Upgrade Advice

[newgamerlaptop]

Hi,

My son purchased this pc last year. He has since added a 2nd hdd.

1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE

He mainly plays Fortnite, FIFA 2019, Apex Legends and is thinking about upgrading his pc.

Should he go for more RAM or a better graphics card? Or something else, eg 2nd Monitor (I guess using the DVI port).

Budget wise, he’ll probably have in the region of 200-300 pound, maybe more if he saves for longer.

Thanks in advance of any advice.

Case
PCS CYCLONE GAMING CASE (Blue LED Fans)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 3 2300X Quad Core CPU (3.5GHz-4GHz/10MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME A320M-K: Micro-ATX, AM4, USB 3.0, 6GB/s
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1050 Ti - DVI, HDMI, DP
FREE Geforce Fortnite bundle w/ select GTX cards
1st Storage Drive
500GB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 16MB CACHE
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Monitor
Samsung LS24D330HSX/EN 24" LED monitor
Keyboard & Mouse
CoolerMaster Devastator III Combo Keyboard and Mouse
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1

Price £751.00 including VAT and Delivery

 

[Oussebon]

Why is he thinking of upgrading his PC?

What does he want to have it do that it currently does not, or does not do well enough?

This PC is not that old. Replacing things now will largely involve replacing them with things that could have just been bought at the time instead (in many cases for not that much more cash), which is a poor use of money.

RAM is still relatively expensive, recovering from the ~doubling or more of prices that took place over the last couple of years(?) or so. 8gb is fine for this level of gaming and 16gb will give very, very little additional performance. So wait before thinking of getting more and let prices fall further. And when you do buy more RAM in the future, for goodness sake get the fastest RAM on sale especially with a Ryzen CPU.

AMD are releasing new CPUs later in the year, besides which the CPU won't really be the bottleneck most of the time in a gaming system of this level, so no point upgrading that.

No point upgrading the GPU because buying a £200 RX 580 which already was available to buy when you bought a £150 1050 ti a few months back is just a bad use of cash. And newer GPUs like the 1660 ti are really pointless for a bargain basement monitor.

If money absolutely must be spent, then an SSD would be an option. Maybe a 500gb MX500, especially on a sale day. It will improve loading times for the OS and games, make using the PC feel more responsive, and is transferable to future systems so isn't a dead loss of cash.

But he might be better saving the cash for most of the year until AMD release Navi GPUs, then re-evaluate if he wants to get a new GPU and a higher resolution monitor. Which you can't afford on £300 but might afford on ~£500-600 and would actually be a meaningful upgrade that doesn't throw good money in after bad in terms of investing in the PC. I'd therefore also say it's not worth getting a 2nd monitor because his current monitor will function as one when he upgrades in due course.

And before the idea occurs to him, buying a new GPU now and a new monitor later would be a bad idea because by the time he gets a monitor worthy of the GPU, there will probably be even more new GPUs on the market - i.e. it'll be obsolete by the time he gets around to using its full potential.

Edit: I just found the original spec topic; I guess the R5 6-core CPU didn't make it in

 

[newgamerlaptop]

Apologies. I seem to have pasted the wrong spec and I can’t believe I didn’t spot it. Your comment about the R-5 reminded me.

Anyway, here it to is. We have a SSD.

Case
PCS CYCLONE GAMING CASE (Blue LED Fans)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 1600 Six Core CPU (3.2GHz-3.6GHz/19MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME A320M-K: Micro-ATX, AM4, USB 3.0, 6GB/s
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1050 Ti - DVI, HDMI, DP
1st Storage Drive
250GB WD Blue™ 3D NAND 2.5" SSD, (upto 550MB/sR | 525MB/sW)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Monitor
Samsung LS24D330HSX/EN 24" LED monitor
Keyboard & Mouse
CoolerMaster Devastator III Combo Keyboard and Mouse
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 12 to 14 working days
Quantity
1

 

[Oussebon]

Ah, I see

Well, in short I'd leave it alone as anything upgraded now would be a waste of money versus sitting tight and making more meaningful upgrades in the future, with a bigger budget and newer, hopefully better value tech.

Spending cash now would largely be spending cash for the sake of it. An RX 580 is an upgrade but it would only have cost you ~£50 more o buy it when buying that PC.. a 1660 ti is an upgrade but wasted on that monitor. Blowing the budget on either would be wasteful versus waiting.

 

[ubuysa]

I would echo the first two sentences that Oussebon wrote in this thread...

Why is he thinking of upgrading his PC?

What does he want to have it do that it currently does not, or does not do well enough?

It is essential to have a goal in mind before upgrading, you need to be clear on what performance you expect after the upgrade. You then need to clearly understand what aspects of the current configuration are limiting those performance goals, only then can you think about what components need upgrading.