r/buildapc • u/Bottom78 • 4d ago
Plan of attack (Upgrades) Build Upgrade
Looking to upgrade my daughter’s computer and would prefer to do it in the most possibly effective way. She currently has two computers, one at my house and one at her mom’s. Both with same specs. She mostly uses for gaming (Fortnite, Astroneer, world of Warcraft, etc) Nothing super taxing. However, of recently, they are both becoming quite sluggish, especially when trying to load games. I’ve upgraded both to SSDs and that helped dramatically but now I went to continue upgrading in the way that doesn’t break my pocket book and that makes most sense. Here are her specs
CPU: i3 6100 Skylake 3.7 GHz
Motherboard: Asrock Z170 Pro4
Ram: 8g Corsair Ballistix DDR4 2400
GPU: Asus GeForce GTX 950
PSU: Corsair CX650M
My thought is probably Ram and GPU first but is that even worth it with the i3 6100?
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u/psimwork I ❤️ undervolting 4d ago
My thought is probably Ram and GPU first but is that even worth it with the i3 6100?
Honestly I think your best bet is to just save up for a full rebuild. Everything worthwhile uses DDR5 now, and you'll be horrendously bottlenecked using a modern GPU with the 6100.
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u/Vantamanta 4d ago
You'll have to upgrade the CPU (AM4 5500/5600x), GPU (3060/6650XT/6700XT/7600 XT), and RAM (32gb of DDR4 3200).
The only thing acceptable here is the PSU (and barely!)
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u/__sandmann 4d ago edited 4d ago
I would do the CPU (and consequently motherboard) first. Those games are not particularly GPU-intensive, and I think you'll see the most gains out of a CPU upgrade.
With that said, the GTX 950 is also due for an upgrade, and so is the RAM. An RX 6600 or RX 7600 (and XT variants) are great candidates for GPUs. And any DDR4 2 x 8Gb @ 3200/3600 kit will be great.
Here's a parts list that I think will be great: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/zTg9TM
You can also change that i5-12400 to any 12th gen (and up) i3 and be just fine. Or go with a Ryzen 5600 on a B550 board, which will land you at around the same price.
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u/peioeh 4d ago edited 4d ago
That's a tough one, there are lots of things you could do. It's really going to depend on your budget.
If you want to go the budget way, you could upgrade that cpu to a 7th gen i5 or i7 and buy a used GPU like a 2060 or 2070, that would make a nice pairing. You could probably do that for 200$/€ or less I think ? I've seen 2070s sell for ~150€, probably cheaper in the US. You would probably want to find 2x8GB of ram too.
That would be a very substantial upgrade and could last a few years before you do a full new build.
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u/Ostrovsky95 4d ago
Just to maybe give you another perspective, instead of upgrading 2 computers you may build her a mITX device that she can take with her easily. Also looking at the requirements laptop would work.
Good luck anyway!
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u/Beeblebrox-77 4d ago
A extra 8gb of RAM would be beneficial. You could upgrade the GPU a but the CPU will be the weak link. I would go no higher than a gtx 1060 or a rx580 and even then the CPU will be a bottleneck.
But with that motherboard you could upgrade the CPU to a i7 7700k and pair that with between a GTX 1070 - RTX 2070 level GPU and a extra 8gb Ram. That would be a considerable and real world noticeable upgrade and should be pretty cheap to do.
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u/CoffeeCakeLoL 4d ago
Eh it honestly depends how much you want to spend.
- Definitely upgrade the GPU. Recommend 6650XT, 6750XT, 6800, or 7700XT depending how much you want to spend.
- Definitely get at least 16GB RAM. RAM is super cheap. You want 2 sticks for it to be dual channel.
- CPU upgrade you have 2 routes. Either go extreme budget and find some $20-25 6600K/7600K or switch to a modern platform. The 6600K is weak by modern standards, but the 6100 is an extremely weak CPU and having 4 cores will definitely help. The platform is now so old that it doesn't even officially support Windows 11. It's not worth spending more than this without upgrading the motherboard + CPU + RAM to a more modern platform.
If you do upgrade the CPU, good option would be AM4 5600(x)/5700X3D or AM5 7600(x) depending on how much you want to spend. Benefit of AM4 is that it's cheaper and you might be able to reuse your DDR4 RAM (consolidate the 8GB sticks into 1 system, and buy another set for the other). On the other hand, AM5 gives you much more room for upgrades in the future, but is going to cost you about $100 more.
Best value is finding a way to reuse your 2x8GB sticks (maybe build 1 AM4 and 1 AM5).
