PC - Upgrade or New?

chrislad

I've a Dell PC. It's probably about 5 years old or so. It had been giving trouble lately, but I gave it a clean with compressed air and it seems to be back working.

The issue I have is the noise from the graphics card. I put on Sonic Generations last night, hardly the most intensive game, and the card sounded like a car engine!

I'm at the stage now thinking do I just get a new build, which will be 800 or so, or just upgrade my graphics card.

I don't build PCs, have never done so, so I'm not sure how good the Dell would be upgrade wise in terms of air flow.

The specs on the machine aren't bad.

It's an Intel Core i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10Ghz. There's 8gb RAM and I have two slots free. The graphics card, according to the Device Manager, is a Radeon HD 5700, though I believe that card doesn't exist and it's a HD5770.

Is it worth my while getting a new card, or am I better off with a new build? I've attached the case on my Dell.

Kimbot

chrislad wrote: »

I've a Dell PC. It's probably about 5 years old or so. It had been giving trouble lately, but I gave it a clean with compressed air and it seems to be back working.

The issue I have is the noise from the graphics card. I put on Sonic Generations last night, hardly the most intensive game, and the card sounded like a car engine!

I'm at the stage now thinking do I just get a new build, which will be 800 or so, or just upgrade my graphics card.

I don't build PCs, have never done so, so I'm not sure how good the Dell would be upgrade wise in terms of air flow.

The specs on the machine aren't bad.

It's an Intel Core i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10Ghz. There's 8gb RAM and I have two slots free. The graphics card, according to the Device Manager, is a Radeon HD 5700, though I believe that card doesn't exist and it's a HD5770.

Is it worth my while getting a new card, or am I better off with a new build? I've attached the case on my Dell.

Yeah i think device manager shows as the HD5700 family rather than the exact card.

You could get a new case, new power supply and graphics card. All depends on how much you want to spend really.

Skerries

I would just go with a new card and an SSD

it looks like you have a 460 watt power supply so should be ok but you can verify if you enter your service tag in here

TerrorFirmer

Skerries wrote: »

I would just go with a new card and an SSD

it looks like you have a 460 watt power supply so should be ok but you can verify if you enter your service tag in here

This. Your PC is perfectly fine other than the outdated graphics card.

Doesn't sound like you're a huge gamer so something like a GTX750Ti would be a massive upgrade for about 130 or so. The 5770 will get you about 50 euro second hand so the net cost shouldn't be more than about 80 or so.

chrislad

Cheers.

I was looking at this card

http://www.hardwareversand.de//en/2048+MB/211844/MSI+GeForce+GTX+960+Gaming+2G%2C+2GB+GDDR5.article

Would that be okay for the machine? Would a 64gb SSD be okay, considering it just for the OS? I have a 1.5TB drive in the PC as things are already.

chrislad

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Doesn't sound like you're a huge gamer so something like a GTX750Ti would be a massive upgrade for about 130 or so. The 5770 will get you about 50 euro second hand so the net cost shouldn't be more than about 80 or so.

Well, I wasn't on PC due to the fact that I had a Xbox 360 and a PS4. I got rid of both of those. While I don't play as much as I used to, I still want to get some games, like Arkham Knight for example. It wouldn't be the primary use, and I don't need Ultra graphics as it's only a 21inch monitor, but it will be used for games.

TerrorFirmer

chrislad wrote: »

Well, I wasn't on PC due to the fact that I had a Xbox 360 and a PS4. I got rid of both of those. While I don't play as much as I used to, I still want to get some games, like Arkham Knight for example. It wouldn't be the primary use, and I don't need Ultra graphics as it's only a 21inch monitor, but it will be used for games.

The GTX750Ti is a budget performance card and can play most games at 1080P at decent levels, when I said 'not much of a gamer', I more meant someone who does play games but not a huge amount.

The GTX960 is a great card if you're looking to play current releases at 1080p at max settings.

64GB is fine but the jump to 128GB isn't much more really.

chrislad

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

The GTX750Ti is a budget performance card and can play most games at 1080P at decent levels, when I said 'not much of a gamer', I more meant someone who does play games but not a huge amount.

The GTX960 is a great card if you're looking to play current releases at 1080p at max settings.

64GB is fine but the jump to 128GB isn't much more really.

It's not by choice that I play less games!

Thanks for the help. I should be able to get up and running for less than 300 or so which is nice.