Project Reality Forums

Hello again. I've decided to upgrade my current rig and I really have no idea where to begin, so I hope I came to the right place. Of course, I'll start with posting my specs and then you guys can help me decide what to upgrade and what to to keep.

Go ahead and tell me what's best for PR2, the future of PC gaming, and current gen as well. I just want 60FPS with low-medium setting on 1080p for most of these new games. Smooth gaming. I pretty much want 60FPS sailing for the next 5 years. Price... well, I want to spend at the most 600USD, almost half of what I paid for below.

Mother Board: Asus M4A88T-M AMD 880G/SB710; GbE, DDR3 1866OC; ATI HD 4250, Hybrid xFire; SATA3Gb/s
CPU: AMD Phenom II x2 560 Blk 3.3GHz Dual-Core
2X RAM - DDR3 4GB 1600MHz Corsair (2X2GB)Dominator
GPU: PALIT GTX460 1GB Sonic GDDR5, Direct X11 SLI Ready
???Power Supply: Thermaltake TR2 RX 650w, Ultra Quiet 140mm Fan, Single +12V Up to 44A

Copied from my receipt I held on to since 2010. I hope that's everything. I OCed nothing, as I'm always very cautious about messing up my 1k rig. I could probably experiment today, if anyone has advice of these specific models for OverClocking. thank you. Yes I spent about 1,000USD for this back then. I forgot to mention my tower. Take a look: COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced RC-932-KKN5-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Newegg.com

Thanks everyone, let me know if I missed anything.

PR2 doesn't exist so I assume you mean Squad.

Honestly, I think it's time to jump up to a new motherboard. The old AMD M-socket is well....old.
Intel is the current favorite for gaming and intensive mutli-threaded applications. AMD is still the budget value option. I prefer Nvidia cards theses days as Shadowplay and other features are really geared towards the gamer.

If I had $1,000 today to upgrade an old build, my parts list would look something like this.

Mobo: ASUS Z97-E LGA 1150 Intel Z97 for $125
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K Devil's Canyon Quad-Core 3.5GHz for $240
RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1866 for $100
GPU: EVGA 04G-P4-2974-KR GeForce GTX 970 4GB for $330
Total: $795

Your current case and power supply are fine. The parts above I believe offer the best bang for the buck. You could go cheaper by getting only a GTX 960 or the same old DDR3 memory kit for a total of 8GB which is becoming more of the standard in systems. If you do that, you could even budget for a 250GB SSD to put your OS and a few games on.

Happy decision making!

depends what you do and what you want to do - what games will you be wanting to play in the near future?

To me your PC doesn't look bad to me what is it doing or not doing that makes you want to replace it? If so do you want to keep your old case, your old PSU? Many advise on replacing PSU's as they say the failure of it can kill other PC parts....

Will you sell any old parts to get a little cash back?

Present day gaming PC's seem to all have 4core CPU's and 8GB of ram seems more than enough at the moment.

Desmo You're $200 over budget dude!

He won't be overclocking so a K is pointless i5 4670 $225
And a cheaper non OC mobo Asus H81M USB3.0 $50 (need new bios for CPU?)
16Gb of ram is Overkill for the next few years isn't 8 sufficient? 8GB G skill $55
A GTX960 2GB would be enough up to 1920X1080 ? $200

leaving just enough for a 240GB SSD?

Desmo's system is better running all games at ultra in 4k I think, mine would be nearly all games at ultra in 1920 X 1080 I Believe.

I am just doing a PC for myself now I bought a secondhand i5 2500k (will be OCed to 4.4) and Asus Mobo for $140, I am waiting for 8GB of RAM a new 500W PSU as my old one is an OEM fire hazard.
But I can' t decide between a GTX960 2Gb for $220 or a 970 4GB for $340.

Ok, I decided I'm going to stick to 2014 games and lower, because the newer games haven't really hyped me as they used to and I keep going back to older games anyway. So I'd like something that will run Skyrim at 60fps, 1080p, maxed setting, texture mod madness.

Here's my question now. Would I be able to simply upgrade my rig without completely changing out everything? Could I upgrade my CPU and GPU, maybe? PSU as you said too. Could I do that and play the most demanding games of 2014? Also just enough to run PR2, if you can guess what it'll need to run

Upgrade Mobo/CPU/GPU.

Keep: case/hard drive/PSU/RAM/

Buy: Another 2x2 of DDR3 RAM to match the specifications of your current RAM. CL9 1.65V 1600Mhz <<<--- Important!

You end up with 4 sticks of 2GB RAM for 8GB total. So make sure you buy a MATX or ATX motherboard that has 4 slots for RAM.

Example parts list:
MSI PC MATE Gaming 1150
Intel i5-4670
GTX 960
2x2 DDR3 1600 RAM

An example parts list:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Hgd2wP

If not overclocking, you can pick any of a dozen+ Z97 LGA 1150 motherboards on the market, so go and price shop for combo deals, sales and whatnot.

Sounds a lot like what I said.

Happy upgrading OP.