Question Upgrading my low end gaming PC

[Sheepyy]

Hi guys,

First of all I will be buying from the UK, but I'm not clued up on the best place to shop for PC parts as this is really my first proper build.

I've built my current PC from 3 pc's that I had lying around the specs currently sit at:
Motherboard: GA-H61M-S2V-B3 (rev. 1.1)
CPU: i7 2600
GPU: Radeon (TM) RX 460 4GB
PSU: Some really bad one from an old pc I had, not sure what it is.
RAM: 16GB DDR3 Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz
Case: CARBIDE 540 HIGH AIRFLOW ATX CUBE CASE - WHITE (No rush to upgrade but I work away sometimes so might get an average sized case as this is a bit bulky)


Right now I'm capped by my motherboard I think so I could do with upgrading that and going from there.
I play some games on my PC mainly and not much else other than that, the games I play are:
Rust
Rocket League
(Occasionally) CSGO

But I would like to keep my options open to potential upgrades on top.
If I've left anything out let me know but I'm prob looking at essentially upgrading, Motherboard, PSU, CPU and my Ram to DDR4, I feel I can make do with my GPU for now and case etc.

This is my first post so let me know if I've posted this in the wrong place or anything else, but thanks for any suggestions or help!

I'm looking at spending around £400 if possible so nothing crazy but something that could maybe be worked with? Been told AMD is a good option.

I've never overclocked before but maybe with this build it would be an option so any tips with this are appreciated!

My current resolution is: 1920 x 1080 so this I guess? Sorry again I'm somewhat new!

I plan on building it as soon as I get an idea of what I want so if I get good tips tonight the parts will be bought tonight/tomorrow

No software needed as I'm currently win10, 240SSD 250GB (ish) HDD and a 1TB external HDD with all my stuff on.

My friend told me AMD is the way to go so maybe that but not 100% glued to that idea, also I do love Corsair

Thanks for any help!

-Sheepyy

 

[ao_ika_red]

As for the PSU I went: Gigabyte P650B 650W 80+ BRONZE Modular Power Supply
As I could get this delivered Sunday along will all my other parts.

From manufacturer's website, it claims 100% jap caps. So at least you will have some insurance there even though it comes from less popular brand (for PSU).

Just wondering if any of you have an idea of what sort of performance I’ll be looking at with this new setup

I once had RX560 and upgraded it with RX570 on same CPU. Trust me, it's 1080p60 all day long. My suggestion, run it at default for few days / weeks then try undervolting the GPU so it can run cooler and more silent.

Oh and also I picked the mobo up for £5 more than the tomahawk max so all in all I think I did pretty well for that one

I think @VirtualLarry have some experience with said motherboard.

 

[Sheepyy]

[/QUOTE]
I think @VirtualLarry have some experience with said motherboard.
[/QUOTE]
From what I’ve read and seen the reviews for the strix b450 f-gaming board are very very good

 

[ao_ika_red]

I think @VirtualLarry have some experience with said motherboard.
[/QUOTE]
From what I’ve read and seen the reviews for the strix b450 f-gaming board are very very good
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I just want him to give some insight about using it in day to day basis because iirc he already did quite of tinkering on that board.

 

[Sheepyy]

I think @VirtualLarry have some experience with said motherboard.

From what I’ve read and seen the reviews for the strix b450 f-gaming board are very very good
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I just want him to give some insight about using it in day to day basis because iirc he already did quite of tinkering on that board.
[/QUOTE]
That’ll be great for me to read through tomorrow, just wondering what sort of frames I’ll be pulling with my new setup, hopefully some really good performance
Water cooling next I think, looks dope!

 

[VirtualLarry]

The Asus B450-F ROG STRIX Gaming ATX is the board that I'm on now.

If you like expansion, this board has it in droves. I've got two 1TB Intel 660p NVMe SSDs in RAID-0, two GPUs, an RX 5700 in the primary slot running at PCI-E 3.0 x8, and an MSI Gaming X GTX 1660ti running at PCI-E 3.0 x4 in the secondary slot. That leaves the third PCI-E 2.0 x16 (physical)/x4 (electrical) slot free, for a 10GbE-T card. (Which I had in there, but it fried. I've also fried the onboard 1GbE-T Intel NIC, somehow.)

But other than the fried NICs (might have been a ground-loop problem running between my networking cluster that's on another circuit in the apt.), the board is doing fairly well.

