Upgrade help

[JarrydW8]

Hey guys.

I am looking for some advice here. This pc is my lifeline as I use it for all my work. It's gotten extremely sluggish. I bought it from my friend for R1000. 00

I'm hoping to be able to run some games on it too.

Long story short. I am asking for some advice on what to upgrade or if there is a way to boost the current parts performance without upgrading (because I am as broke as can be after lockdown).

These are the parts my pc currently has (results from userbenchmarks, not sure what a lot of it means however thought it may be useful)
UserBenchmarks: Game 22%, Desk 69%, Work 17%
CPU: AMD FX-6350 Six-Core - 67% (CPU 1, 1 CPU, 3 cores, 6 threads, Base clock 3.9 GHz, turbo 3.85 GHz (avg))
GPU: Nvidia GTX 960 - 32.9% (CLim: 1455 MHz, MLim: 1752 MHz, Ram: 2GB, Driver: 456.71)
HDD: WD Blue 2.5" 500GB (2009) - 37.6%
RAM: Transcend JM1333KLN-4G 2x4GB - 44.3% (8GB DIMM DDR3 clocked @ 667 MHz)
MBD: MSI 970 GAMING (MS-7693)

 

[JollyJamma]

Install more RAM and a solid state drive.

It's a pretty old rig though so if you're finding that you're not able play games well, I'd suggest an upgrade.

 

[goldfritter]

1. Try opening it up and cleaning out as much dust as possible, with an air can or small blower and/or a paintbrush. Make sure all fans are running nicely. If your PC is overheating then it will slow itself down. Probably won't help much but it's free.
2. Try format the drive and reinstall Windows. Probably won't help much but it's free.
3. The upgrade most likely to improve your experience of that PC, is an SSD. Look for a cheap one here on Carb, format the old hard drive, and install Windows on the SSD. 120GB is the very minimum I'd go for; you're better off with 250GB. You can then keep the HDD in there for storage.

After that... I'd say you'd need to upgrade the whole shebang to get any meaningful performance boost. Perhaps another 8GB of RAM would help but since it's DDR3 it may not be worth it anyway

 

[JarrydW8]

Install more RAM and a solid state drive.

It's a pretty old rig though so if you're finding that you're not able play games well, I'd suggest an upgrade.

Thanks very much for the reply. Would you suggest an entirely new system from scratch if the RAM & SSD don't help?

 

[JarrydW8]

1. Try opening it up and cleaning out as much dust as possible, with an air can or small blower and/or a paintbrush. Make sure all fans are running nicely. If your PC is overheating then it will slow itself down. Probably won't help much but it's free.
2. Try format the drive and reinstall Windows. Probably won't help much but it's free.
3. The upgrade most likely to improve your experience of that PC, is an SSD. Look for a cheap one here on Carb, format the old hard drive, and install Windows on the SSD. 120GB is the very minimum I'd go for; you're better off with 250GB. You can then keep the HDD in there for storage.

After that... I'd say you'd need to upgrade the whole shebang to get any meaningful performance boost. Perhaps another 8GB of RAM would help but since it's DDR3 it may not be worth it anyway

Godfritter this is the type of advice I was hoping for. Thank you very much!

 

[JollyJamma]

Thanks very much for the reply. Would you suggest an entirely new system from scratch if the RAM & SSD don't help?

Yeah, do what Goldmember said. Do a small refresh and / or upgrade and if that doesn't solve the problem, go from there.

You could get an entry level PC here for not a huge amount. Min specs would be a quad core AMD CPU, 16gigs of DDR4-2666, AMD 580, 500 watt PSU

 

[JarrydW8]

Yeah, do what Goldmember said. Do a small refresh and / or upgrade and if that doesn't solve the problem, go from there.

You could get an entry level PC here for not a huge amount. Min specs would be a quad core AMD CPU, 16gigs of DDR4-2666, AMD 580, 500 watt PSU

You have been great! Thanks so much!

 

[JollyJamma]

You have been great! Thanks so much!

Pleasure. Won't you tell us what PSU you have as well?

You don't want to spend some hard earned money on a new rig, just to have it all blow up because you are running a Raidmax.

 

[ThatGuy_ZA]

I'd say an SSD will make a MASSIVE difference. Have a look for a 500gb SATA SSD drive as I doubt your board supports NVMe drives.

 

[JarrydW8]

Pleasure. Won't you tell us what PSU you have as well?

You don't want to spend some hard earned money on a new rig, just to have it all blow up because you are running a Raidmax.

I have a Huntkey GS500 (400W). Not sure how that compares to the Raidmax lol

 

[Winston1990]

An SSD will make the biggest performance difference. You can just get a 250gb if cash is tight as you just want windows and all software to run off the SSD. The games can run from the secondary 500gb drive you currently have.

The rest of the PC seems fine to run many games. Just don't expect it to run everything on ultra with high resolutions.

You can add more ram, but that is not really going to make the world's difference.

Sent from my MAR-LX1M using Tapatalk

 

[JarrydW8]

I'd say an SSD will make a MASSIVE difference. Have a look for a 500gb SATA SSD drive as I doubt your board supports NVMe drives.

Thank you! I'll have a look for some bargains on here

An SSD will make the biggest performance difference. You can just get a 250gb if cash is tight as you just want windows and all software to run off the SSD. The games can run from the secondary 500gb drive you currently have.

The rest of the PC seems fine to run many games. Just don't expect it to run everything on ultra with high resolutions.

You can add more ram, but that is not really going to make the world's difference.

Sent from my MAR-LX1M using Tapatalk

Thank you so much for the info. For my first post in the community the response has been great. Thank you

 

[JollyJamma]

I have a Huntkey GS500 (400W). Not sure how that compares to the Raidmax lol

I can’t say anything about that PSU but 400 watts might be a touch low for an AMD 580, especially if it’s a budget series PSU.

I’d suggest a Super Flower 550 watt that you could pick up on this forum if you wait long enough.

I don’t think you paid too much for your current setup but if you want to do more things with it, you would need to add a few more things to it.

 

[JarrydW8]

I can’t say anything about that PSU but 400 watts might be a touch low for an AMD 580, especially if it’s a budget series PSU.

I’d suggest a Super Flower 550 watt that you could pick up on this forum if you wait long enough.

I don’t think you paid too much for your current setup but if you want to do more things with it, you would need to add a few more things to it.

Thanks Jollyjamma. I've added that to the list so now at least I know which direction to head! 🙏