upgrade

Cymru48

Member
Have had my PC Specialist PC for almost 3 years now, only addition I have made is a SoundBlaster sound card,. Its got a Austek H110mr motherboard, i5 6500 cpu 8GB HyperX FURY DDR4 2133MHz (2 x 4GB), on board graphics, 250gb ssd & 3 TB 2nd HD, running Windows 10 home. I am thinking of maybe upgrading it a little, I am not a tech wizard so excuse me if my questions sound Dumb.

1... Can I add and extra Hard drive

2...Considering buying a separate graphics card, I am going to buy a new bigger monitor, don't play games, just watch videos, do a bit of photo editing, would i gain from installing a graphics card if so which is best.

3..Power Supply is a CORSAIR 450W VS SERIES™ VS-450. If any of the upgrades above can be done should i upgrade the power supply.

ben happy with the computer build etc, its never really let me down, couple of hic ups with the odd virus, but beefed up software etc has put paid to that. I would think i could do these upgrades my self, so any advice or ideas would be really appreciated.

Thanks
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
1) Probably fine.
You need a free Sata port on the motherboard. Motherboard has 4, you say you're using 2 (SSD, HDD). So that should be 2 free, meaning you're fine there
You need an available Sata power connector on the PSU. VS 350W apparently has 4, so probably fine (unless you also have a DVD drive you didn't tell us about, and the case fans happen to be connected to the 4th one).
You need an available 3.5" bay in the case. Most will have at least 2.

If you post the full spec from your PC Specialist account, it will say what the case is.


2) You don't need a better GPU for a bigger monitor. The PC doesn't care how big the monitor is. The PC does care what resolution the monitor is (i.e. how many pixels it needs to power).

The PC also cares about refresh rate, but you won't be buying a monitor with a refresh rate greater than 60/75hz for your uses so that's not an issue.

If you were looking to get a 4k monitor, you do need a dedicated graphics card. The integrated graphics on the CPU are actually fine for 4k, but the motherboard's display outputs don't support 4k 60hz (no DP, HDMI is only 1.4 I think)

If you have a 21.5" 1080p monitor and want to get a 27" 1080p monitor, as far as your PC cares, that's the same thing. No need for a dedicated GPU. The PC should also be fine for 1440p 60hz.

Your photo editing might benefit from a dedicated GPU. That's the only thing you've said you do that would. Depends what software you use. I'd consider it unlikely to be worth the money, given what you've said, unless you also needed one for a higher resolution monitor anyway.

So - what monitor are you buying? :)

3) any GPU you'd be looking at buying will work fine on your existing PSU.
 

Cymru48

Member
Thanks for reply, not chosen a monitor yet, have old Dell one at the moment, looking at something with a 27” screen, with decent picture quality, don’t think I need 4K. Probably buy it from John Lewis or Amazon. Ah I forgot the DVD drive and fan, I’ll have to open up the case to see how fan is connected, if it’s using a sata connection I may have to either look at changing the 2nd HD for a larger one or a bigger SSD. I do know there is a space in the case for another HD, only one is taken as the SSD is in a small dedicated slot. I can’t remember what the case was called, looking at the build spec it doesn’t seem to mention the case. Thanks for the advice.
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
If you go into your PC Specialist account and look at your orders, it will list the whole spec including the case.

Unless you sent in your own case for them to use?

If the fans are powered by a Sata connector you may be able to power them differently to free it up. e.g. via the molex cable on the PSU (with an adapter as required), or plug them into motherboard headers.
 

Cymru48

Member
Just found original spec.
PCS DOMINATOR 6806B BLACK CASE
Intel® CoreTMi5 Quad Core Processor i5-6500 (3.2GHz) 6MB Cache
ASUS® H110M-R: Micro-ATX, DDR4, LG1151, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
8GB HyperX FURY DDR4 2133MHz (2 x 4GB)
INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR (GPU)
240GB KINGSTON UV400 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (550MB/R, 490MB/W)
3TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
CORSAIR 450W VS SERIESTM VS-450 POWER SUPPLY
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
INTEL STANDARD CPU COOLER
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows 10 (64-bit) Home DVD with paper sleeve
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
 
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