Hi guys a few days ago my friend asked me to help upgrade his pc. He wants to play more modern games, he loves skyrim and wants to play ac4 and some of the newer games coming out as well like watch dogs etc.
Right now his pc is quite old, he is on intel socket 775 that only has 2 gigs of memory (ddr2). I'm not sure which processor it is though but I could ask him. His gpu is a 9800gtx.
So he wanted to get more ram, a new gpu, and a new 1tb harddrive. But I thought it would be beneficial to upgrade to a modern motherboard and cpu. I was thinking this because ddr2 memory is pretty expensive and I think its time to upgrade.
I was thinking maybe a newer haswell cpu like a 4670 or something along with a decent motherboard. And for a gpu maybe a 660 or 660ti? maybe a 760?
Just wanted to get some opinions on what you guys think, thanks!
I don't really have a set price from him, I could ask him but I wanted to get some opinions on whether it's worth it to spend more money on that old platform. I think he would be okay with spending like 300 on a new mobo and cpu though.
DDR2 isn't too terrible for gaming atm I have 8gb of ddr2 with a Q6600 and i can play modern games like Metal Gear Revengance on med settings. I have ac4, but i haven't played it but i get even better performance on games that aren't as cpu dependent as metal gear. You could probably get some ddr2 and something like a Q6600 or 9700 for a cheap price online (Used). It all depends on budget, A new mobo and cpu would obviously perform better, but at that point it might more logical to just put together a new build since you'll be upgrading the graphics card as well. If he can swing the 300 cpu/mobo and get a decent card like a r9 270 that would be my recommendation. Otherwise some used parts and a 7850 will still be perfectly ok for gaming
fx 6300, fx 8320 or a i5 4670k. make sure you choose a good motherboard with the fx 8320 (6+2 phases or higher). for the i5 i can highly recommend the h87 performance from asrock if you can find one for 100$ or less. i have 2 of them. running a i7 4770k @ 4.5ghz 1.2v in my rig. pretty awesome. only bad point is the no sli support but i don't care about dual gpu's.
If you're going budget I'd recommend using the AMD 6-core FX 6300 or similar. I built one for a friend using that and it's a great CPU for the price and grab some DDR3-1600 memory. If he's a 1080p gamer consider the new nvidia GTX 750Ti it's great at a budget like this.
this is a rebuild scenario... so give us a budget (preferably around $700+, you're making big sacrifices below that budget if you want an entirely new tower) and we'll get him hooked up in no time...
or this... depends on if he wants to stream or just game...
Intel's a little above the price point without sacrificing the GPU, which is more important for him in a gaming build... and besides that if he's just gaming he won't use the Intel chip to it's strong suit anyhow...
If those GPUs are too pricey, you could always look at getting an R7 265 or an Geforce GTX 750 Ti FTW Edition. Both are great cards for the money. If your friend has a lower wattage PSU (I doubt it but bear with me), the 750 Ti uses far less power but can push those pixels. Paul from NewEgg was able to push the Clock speed of the FTW Edition up to something crazy like 1.4Ghz. Anyway, just a suggestion.