, as a person who was considering a PC upgrade recently, I will say that availability and pricing of both Memory and Display Adapters made me wait and then eventually go with a pre-built from an American company (i said that last part because i know you are in Europe)
I almost forgot - the monitor part - in answer to yur question - I was basically a dual-monitor 27" guy for years then upgraded to a 35-inch monitors and it changed my gaming life.

[reemi]

With the prices of the GPU, one of the best "cheap" option for less than 2k is a Dell XPS.

You will get a i7 with dell RTX 3070 with random SSD and random motherboard with random 16GB or ram.

Unfortually...

Not the "best" choice, but right now GPU are so expensive..

[Ghanir]

You also gave a price in USD, but said you live in Sweden. Can you give a price in SEK instead, or perhaps Euro? It's a lot easier to find parts in budget if we don't have to do the conversion ourselves, especially when already converted once

I don't know if you checked, or can check at all, the newegg purchase list I tried to link, but it should be just below 20,000 SEK. I used the USD currency since it's more well known looks better well-rounded when using numbers compared to swedish SEK imo. It's fair to say that I probably should've used EURO tho, mb mb.
I'm guessing, if any of you are able to actually browse the newegg purchase list I included, that even though newegg includes these items they aren't obtainable without a severe queue, i.e. not at all.

The price range I'd be interested in would be somewhere between 17,000-23,000 SEK, 25,000 SEK being more of an above-max stretch if it really is worth upgrading any specific part to the next level and being able to include it in the budget.

[Ghanir]

I almost forgot - the monitor part - in answer to yur question - I was basically a dual-monitor 27" guy for years then upgraded to a 35-inch monitors and it changed my gaming life.

I will keep that in mind. Right now I'm only looking to upgrade the hardware while keeping whatever there is I can scavenge from my old setup, i.e. my storage & peripherals, but I can imagine having a stronger monitor capable of 144Hz or better feels amazing

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before you go out buying a whole new computer, do you have access to another one you could borrow? Just to test what is actually failing and causing the monitor to go black. Because if you're generally satisfied with performance, then it seems rather a waste to buy a new of everything if you can get away with just replacing the parts that are failing.

I do not have access to another PC, only my LAPTOP that struggles to do pretty much anything besides programming, browsing the Internet & emulating old games.

If you don't, or just don't want to, I'd probably suggest buying a prebuilt at the moment. GPU pricing and availability are both insane, so you're going to be overcharged anyway, but you might not be able to find anything in a proper price range if you buy each component separately.

I have been looking at a few prebuilt PC from Elgiganten, the only whiteware store that sells stuff like this in my local area, and there's a few in particular that comes to mind:

The ASUS ROG Strix GA10 stationär dator för gaming R5/16/1024/3060, 15,990SEK comes with an:
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
ASUS ROG STRIX B550
RAM 3200 16GB
Geforce RTX 3060
80 Plus Bronze 500W PSU
1TB SSD
Windows 10 Home 64bit.

The PCSpecialist Tornado R5X stationär dator gaming R5X/16/1000/RTX3060TI, 19,990SEK comes with an:
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
ASUS Prime B550-PLUS
Corsair Vengeance 3200 16GB
Geforce RTX 3060 Ti
Corsair 650W TXm SERIES 80 Plus Gold
1TB SSD
Built-in Windows 10 Home 64bit.

The ASUS ROG Strix GA15 stationär dator för gaming R7/16/3072/3070, 21,990SEK comes with an:
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
ASUS ROG STRIX B550
RAM 3200 16GB
Geforce RTX 3070
80 Plus Bronze (no info on W) PSU
1TB SSD & 2TB HDD
Built-in Windows 10 Home 64bit.

The PCSpecialist Fnatic Elite stationär gamingdator R5X/16/2500/6700XT, 22,990SEK comes with an:
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
ASUS STRIX B550-F GAMING
Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 3200 16GB
AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT
Frostflow 120 Series 200W Water-cooling
Corsair TX650M 80 Plus Gold
500GB SSD & Seagate Barracuda 2TB HDD
Built-in Windows 10 Home 64bit.


The real problem I see myself running into with these pre-built PCs is that first of all they use a special case I have no idea if it's good to use outside of this specific build, i.e. customizing. Second is that, like reemi stated above, when I go with a pre-built one I may get some pieces I like while having to settle for less ideal, or more "crappy", ones along with it.

On a positive note however they don't look to be terribly priced in comparison to hypothetically building one yourself on a website like newegg or pcpartpicker so you could start off with a pre-built one and work your way up to your desired build.

