i3-4130T: Should I upgrade or stay as is?

[TurtleCrusher]

Hello everyone,

I just got a Thinkcentre M73 Tiny USFF that has an i3-4130T. My main goals with this PC is to keep it working as an HTPC and an extremely casual gaming setup and hopefully cheap as I bought this for $45. I use my Thinkpad X230 for casual gaming on the go and would like better performance than that. Just booted it up, system works good so far. System specs:

i3-4130T Dual Core Haswell with HT @2.9Ghz, 35W, 3MB L3
Intel HD 4400 200Mhz-1.15Ghz
4GB DDR3 1600mhz (have another 4GB stick to go with)
500GB HDD
WIFI/BT module, but will be hardwired LAN.

Upgrade Options:
i5-4570T 2C/4T 2.9Ghz/3.6Ghz, 35W Intel HD 4600 1.15Ghz -$120
i7-4765T 4C/8T 2Ghz/3Ghz, 35W Intel HD 4600 1.2Ghz -$145
i7-4785T 4C/8T 2.2Ghz/3.2Ghz, 35W Intel HD 4600 1.3Ghz -$170
120GB SSD -$25

If I want to play games like Starcraft 2, Rocket League, TF2 and casual games, what would you do?

 

[IEC]

All those games run fine on dual core CPUs. I don't think it's worth paying several times the cost of the rig for a CPU upgrade.

$25 SSD upgrade is probably your best bang for the buck in terms of perceived performance increase.

 

[Shmee]

Most limiting factor will be lack of decent GPU, but I agree the SSD is the best upgrade to start with.

 

[NTMBK]

Putting in that second memory stick is the biggest improvement you can make for gaming. You want dual-channel memory to give as much bandwidth as possible to the integrated graphics.

Other than that, put in an SSD and use it as is. Upgrading to a quad core will just mean you have less power budget to allocate to the integrated graphics.

 

[ZGR]

Another stick of RAM, and a cheap SSD would be nice for it. You spent $45 for this desktop, so I wouldn't bother upgrading unless you already own the components. I would rather use the savings for a better desktop or laptop for the future.

 

[whm1974]

For $45 I guess it would make for cheap browsing and low resource E-sport gaming box, but like others said adding the other stick of RAM and and a cheap SSD would the best option for increasing performance.