I've also got 4x8GB RGB TridentZ DDR4-3600 (*Newegg listing said "for AMD" version), filling all four slots, and running XMP setting (3600 CAS18-22-22-xx, 1.35V), as well as setting FCLK to 1800.

I DO, unfortunately, have FREEZES, like, completely-solidly-locked-up freezes, about every 2-3 weeks. However, I'm constantly mining or doing DC on the rig, so it gets quite a workout.

I also, when I was first testing it out, ran the Ryzen R5 3600 CPU @ 126C for like a couple of hours, before I decided that Ryzen Master's temp monitoring was NOT "wrong" (offset). Whoops.

So, I don't know why it freezes/crashes, could be the RAID-0 SSDs, could be the two different GPUs, constantly under load, could be the CPU (very early batch, got it the first night or two they were released, so early silicon), could be the board, could be the PSU, who knows.

It's a hassle, but not a show-stopper for me. Hopefully, you won't have that problem. (Don't "abuse" your system, like I do. PS. Mining can reduce the lifespan of your PC components, being under 24/7 load all of the time, or worse, cycling.)

 

[ao_ika_red]

Water cooling next I think, looks dope!

Stick with air cooler, less cost and hassle.

The Asus B450-F ROG STRIX Gaming ATX is the board that I'm on now.

Thanks for the write-up VL! I didn't expect you to write that long though. Fine stuff.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Oh yeah, I have a 240mm Cooler Master AIO WC kit on this box too.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

see below

 

[LOUISSSSS]

SO I went and bought pretty much everything I need just ordering a 500w seasonic psu in the next few mins!
I went with:
Radeon RX580 8GB
ASUS ROG STRIX b450-F Gaming motherboard
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU
Corsair vengeance LPX 3000MHz (2x8Gb) 16GB RAM

I think that's everything I've bought unless I've forgotten something lol

should've gotten faster memory... AMD 3600 runs much better with 3600 ram, you could "settle" for 3200 ram.

DID U GET AN NVME DRIVE??? u need one if u want your pc to feel fast.

 

[Sheepyy]

Read me the specs listed on the current PSU, and does it have an 8-pin PCIe supplemental connection?

You should see various rails listed in amperage capacity as well as the wattage of course. 12v+ is the most critical one we're looking for.

Here’s the PSU! Finally got chance to get home and take it out to have a look at it

 

[LOUISSSSS]

thats a pretty shit PSU. i would stop using that ASAP... 400W, 14A on the 12v rail, generic/oem brand. Compared to a modern 550w Seasonic Focus = 45A on the 12v rail.

 

[Sheepyy]

thats a pretty shit PSU. i would stop using that ASAP... 400W, 14A on the 12v rail, generic/oem brand. Compared to a modern 550w Seasonic Focus = 45A on the 12v rail.

100% I bought a new psu 650w but it doesn’t arrive till Sunday.
But my rx580 arrived today so I’m wondering if I’ll get away with putting the rx580 in tonight with this psu

 

[Sheepyy]

should've gotten faster memory... AMD 3600 runs much better with 3600 ram, you could "settle" for 3200 ram.

DID U GET AN NVME DRIVE??? u need one if u want your pc to feel fast.

Nooooo man it’s just your classic ssd D:

 

[VirtualLarry]

But my rx580 arrived today so I’m wondering if I’ll get away with putting the rx580 in tonight with this psu

NO! Don't risk it, you could fry your RX 580 on that POC PSU. Trust me, it's a POC. I owned one back in the day too... on like a Pentium II board.

 

[Sheepyy]

NO! Don't risk it, you could fry your RX 580 on that POC PSU. Trust me, it's a POC. I owned one back in the day too... on like a Pentium II board.

I just don’t want to wait till Sunday does it really pull that much more than the 460

 

[Arkaign]

I just don’t want to wait till Sunday does it really pull that much more than the 460

Unfortunately it sure does. AMD was chasing first Maxwell 900s and then Pascal 1000s, and looking to take some market share with Polaris, which was initially priced very affordably. Unfortunately for us, not long after the 480 released, the mining craze got cooking and the prices got pretty bad for a while. The 570/580 were clock boosted 470/480, and that took power consumption up another notch.

A 460/560 can work perfectly fine off a 75w PCIe slot with no external slot.

