Question Looking for upgrade advice

BillClo1

Junior Member
Jan 13, 2021
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I've been out of the gaming scene for quite a while, and I wanted some advice as to how to upgrade my system. Built it in late 2017, set up to basically let my son play Minecraft. I've since gotten some interest in playing some of my old school games (Halo, Battlefield 2, etc), and got Halo on Steam. No issues so far, but I was thinking of upgrading somewhat.

I'd prefer to keep the cost to upgrade in the area of $300-350ish.

Current specs:
Asus H270 Prime motherboard
Intel I3-7350k processor
8gb ram
Nvidia GTX 1050 graphics card
Corsair 450w power supply.
Asus monitor 1080p (I normally run in 1080p, upgrading to a 2k monitor isn't in the cards right now)

I had been considering one of the Nvidia GTX 1660 Super cards - looks to be a decent upgrade, but I wasn't sure if the rest of the system would be able to keep up with it.

2 caveats: I am not set on Nvidia, so if there is a good AMD option, I'd be willing to consider it. I really don't plan on playing the latest and greatest games (I'm old and slowing down, so I doubt I'd be able to keep up with the kiddies these days ), so a uber-card isn't necessary. Secondly, I had looked at upgrading the CPU from an Inten I3-7350k to perhaps a I7-7700k (20-25% increase in scores), but that didn't look like the best bang for the buck option.

Thoughts?
 
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GodisanAtheist

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2006
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Component prices are sort if stupid right now and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. $300-350 isn't going to go far at all in terms of a systemwide upgrade, and thanks to the new market being bonkers in pricing, the used market really isn't doing much better as prices are dragged upward due to demand.

If you don't have a game or set of games that are specifically underperforming that you "have" to upgrade for, I'd keep sitting on your system.

If you had to do the upgrade today, I would look for the most reasonable priced 1660S you could find. However, keep in mind that neither NV or AMD have launched their full current gen line-up yet in the lower end range where the 1660's performance sits so the potential exists for the 1660S to become a bad deal very quickly.

Sorry, no good answers from me, but we're all kinda in limbo right now in the PC DIY space.
 

Mopetar

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2011
7,797
5,899
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Trying to snag a 3060 at release is probably your best bet based on what we know right now, but expect supplies to be limited so if you're looking for a casual purchase experience then expect to pay a lot more to a scalper or to wait a while longer before you upgrade.

AMD haven't announced their midrange products yet, but I'm not expecting the situation to be any different with them either, and perhaps a bit worse if they're still using most of their wafers to churn out console SoCs.
 

BillClo1

Junior Member
Jan 13, 2021
12
8
51
Hmm... thanks for the advice. No, I'm not dead set upon upgrading right now, it was more of a pondering my options for say the next 6 months. The games I'm doing right now aren't taxing the system that hard.
 

Fallengod

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2001
5,908
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Ill be honest, theres nothing you can upgrade for the entire system in the $350 range. You need moar green backs!

Your rig is as outdated as my i5-2500k I had until this last april of 2020. You would need an entire new system for every component for it to be worth while. If you want to upgrade the CPU/Mem/Mobo and NOT the graphics card, you can probably fit a worthwhile upgrade into the $450-500 range(for AMD, I dont know intel parts). So youre not that far off.

If you are trying to upgrade GPU as well, and contemplating a rtx 3 series card? Factor in another $600 to that budget.

You will most likely need a new PSU for the graphics card as well, 450 is pretty low.
 
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BillClo1

Junior Member
Jan 13, 2021
12
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Fallengod, thanks for the advice. :) I've looked into what gains I'd probably see upgrading the CPU and memory, not enough to matter for the games I'm playing now. Same with the GPU, even if I could find one for a semi-reasonable price. I'm sticking with what I have for a while, and see how things go.
 

SteveGrabowski

Diamond Member
Oct 20, 2014
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1060 Ti? Never heard of that card. You sure it's not a 1050 Ti?

I'd say save your money, you have plenty of system for playing older games. 2C/4T cpus like the i3-7350k were plenty for playing the vast majority of games released up until say 2016. I have a 4C/8T Xeon E3-1231v3 (it's like an i7-4770 minus the integrated graphics) and I was pretty impressed how well games like GTA V played when I'd disable two cores to simulate an 2C/4T i3 from 2013-14. And your cpu is a few generations newer and with much better clockspeed. Even if the pc hardware market wasn't so overpriced now I still wouldn't bother with upgrading. 1050 Ti is plenty for playing 1080p60 on the Halo Master Chief Collection.

When you want to move on to say Battlefield 1 or Battlefield V then you can look at upgrading. Even Battlefield 4 should be fine on that cpu and gpu.

I have a 1660 Super and it's a pretty nice 1080p gpu, for instance I could play Red Dead Redemption 2 at 1080p60. But it's highway robbery at $300 and up like it goes for now. Just wait until you want to play a game that'll need the extra grunt and maybe by then there will be a decently priced 1080p gpu in the Nvidia 3000 series or AMD 6000 series.
 
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aleader

Senior member
Oct 28, 2013
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I have a 1660 Super and it's a pretty nice 1080p gpu, for instance I could play Red Dead Redemption 2 at 1080p60. But it's highway robbery at $300 and up like it goes for now. Just wait until you want to play a game that'll need the extra grunt and maybe by then there will be a decently priced 1080p gpu in the Nvidia 3000 series or AMD 6000 series.

Depends where you are. I was in Memory Express yesterday picking up my 3070, and they had several EVGA 1660 Super cards in stock on the shelves for $309 CAD ($235 USD). I was quite surprised to see them in stock, for that price. My son has that card in his PC. It's basically a 1070 in performance, which is over 100fps at 1080p on High/Ultra in the FPS games he plays (COD/BFV). It's a 283% performance jump over a 1050 at 1080p according to benchmarks. RDR2 is about the most taxing game, and he can still get 50+ fps.
 
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