Upgrade Required

[Dizzie]

Hi All,

In 2013 I bought this spec below after a recommendation on the forums here. However the past year the computer has been running pretty slow, especially when it comes to gaming? I'm a photographer/graphic designer as my profession and play some games in my spare time such as apex, fortnite, elder scrolls online.

Which components would you recommend upgrading? Or is it just worth buying a whole new computer? (I don't really have a clue about specs which is why I am asking here)

Many Thanks,

Sam



Case
BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX Case (White)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® H87I-PLUS: Mini-ITX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 770 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON V300 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (450MB/R, 450MB/W)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W VS SERIES™ VS-650 POWER SUPPLY
Processor Cooling
Corsair H40 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler (£39)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Power Cable
1 x 2 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days
Quantity
1

 

[Oussebon]

What do you mean running slowly?

If you mean low/poor framerates at higher settings in games then a new GPU would make sense.

If it's a question of loading times and how snappy the PC feels, adding a newer, larger SSD could be in order.

There are general PC maintenance tasks you could do (defragmenting HDD, reinstalling Windows..) though you could combine a Windows reinstall with adding a new SSD. Almost any SSD you buy now is going to be faster than the A300 you have, so put Windows on that too. You can get 1TB MX500s for ~£110.

But it depends a bit on exactly what you mean by running slowly. The above are entirely valid, appropriate upgrades you can perform that should benefit you, but it's worth being clear on what the problem is in case there are also other factors at play (which could limit the benefit you get from your new hardware if you buy it)

Also, are you still on Windows 7 or did you upgrade to Windows 10?

 

[Dizzie]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, sorry for not clarifying in more detail,
yes in games for example; in fortnite it struggles, though I'm not sure if that was due to updating my graphics card, as before I did, the game ran quite smooth. However, I tried to download a trial of the new division and it couldn't even load the game. When I have large image files open or videos it can take a while to render certain changes I make.

I've also upgraded to windows 10.

Many Thanks,

 

[Oussebon]

though I'm not sure if that was due to updating my graphics card, as before I did, the game ran quite smooth

You mean you updated the driver or you upgraded the graphics card itself i.e. removed and replaced it?

 

[Dizzie]

Just updated the driver

 

[Oussebon]

There are a few possibilities for why that might have tanked performance.

You installed Geforce Experience as part of the update, and it then "auto-optimised" your settings, increasing them, and causing bad performance.

Bad install, in which case running DDU and performing a clean reinstall would be the fix:

Clean Installing Graphics Drivers

Hi All, A clean installation of your Graphics drivers tends to be the "go to" fix for a lot of graphics issues due to the fact that it is so simple to do and can resolve numerous software causes quickly. I would suggest using a tool called DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller), this is a straight...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

Although the GTX 770 is below the published requirements for The Division 2, system requirements are best taken with large mountains of salt. Plenty of people were certainly able to run the game on a 770:

https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision/comments/46l8a8

Just to check, is the monitor plugged into the graphics card or the motherboard?

 

[Dizzie]

I will try running the DDU this morning,

I also have the monitor plugged into one of the HDMI ports?

 

[Dizzie]

I reinstalled the graphics drivers, however, what I noticed is that I still have the gforce experience app. When installing the driver it gives you 2 options one which is recommended and then the other which i presume gives you selections, should I have done the second one? I just ran fortnite now to test and I still get these random freezes.

Thanks