Should I Upgrade This PC?

[Bobsy]

Hello all,

I built my parents' computer about 5½ years ago. It is used for light productivity, aka internet browsing and photo viewing. It's built around a Phenom II X3 710 processor, 4 Go of RAM and an Intel 320 SSD.

Would an upgrade be of any benefit? It certainly does not seem so at the moment - I am currently typing this post on their computer.

Thank you.

 

[nsafreak]

For the use cases that you've listed, nope. The only thing you might want to consider upgrading is the monitor itself if they don't already have a decent one. Far too often I see folks cheap out on the part of the PC that you look at every day.

 

[VirtualLarry]

<escrow4>
Heck yes! Get them a 4790K, and 16GB of DDR3-2400, and a 1TB Samsung 850 EVO SSD. They deserve it!
</escrow4>

Please don't try to stir up an argument where there isn't one.

mfenn
General Hardware Moderator

Edit: On a more serious note, is there anything that they do, that could stand to see an improvement? I like the monitor idea, if they don't have a really nice monitor, then consider that. Do they have an all-in-one Inkjet printed? Brother printers have low ink costs, and are fairly reliable.

If you have money burning a hole in your pocket, and you want to upgrade for the sake of upgrading, then a G3258 combo (check the Hot Deals thread for most recent combos, there's one on Newegg right now), or a Haswell i3 CPU and H97 mobo, and 16GB of RAM, would make a nice snappy upgrade. The SSD, I would only upgrade if it were running out of space. Other than that, the 320 series was pretty decent.

 

[Bobsy]

The monitor is a 22" Dell 2209WA IPS display 1680x1050. I would have made them buy a 24" FullHD display, but I saw that the pixel pitch was larger on this one. I wanted Windows to look as "big" as possible as I don't think that the "scaling" works all that well. Perhaps that was a mistake as my mother still scales to a larger font on her user account...

 

[Bobsy]

The SSD is the system drive, the data drive is a WD Caviar Black 500 Go that's only about 30% full. They have a lousy keyboard and mouse from an old computer, those could definitely use an upgrade.

Well, thank you folks for chiming in! I think I'm going to stick to the old CPU for now and at least wait and see how it performs with Windows 10 when it comes out.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hey, I just noticed that you didn't mention a GPU. Are they using onboard? Which chipset?

Discrete graphics frees up both system RAM, and system RAM bandwidth, which will speed up the PC. However, discrete graphics, will also increase the power draw slightly. (And some AMD cards, mostly 7000-series, have issues waking the monitor from sleep mode at times.)

You might consider adding a GPU, if they show an interest in watching 1080P YouTube videos or ripped HD movies.

Edit: I was thinking of something like a GT630/730, or a Radeon 6450 or R5 250.

 

[Bobsy]

That's a great advice VirtualLarry. They are using onboard graphics, which is ATI 4200 I believe. I could probably give them my current GPU, an nVidia GTX 460 768 Mo. It is paired with my recently acquired i5-4690K so it's probably due for an upgrade.

 

[RaistlinZ]

Yeah, that would be nice, and free up some system RAM.

 

[Ken g6]

I could probably give them my current GPU, an nVidia GTX 460 768 Mo.

I have one of those. They take two 6-pin power connectors. Is their power supply up to that? I doubt it. 🙁

Unless they're watching full-screen videos a lot it probably doesn't matter anyway.

Oh, and it's Gb and Mb, not Go and Mo.

 

[mfenn]

Oh, and it's Gb and Mb, not Go and Mo.

Unless you're French (Canadian). Then you'd call it a megaoctet, which is naturally abbreviated Mo.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I have one of those. They take two 6-pin power connectors. Is their power supply up to that? I doubt it. 🙁

Good point. The cards I listed, were HTPC-class cards, around $30-60 new for most of them.

A GTX460 is an older gaming card. Bigger, louder, hotter, heavier, and more power-hungry. Plus, it's video-decode features are likely not much better than the HD 4200 IGP.

So, if it were between putting that in (even if their PSU can handle it), or not, if their not playing games, I would probably skip it.

 

[Bobsy]

Yes, I am French Canadian and typically use Mo for "mégaoctets" with my close friends. I slipped.

Good advice VirtualLarry. I guess I would only increase the power consumption of their PC without giving them any significant and useful performance gain. No extra noise though as the card is an MSI with the Cyclone cooler, which is pretty quiet.