You also gave a price in USD, but said you live in Sweden. Can you give a price in SEK instead, or perhaps Euro? It's a lot easier to find parts in budget if we don't have to do the conversion ourselves, especially when already converted once

Apologies for that, mbmb. I just assumed that posting with a more well-known currency would make it easier to understand. I usually use USD instead of SEK when determining if whatever I'm buying is worth it or not when I'm buying online.

[Temp name]

I do not have access to another PC, only my LAPTOP that struggles to do pretty much anything besides programming, browsing the Internet & emulating old games.

okay, that's a shame

I have been looking at a few prebuilt PC from Elgiganten, the only whiteware store that sells stuff like this in my local area, and there's a few in particular that comes to mind:

They all look "fine". I'd probably go with the 3060ti model personally

The real problem I see myself running into with these pre-built PCs is that first of all they use a special case I have no idea if it's good to use outside of this specific build, i.e. customizing. Second is that, like reemi stated above, when I go with a pre-built one I may get some pieces I like while having to settle for less ideal, or more "crappy", ones along with it.

If you could link the builds then we can have a look at them. If they do use a non-standard case then that obviously brings down value for re-use, but some cases just look weird but are actually standard ATX
And yeah, you generally get subpar parts, but they won't (shouldn't?) be too bad. They want to make money after all, so they aren't going to ship parts that they know break, since they'd then be on the hook to replace them

On a positive note however they don't look to be terribly priced in comparison to hypothetically building one yourself on a website like newegg or pcpartpicker so you could start off with a pre-built one and work your way up to your desired build.

Yeah, that's another part of it

Apologies for that, mbmb. I just assumed that posting with a more well-known currency would make it easier to understand. I usually use USD instead of SEK when determining if whatever I'm buying is worth it or not when I'm buying online.

Yeah, but there's a big difference in availability, so if we spec out a computer for 2200USD, then you might not be able to buy those parts because they're not available near you. But on PCPP, if we select Sweden for country, then it'll give us the price in SEK, and (to some degree) make sure the parts are actually available

[Ghanir]

i was going to type basically what Temp Name said above me, so go with that - I would also add that you should probably explore (if you havent already) the event viewer in Windows. It will help you determine what caused the shutdowns you are experiencing and give a direction to look in to see what component(s) are failing, or if its simply a driver issue.
Lastly, as a person who was considering a PC upgrade recently, I will say that availability and pricing of both Memory and Display Adapters made me wait and then eventually go with a pre-built from an American company (i said that last part because i know you are in Europe)
I almost forgot - the monitor part - in answer to yur question - I was basically a dual-monitor 27" guy for years then upgraded to a 35-inch monitors and it changed my gaming life.

So I've been testing a few times to see if anything shows up when, or close to when, my monitors actually die to see if there's anything going on and as far as I can see the Event Viewer does not log any useful info within the parameter of 30 seconds before & after it actually happens.

My dad and I are guessing that this is happening because the thermal paste has melted, or smth of the sort, overheating the PC. I've tried having a big and more powerful external fan blow while my PC is on but nothing helps.

This problem surfaced a year or two ago while I was still playing LoL, happening occationally at first with big intervals, but growing shorter and shorter as time passed, eventually becoming unplayable, which is one reason why I stopped playing that game and moving onto DBD & more light-weight games, but the problems eventually started showing up in DBD aswell so I just thought that my PC was somewhat done at that time.
I've only now reached out cause I've finally accumulated enough munny to consider buying smth that will last more than 1 or 2 years.

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If you could link the builds then we can have a look at them. If they do use a non-standard case then that obviously brings down value for re-use, but some cases just look weird but are actually standard ATX
And yeah, you generally get subpar parts, but they won't (shouldn't?) be too bad. They want to make money after all, so they aren't going to ship parts that they know break, since they'd then be on the hook to replace them

These are the PCs I found from Elgigantens own webpage under Computers/Gaming, going from cheapest to most expensive as in my previous post:

https://www.elgiganten.se/product/ga...g-r51610243060

https://www.elgiganten.se/product/ga...61000rtx3060ti

https://www.elgiganten.se/product/ga...g-r71630723070

https://www.elgiganten.se/product/ga...5x1625006700xt

[Temp name]

These are the PCs I found from Elgigantens own webpage under Computers/Gaming, going from cheapest to most expensive as in my previous post:

https://www.elgiganten.se/product/ga...g-r51610243060

https://www.elgiganten.se/product/ga...61000rtx3060ti

https://www.elgiganten.se/product/ga...g-r71630723070

https://www.elgiganten.se/product/ga...5x1625006700xt

They look like standard ATX to me

[Ghanir]

They look like standard ATX to me

That's great to hear. Makes me feel a bit more at ease when it comes to pondering over upgrades in the future.