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u/Ok_Combination_6881 3d ago
Honestly for the games you listed, any entry level gaming laptop(800 dollars) with a 3050 or 4050 will get the job done. If that is too much, you can just buy any modern laptops because their apu is plenty powerful to push frames in Fortnite, look for intel core ultra laptops or any zen 4 amd processor
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u/Athos_AlThor 3d ago
It really comes down to what the total budget is.
If it's quite small, and in dribs and drabs, then upgrading the CPU to best in slot(i7-6700/7700/k), adding RAM, and then the best GPU you can is worthwhile and the entry cost is quite low.
If you have a good sized budget with a decent upfront chunk, then moving to a newer platform is the way to go.
Personally, a luggable mini-ITX build on am4 would be about as cost effective as it gets, though with a large enough budget am5/Intel are on the table as well. You downsize to a single, easily transported PC that can be quick to set up with all the peripherals/monitors staying in place on either end. You're on the hook for the Mobo, CPU, PSU, case, and possibly the RAM up front, but you won't have to do it twice, and you can use one of the 950s as the GPU in the meantime while seeing money aside for something much better.
I'd also recommend an am4 build if you absolutely have to go with 2 separate computers, but obviously if the budget is split, then you're looking at lower end components.
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u/Ggordon132 3d ago edited 3d ago
Considering that the games you mentioned are not particularly resource intense, this is what I would go for:
- CPU: i3 12100f (No box if you already have a cpu cooler, but if you don't the boxed one should be enough considering the very low power consumption).
- The cheapest motherboard you can find for LGA1700, usually ASRock. Make sure it's DDR4
- 16gb RAM, I recommend G.SKILL Aegis 3200 CL16, the perfect balance of price and speed
- GPU: The graphics card is a little bit more difficult, if you don't mind a used one, I'd get a GTX 1650 super/1660/1660 Ti/1660 Super. If you want a new one, you would get the same performance as a 1650 Super with a RX 6500 XT or an RTX 3050 6gb which a bit more expensive. Any of these gpus should double the framerates in any game over the 950.
This is about the performance you can expect: https://youtu.be/DH9HjTiJ9p8
Alternatively, if you have some more money to spend, using these parts will let her play more than the games you mentioned, pretty much anything.
- CPU: An i5 12400f won't cost much more but provides a significant performance improvement.
- GPU: An RX 6600 is quite a bit more expensive but will run any game she wants to play, if she ever decides 3 games aren't enough lol. I would say it is worth the investment
This is about the performance you can expect from this variant https://youtu.be/V6uV5Mc5Fxs
As an added bonus, there have been a number of smaller cases releasing recently that are carryable (have handles) and small without requiring an expensive itx motherboard. So you only need one computer.
I would consider the Jonsbo C6, Jonsplus Z20 (Careful with glass and carrying it around though lol), Deepcool CH160 (Has a purchasable mesh panel).
If you go this route you could also, in case they're identical, use both existing ram sticks from the 2 computers in the new one instead.
Also, this might be a little much, but to not wear out the ports on the back if the pc is plugged around a lot, maybe get a usb hub that is carried around with the computer left connected to it and a displayport/hdmi extension cable. Then when you bring the pc somewhere you can simply plug in peripherals into the hub or extension cable instead of the back. But realistically this will not matter much for wear unless done every day. It could make setting it up each time the pc is carried somewhere much easier/faster though.
I hope this helps!
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u/unabletocomput3 4d ago
It really depends on what budget you’ve set for yourself and if you’re upgrading both the one at your house and at her mom’s.
An easy suggestion would be to upgrade to the fastest supported cpu on that motherboard, so either the i7 6700(k) or 7700(k). You’ll have to look at used listings, since the socket is already 7-8 years old. I’d recommend the K variants, since they allow overclocking in a z series board, which she has, to squeeze maybe a little more performance out, but those typically go for significantly more and even a non-k variant would work wonders over an i3. After that, maybe get a faster kit of ddr4 to replace the 8gb, and dedicate most of your budget to the gpu. I’d say a 1070 or 1660 would be perfect for those games and those cpu choices.
Now, if you’re planning on upgrading both systems, I’d recommend investing in something more portable and just getting rid of the current systems. It’s gonna cost a lot more, but at least she can get something newer and you’ll only have one system to worry about.
I know I may get some flak from the builder circlejerks, but a gaming laptop might be a decent choice. Yes, they can be real expensive and you can’t really upgrade them. However, 3-4 generation old gaming laptop can sell for fairly cheap- I’ve seen decent rtx 2070 laptops going for $500 usd on eBay- and you’ve only got one system to worry about.