Shader/TMU/ROP/CU

460: 896/56/16/14, with 128-Bit VRAM and a neutered 8-lane PCIe bus. 2.1TF GCN TF. Boost clocks in the ~1200-1275 Range

560: 1024/64/16/16, with 128-Bit VRAM and a neutered 8-lane PCIe bus, 2.5TF GCN TF. Boost clocks in the ~1300-1375 Range.

Any of these with PCIe supplemental connectors is just showing an abundance of caution. 75w is the absolute max.

580 : 2304/144/32/26, with 256-Vit VRAM and full 16-lane PCIe bus, 6-7TF, Boost clocks in the 1400+ Range. Well over double the 460/560 in silicon, at higher clocks, wider buses, etc. Mandatory PCIe power connectors, and often an 8-Pin ~225W connection is used.

They're excellent value cards, but they use quite a bit of power when they hit their upper clock ranges.

And Larry is right, that old PSU was not good even when it was new, and that was a loooooooooooooooooong time ago. It is in no way in the kind of shape to run a 580. I wouldn't even run a less hungry card on it like an old 660 etc.

 

[Sheepyy]

Unfortunately it sure does. AMD was chasing first Maxwell 900s and then Pascal 1000s, and looking to take some market share with Polaris, which was initially priced very affordably. Unfortunately for us, not long after the 480 released, the mining craze got cooking and the prices got pretty bad for a while. The 570/580 were clock boosted 470/480, and that took power consumption up another notch.

A 460/560 can work perfectly fine off a 75w PCIe slot with no external slot.

Shader/TMU/ROP/CU

460: 896/56/16/14, with 128-Bit VRAM and a neutered 8-lane PCIe bus. 2.1TF GCN TF. Boost clocks in the ~1200-1275 Range

560: 1024/64/16/16, with 128-Bit VRAM and a neutered 8-lane PCIe bus, 2.5TF GCN TF. Boost clocks in the ~1300-1375 Range.

Any of these with PCIe supplemental connectors is just showing an abundance of caution. 75w is the absolute max.

580 : 2304/144/32/26, with 256-Vit VRAM and full 16-lane PCIe bus, 6-7TF, Boost clocks in the 1400+ Range. Well over double the 460/560 in silicon, at higher clocks, wider buses, etc. Mandatory PCIe power connectors, and often an 8-Pin ~225W connection is used.

They're excellent value cards, but they use quite a bit of power when they hit their upper clock ranges.

And Larry is right, that old PSU was not good even when it was new, and that was a loooooooooooooooooong time ago. It is in no way in the kind of shape to run a 580. I wouldn't even run a less hungry card on it like an old 660 etc.

Man you guys really know what you’re on about, it’s so helpful to have yous to ask explain these questions to me! I would have just stuck the 580 in on this PSU tomorrow if I didn’t buy the rest of the gear, looks like I’ll have to wait till Sunday or some how source one tomorrow.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

get an NVME drive right now before u build... a 512gb for OS + critical software. your build and boot experience will be +++

 

[Sheepyy]

get an NVME drive right now before u build... a 512gb for OS + critical software. your build and boot experience will be +++

I’ve already got all that on the ssd but I did look at the nvme after you mentioned it, I think right now another £130 for a faster boot time isn’t what I NEED, but definitely on the list for the next thing I get.
Any suggestions? I’m thinking 1TB but not sure on brand etc etc

 

[LOUISSSSS]

I’ve already got all that on the ssd but I did look at the nvme after you mentioned it, I think right now another £130 for a faster boot time isn’t what I NEED, but definitely on the list for the next thing I get.
Any suggestions? I’m thinking 1TB but not sure on brand etc etc

a Great bang for the buck is the WD Blue SN550. I have the WD Black 750 but thats a bit more. You're going to regret not getting it after you use the pc for 2 years and not want to reformat and reinstall everything. get it now as you're getting everything all at once. NVMEs also allows u 2 less cables in your computer.

Sata is 15 year old technology

 

[Sheepyy]

a Great bang for the buck is the WD Blue SN550. I have the WD Black 750 but thats a bit more. You're going to regret not getting it after you use the pc for 2 years and not want to reformat and reinstall everything. get it now as you're getting everything all at once. NVMEs also allows u 2 less cables in your computer.

Sata is 15 year old technology

I used a software to clone everything from my HDD to my ssd when I got that, I’ll probably do the same when I get the nvme.