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They all look "fine". I'd probably go with the 3060ti model personally

Going back to what you said here I'm assuming you're referring to the Tornado for 19,990SEK.
If you wanted to upgrade this PC which pieces would you look towards upgrading first (and which pieces would you choose to replace them with), and do you think I should upgrade my monitors aswell/upgrade them before anything else, if so what would you look for?

[Cyraxe]

That's great to hear. Makes me feel a bit more at ease when it comes to pondering over upgrades in the future.

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Going back to what you said here I'm assuming you're referring to the Tornado for 19,990SEK.
If you wanted to upgrade this PC which pieces would you look towards upgrading first (and which pieces would you choose to replace them with), and do you think I should upgrade my monitors aswell/upgrade them before anything else, if so what would you look for?

Everything is pretty solid with that 3060ti build so it's hard to nitpick. The air cooler used isn't listed so not sure if it's 1 of the better ones to be using or not so that could be 1 of the things to upgrade. Depending what all you'll be doing on the computer you may want more storage as it comes with 1TB and stuff like games, audio & video eat that space up.

[Ghanir]

Everything is pretty solid with that 3060ti build so it's hard to nitpick. The air cooler used isn't listed so not sure if it's 1 of the better ones to be using or not so that could be 1 of the things to upgrade. Depending what all you'll be doing on the computer you may want more storage as it comes with 1TB and stuff like games, audio & video eat that space up.

I stated in my OP that I have storage to scavenge from my old PC, mb if I didn't state the actual numbers on them. I'm guessing my 4TB 3.5' SATA HDD should fit & suffice for storage along with the new SSD... hopefully being enough for at least a while forward if I choose to move forward with this choice.

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Ah I must've missed that this particular one actually had some useful information concerning the cooling.
The build with the 3060 Ti comes with a FrostFlow 100 RGB Series High Performance CPU Cooler

[Kagthul]

Im actually going to recommend the R7 5800X/GTX 3070 model (this one: https://www.elgiganten.se/product/ga...g-r71630723070)

If the currency converter i consulted is correct, the 2,000 SEK difference is roughly 220$ US, and for that you get a better CPU -and- a step up to the 3070 and a 2TB HDD (in addition to the SSD). Also, the parts are listed (brand names and model numbers for most) further down the page. The parts are very reasonable - you really shouldnt need to swap anything out.

Its more expensive than if you built it yourself at MSRP… but you really cant do that right now, and its a LOT cheaper than if you tried to build it yourself at current scalper/“market” prices. So, at least for the time we’re living in right now, its a decent deal.

[Weeps]

Don't listen to the peasants.

An upgrade from 8 year old to any modern pc is dramatically huge.

My wife just got rid of my 10 year old pc that she'd been using. It has a 900 series vid card on it.

You mean to tell me, "lawls, don't upgrade to 3080+, you'll barely see anything."

Stfu... lol

[pansertjald]

Don't listen to the peasants.

An upgrade from 8 year old to any modern pc is dramatically huge.

My wife just got rid of my 10 year old pc that she'd been using. It has a 900 series vid card on it.

You mean to tell me, "lawls, don't upgrade to 3080+, you'll barely see anything."

Stfu... lol

Where are people talling the OP, that an upgrade will not be good?

[Temp name]

Going back to what you said here I'm assuming you're referring to the Tornado for 19,990SEK.
If you wanted to upgrade this PC which pieces would you look towards upgrading first (and which pieces would you choose to replace them with)

I'd see if I could get some 3600C16 RAM. Ryzen likes fast RAM and 3600c16 isn't super expensive anymore. I'm using some Crucial Ballistix personally with no complaints. But it's not really needed honestly
Then potentially a 2.5" SATA SSD if you want more storage, or a HDD if you want a lot of storage (more than 2tb). Any SATA SSD is fine, just make sure it has a DRAM cache, and basically any HDD will perform identically. However if you do buy more storage, I'd probably look at the 3070 model instead (The ASUS ROG STRIX GA15) since it already comes with the 2tb hdd

and do you think I should upgrade my monitors aswell/upgrade them before anything else, if so what would you look for?

If you're satisfied with your monitor/keyboard/mouse there's no real reason to upgrade any of them. But if you decide to go check out the store in person, have a look at their stuff and see if some of them speak to you and it's worth the cost to upgrade for you.

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Im actually going to recommend the R7 5800X/GTX 3070 model (this one: https://www.elgiganten.se/product/ga...g-r71630723070)

If the currency converter i consulted is correct, the 2,000 SEK difference is roughly 220$ US, and for that you get a better CPU -and- a step up to the 3070 and a 2TB HDD (in addition to the SSD). Also, the parts are listed (brand names and model numbers for most) further down the page. The parts are very reasonable - you really shouldnt need to swap anything out.

