Upgrade advice - long time out of building

[Spuderoony]

Hi everyone.

I used to build a few computers, did several between about 2001 and 2012 ish. Haven't built one since & I don't even recognise half the stuff being mentioned.

I currently have:

i5 3570k
Some enormous heatsink (unknown)
ASUS Maximums V Gene Z77
8gb (2x4) of Corsair DDR3 PC3-10700H (667mhz)
nVidia GTX 670 2GB (Gigabyte)
SSD: Crucial 128gb M4 SATA III
PSU: Corsair AX750 + some case which I don't know what it is (mATX)

which I bought second hand.

I don't do any PC gaming anymore, but I might if I had the capability. The main stuff I do is playing poker / streaming / lots of multitasking. I could have 10 windows of poker, OBS, all sorts going on at the same time.

I am guessing my PSU could be OK?

But I'd like some suggestions of what to spend about £600 on to see a BIG improvement. I'm guessing I would want 64gb RAM, a low/mid Ryzen CPU, midrange graphics card? Obviously would need a new mobo. SSD and 2TB likely OK? Possibly a new case. So the definites would be:

- new CPU/heatsink if not retail
- new mobo
- new GFX
- new RAM
- POSSIBLY new case

Open to all suggestions. And if I've totally missed something important in the last few years please let me know about it! I am happy to buy new or second hand and can fund some of the difference by selling what I don't need from the above, but I know it won't fetch too much.

Thanks!

(already have dual 27" monitors)

 

[Xionic]

Something like this would be ideal but you're looking £90 over budget. 32gb seems to be the sweet spot for RAM at the moment and I really don't think 64GB would be necessary. You can shave £40 off keeping the same case and bring you closer to your budget. You could also spend an extra £50 going for 3600 ram over the 3200. A cheap NVMe boot drive would also be a good investment even if it was only for Windows but your looking at another £50 for 250gb


My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x MSI B450M Mortar MAX (Socket AM4) DDR4 mATX Motherboard= £69.98
• 1 x CoolerMaster MasterBox Q300L Micro-ATX Case - Black Window= £37.99
• 1 x MSI GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER AERO ITX OC 6144MB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £229.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core 4.2GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £229.99
• 1 x Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey= £109.99

Total: £690.24 (includes shipping: £12.30)


3600 ram and a decent NVMe drive

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x WD Blue SN550 250GB NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS250G2B0C)= £47.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 32GB (2x16GB) 3600 MHz AMD Ryzen Tuned DDR4 Memory Dual Kit= £158.99

Total: £215.68 (includes shipping: £8.70)​

​

 

[Spuderoony]

Thank you for that. I had no idea what an NVMe drive was

 

[Quartz]

CoolerMaster MasterBox Q300L Micro-ATX Case - Black Window= £37.99

The big brother of that case got slated by Gamers Nexus. That case suffers from poor ventilation.

 

[Harnser]

I don't do any PC gaming anymore, but I might if I had the capability. The main stuff I do is playing poker / streaming / lots of multitasking. I could have 10 windows of poker, OBS, all sorts going on at the same time.

Congratulations on knowing what you want to do with your PC. That is rare

@Xionic has picked a good system, but there are areas you can save.

First, you don't need a GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER. You're not gaming; you want something to render the screen, support video broadcast (I assume with OBS) and give whatever outputs you prefer for your monitor (HDMI for me, but I know others like DisplayPort).

Switching to a GTX 1650 SUPER, which is still overkill IMO (but handy if you're doing video editing) saves £70 straight up. Others can advise if a GTX 1050Ti would suffice - that saves more £££.

Second, you don't need 3600MHz RAM for your use-case. The 3200MHz CL16 stuff will be fine.

Third, having saved you money, you'll likely want to spend ~£25 on a new big cooler ("heatsink") to keep it nice and quiet, like your current build.

Fourth, check the health of your SSD before reusing it. Disk failure and restoring from backups is painful, and the easiest time to replace is when building a new PC. Ditto the 2TB drive. CrystalDiskInfo is a useful free tool for reporting a 'health' value. NvME is nice but SSD has been fast enough up to now, so save the ££.

 

[Spuderoony]

Thanks for the tips. Installed CDI and it says that the SSD is healthy on everything, but the standard 2TB SATA drive I have has cautions on Current Pending Sector Count and Uncorrectable Sector Count (both raw values of 000000000001)

Yeah, I just want the option of gaming, but won't be doing huge amounts of it. I need something that supports dual 27" monitors and is good at rendering video etc. as you mentioned.

 

[Harnser]

Thanks for the tips. Installed CDI and it says that the SSD is healthy on everything, but the standard 2TB SATA drive I have has cautions on Current Pending Sector Count and Uncorrectable Sector Count (both raw values of 000000000001)

Replace it.

 

[Quartz]

First, you don't need a GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER.

The 1660 supports more monitors. The GTX 1050 cards don't support H.265. Also

I don't do any PC gaming anymore, but I might if I had the capability.

Bolding mine.

I am guessing my PSU could be OK?

As it's so old I think you should take the opportunity to replace it.