Resurrecting the dead

small256

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Hey all,

Long story short, I'm looking to bring my signature PC (see below) back to life.

What can be done to give a noticeable peformance boost in gaming? (I'm not playing anything AAA, I'm mostly just on WoW if I get free time these days - the 570 is dying so needs a replacement anyway- it shuts down consistently at "high" temperatures)

Some key points:

-I don't really want to go down the SSD route beacuse I can't be naffed with reinstalling windows.
-I've been looking at new cards, potentially something in the nvidia 700 series, but I'm worried the cpu is just going to be a bottleneck for anything too beefy. Any thoughts on this?
-Also fairly sure most cards are 6+8 pin or even 8+8 pin pcie power now? This one is 6+6, and that's all my psu has cables for. Would an adapter suffice?
-Doesn't seem like I'll get any appreciable performance gain with new/more RAM.
-I'd rather not go through the rigmarole of installing a new CPU and cost-wise, better chips for this socket seem to be hideously expensive, despite their age.

Cheers for looking!
 
Hey all,

Long story short, I'm looking to bring my signature PC (see below) back to life.

What can be done to give a noticeable peformance boost in gaming? (I'm not playing anything AAA, I'm mostly just on WoW if I get free time these days - the 570 is dying so needs a replacement anyway- it shuts down consistently at "high" temperatures)

Some key points:

-I don't really want to go down the SSD route beacuse I can't be naffed with reinstalling windows.
Would highly suggest reconsidering this, as an SSD will benefit you overall with much faster loading times - both boot and applications.
-I've been looking at new cards, potentially something in the nvidia 700 series, but I'm worried the cpu is just going to be a bottleneck for anything too beefy. Any thoughts on this?
9xx series or 10xx series would be what you should shoot for. 1060 is a decent enough budget gaming card, with a boost over a 970.
-Also fairly sure most cards are 6+8 pin or even 8+8 pin pcie power now? This one is 6+6, and that's all my psu has cables for. Would an adapter suffice?
970 or a 1060 would only take a single 6 or 6+2, depending on the card branding / features from one of the other manufacturers (EVGA, MSI, etc.)
-Doesn't seem like I'll get any appreciable performance gain with new/more RAM.
-I'd rather not go through the rigmarole of installing a new CPU and cost-wise, better chips for this socket seem to be hideously expensive, despite their age.

Used market is better to look at for alternate chips in that series.
 
Basically wrong answer to everything lol and was pretty much answered but I'll reiterate for clarification and importance.

-I don't really want to go down the SSD route beacuse I can't be naffed with reinstalling windows.
Clone the drive, split the programs to the 1TB. Although depending on how long you've had that install of Windows you should reinstall anyways based on principle. I had my install of Windows 10 since release and when I did a format last month it was night and day difference. I just built a brand new Ryzen 1600 based rig for a friend with a HDD. After being on an SSD for so damn long it was agonizingly slow. An SSD is the #1 thing that will pour new life into an older machine and make it seem much faster than it really is. THey're also cheap.

-I've been looking at new cards, potentially something in the nvidia 700 series, but I'm worried the cpu is just going to be a bottleneck for anything too beefy. Any thoughts on this?
My gf is running my old Titan X on a 2500k, and iFargle is running a 1080 on a 2600k here on the boards. They're perfectly fine. Unless you score something like a 780ti used for less than 200 you're wasting your money. Even still a 1060 at 200 bucks would be better than that, run cooler, and draw less power.

-Also fairly sure most cards are 6+8 pin or even 8+8 pin pcie power now? This one is 6+6, and that's all my psu has cables for. Would an adapter suffice?
Founders Edition 1070s and 1080s take a single 8pin and come with a dual 6 to single 8 adapter. If your current PSU can run a Fermi power hog it'll power a 1060-1080 with ease.

Doesn't seem like I'll get any appreciable performance gain with new/more RAM.
These days a minimum of 16GB should be had. I have 12GB in my gfs rig and she capped it a couple of times.

I'd rather not go through the rigmarole of installing a new CPU and cost-wise, better chips for this socket seem to be hideously expensive, despite their age.
Your only choices really are the 3570k and 3770k over Sandy Bridge but really no point. People want too much damn money for these second hand.
 
Would highly suggest reconsidering this, as an SSD will benefit you overall with much faster loading times - both boot and applications.