Its more expensive than if you built it yourself at MSRP… but you really cant do that right now, and its a LOT cheaper than if you tried to build it yourself at current scalper/“market” prices. So, at least for the time we’re living in right now, its a decent deal.

I'm not going to disagree that it's a bad value upgrade, I'm just not sure the upgrade is necessary considering OP is running 1080p60 screens.
It's a bunch of extra power that he can't really use unless he also upgrades the monitors

[Djuntas]

OP, do consider getting a 144 hz screen. I cant stress how much better it is imo. At least for me it was the 2nd biggest thing after getting an SSD in my also, current old PC.

Anyway from the looks of it, your acer K272HL is at least en IPS screen so likely good enough colors and all the jazz

I think what holds you back the most is your CPU. So consider keeping your GPU, and "just" get new nvme ssd (if you dont have an SSD already), ddr4 ram, motherboard and cpu swap. Right now buying a GPU is insane.

I see that my old shitty I5 is also a lot better single core performance than yours through checking 2 quick google comparisons sites...No not userbenchmark lol. And my CPU is from 2014 q4 iirc.

Also fuck me in the ass the prices...Good to see Sweden is also costly like Denmark. Pre-bullshit you could get something great for 10.000 danish kroner, now its 14000-16000...

[Ghanir]

I'm not going to disagree that it's a bad value upgrade, I'm just not sure the upgrade is necessary considering OP is running 1080p60 screens.
It's a bunch of extra power that he can't really use unless he also upgrades the monitors

I am pretty happy with my current screens, but I will look towards replacing them if that is recommended if I choose to purchase a pre-built one among the ones I referred to previously (something I most likely will do cause the problems I've been facing, holding back my gaming experience, has been infuriating & a slow-burn for quite some time now).

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OP, do consider getting a 144 hz screen. I cant stress how much better it is imo. At least for me it was the 2nd biggest thing after getting an SSD in my also, current old PC.

I think what holds you back the most is your CPU. So consider keeping your GPU, and "just" get new nvme ssd (if you dont have an SSD already), ddr4 ram, motherboard and cpu swap. Right now buying a GPU is insane.

I will do a little research comparing my current screens to bigger/more modern ones, like the 144Hz, if/when I choose to move forward with a pre-built one (which I am leaning towards because of the well-known shortage of certain parts as a few here have mentioned).

Also fuck me in the ass the prices...Good to see Sweden is also costly like Denmark. Pre-bullshit you could get something great for 10.000 danish kroner, now its 14000-16000...

Yeah the 40-60% tax in Scandinavia is a bit... well :P . The 15,990SEK build, even though to some it might look a little pricey, does give you some good gear to work with, the bigger components being good enough to work with while you can replace parts like the PSU without costing too much.

Currently my eyes lie on the 19,990SEK vs the 21,990SEK builds. Both look good & have their advantages. You either spend 2k more & get a better GPU & CPU while you may wanna upgrade the PSU, or you save some munny while getting an okay PSU (All of them look a bit weak, best one among all 4 builds only pumping 650W).

My current build is a self-made custom build I spent about 10,000-11,000SEK for, all those years ago. And at the time it was a perfectly fine build, albeit nothing major.
Now here I am looking to spend twice as much for something that (hopefully) lasts roughly just as long as the last one..

[Temp name]

I am pretty happy with my current screens, but I will look towards replacing them if that is recommended if I choose to purchase a pre-built one among the ones I referred to previously (something I most likely will do cause the problems I've been facing, holding back my gaming experience, has been infuriating & a slow-burn for quite some time now).

If you're happy with what you have, then before deciding to buy, at least try out a 1440p 144hz monitor to see if you even care about the higher resolution or refresh rate. If you don't, then you save some money, and if you do like it, then you'll be making a more informed decision than some guy on the internet saying it's a must have.
Don't get me wrong, I much prefer 120/144hz to 60, and 1440p to 1080p myself, but not everyone does because everyone's eyes are different.

[Ghanir]

If you're happy with what you have, then before deciding to buy, at least try out a 1440p 144hz monitor to see if you even care about the higher resolution or refresh rate. If you don't, then you save some money, and if you do like it, then you'll be making a more informed decision than some guy on the internet saying it's a must have.
Don't get me wrong, I much prefer 120/144hz to 60, and 1440p to 1080p myself, but not everyone does because everyone's eyes are different.

Naturally. And thank you, and everyone else, for helping me out on this endeavor of mine. It's been a long time coming and I really don't want much from my computer besides to sit back, relax & have some fun so I haven't really gotten the gist of how to really pick & choose when it comes to building your own PC.
The lego-assembly part I can do just fine, but making sure all the pieces fit together prior to building the castle feels trickier than it actually might be.

Much love & thanks, to all of you.