Help upgrade the gaming PC my brother gave me!

BillyMA · 4 Jun 2020 at 18:14

Hello,
My brother gave me his old gaming PC (spec below) and it works OK but it's a bit jerky and sometimes freezes for a little bit even with a local game. I have nearly £300 saved up and wondered what I could do to make it better. THANKS!!

Intel Core i7
Windows 10
1TB HD
2GB Nvidia GeForce GT1030

doopydug · 4 Jun 2020 at 18:42

Depends which I7 you have but upgrading the gfx card will give you the biggest gains for that budget - is it 8 or 16gb ram?

A second hand 5700xt or even a 2060S would do the trick

BillyMA · 4 Jun 2020 at 19:10

Thanks doopydug. I think its 8mb ram. does that make a difference? is the gfx card the most important thing for fps?

pastymuncher · 4 Jun 2020 at 19:33

Hi and welcome to the forums.

Before you go buying anything or we are able to give you some accurate advice we could do with more information.

1. What make and model is the psu?
2. What is your actual cpu? Just saying i7 is no good as the original i7 is many years old now.
3. What resolution are you wanting to game at?
4. What case as some gpu's can be too big for some case?

BillyMA · 5 Jun 2020 at 18:22

Thanks for helping me!
I'm not sure about the PSU and exact chip but have attached 2 pics if that helps?
https://imgshare.io/image/NrDyUq
https://imgshare.io/image/NrDi7f
I'm gaming at 1920 x 1080
It's a fullsize case I think.
Thanks again!

Sparx · 6 Jun 2020 at 00:16

Ouch, sorry pal but that power supply is rather nasty. It will not be any good for anything better (graphics card wise anyway) to go into it I'm afraid. Seems quite a bit of dust and even cob webs in that case, it could do with a good clean!

To get the CPU model, press the start button and type 'dxdiag' and press OK. It should open a window with all your PC specs, look for 'Processor' and tell us what it says. Also just below that tell us what 'Memory' says as well.

Do you know what size and make/model hard drive is in it too? I presume it doesn't have an SSD and it's the old mechanical drive.

What sort of games do you want to play on it? You could potentially get away with a new power supply, decent'ish graphics card and an SSD (I presume it doesn't have one, judging by the photos). If not, you'd be better off just to keep saving and buy a full new PC.

pastymuncher · 6 Jun 2020 at 15:14

Add a new psu to the list as well. Sorry to be blunt but the best place for your current one is in the bin, it's garbage. You still have enough of a budget for a hefty 1080p gpu upgrade and a new decent quality psu.

If you download and run CPUz (click me) it will tell you exactly what your motherboard, cpu memory speed and how much of it you have. The cpu is listed on the opening page, the motherboard details are under the mainboard tab, memory speed and how much of it you have is under the memory tab and if you click on the SPD tab it will telll you the manufacturer and part number.

Going by the Intel CPU cooler's part number it looks like a socket 1156 motherboard so the I7 is looks to be a Lynnfield cpu, possibly a i7 860 as they seemed to be the most common. It would be nice if that motherboard was a P55 chipset board but it looks too budget to be one of those.