Clone the drive, split the programs to the 1TB. Although depending on how long you've had that install of Windows you should reinstall anyways based on principle. [...] An SSD is the #1 thing that will pour new life into an older machine and make it seem much faster than it really is. THey're also cheap.

Fair point, both of you. I'll look into it.
I formatted (not entirely deliberately) and reinstalled windows last month. Didn't even consider cloning and splitting. I'll read up on it.

Founders Edition 1070s and 1080s take a single 8pin and come with a dual 6 to single 8 adapter. If your current PSU can run a Fermi power hog it'll power a 1060-1080 with ease.
This is exciting news. But...

I did forget to mention the other important factor of budget.
The decision to get this old machine running again is in the wake of choosing to no longer save up for a brand new build.
If I had been going for brand new I'd have been looking into 1080s and upwards, but I don't feel I can justify the cost anymore.
Might have to look more at 900s or even 800s.

Thanks both for the advice.
 
Fair point, both of you. I'll look into it.
I formatted (not entirely deliberately) and reinstalled windows last month. Didn't even consider cloning and splitting. I'll read up on it.


This is exciting news. But...

I did forget to mention the other important factor of budget.
The decision to get this old machine running again is in the wake of choosing to no longer save up for a brand new build.
If I had been going for brand new I'd have been looking into 1080s and upwards, but I don't feel I can justify the cost anymore.
Might have to look more at 900s or even 800s.

Thanks both for the advice.

That's why we also brought up the 1060, which is worth it unless you found a super cheap 970 or 980.

Also, there's no 8xx series desktop chips; those were a short-run mobile GPU series.
 
Fair point, both of you. I'll look into it.
I formatted (not entirely deliberately) and reinstalled windows last month. Didn't even consider cloning and splitting. I'll read up on it.


This is exciting news. But...

I did forget to mention the other important factor of budget.
The decision to get this old machine running again is in the wake of choosing to no longer save up for a brand new build.
If I had been going for brand new I'd have been looking into 1080s and upwards, but I don't feel I can justify the cost anymore.
Might have to look more at 900s or even 800s.

Thanks both for the advice.
A 1060 is the same cost new as a used 980 and is the same performance with less power draw and heat output.

Just to make it clear what you said I'll outline it. "I want to resurrect my PC and need to replace my GPU but I don't want to put money into the things that will actually improve my PC". I mentioned the 1070 and 1080 simply to cover the basis on the 6pin issue, then mentioned the 1060 because it's cheaper and you said no AAA titles. All equally faster than the previous cards minus the 980ti/Titan X Maxwell. Even the 3GB 1060 would work and it's under $200.

If you don't do a whole lot with your PC and all you play is WoW the 2 obvious answers are an SSD for overall 100% benefit to system performance and a new GPU since you said the 570 is dying.
 
That's why we also brought up the 1060, which is worth it unless you found a super cheap 970 or 980.

Also, there's no 8xx series desktop chips; those were a short-run mobile GPU series.
Whoops! Can you tell I haven't built anything for a while??

A 1060 is the same cost new as a used 980 and is the same performance with less power draw and heat output.

Just to make it clear what you said I'll outline it. "I want to resurrect my PC and need to replace my GPU but I don't want to put money into the things that will actually improve my PC". I mentioned the 1070 and 1080 simply to cover the basis on the 6pin issue, then mentioned the 1060 because it's cheaper and you said no AAA titles. All equally faster than the previous cards minus the 980ti/Titan X Maxwell. Even the 3GB 1060 would work and it's under $200.

If you don't do a whole lot with your PC and all you play is WoW the 2 obvious answers are an SSD for overall 100% benefit to system performance and a new GPU since you said the 570 is dying.
Yeah, I know, it's a stringent set of criteria. I've taken everything you've said on board.

The 1060 seems really promising, so likely I'll go that route and add a SSD down the line, once I can afford it.

Many thanks again for the help.
 
For what it's worth the 1050ti is also a very decent card for the money and 970ish performance. Still way ahead of your current dated 570 and should be less than 150 bucks, or whatever that translates to tea money.
 
For what it's worth the 1050ti is also a very decent card for the money and 970ish performance. Still way ahead of your current dated 570 and should be less than 150 bucks, or whatever that translates to tea money.
This could well be the winner, thank you!
 
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