Upgrade tips needed

fmcco

Hi all, we built a system for my son 4 years ago, primarily for gaming and on a budget. Recently he is losing FPS in a big way on his favourite games (R6S, CSGO mostly) and we're thinking it is time for an upgrade so would be great to get some quick inputs.

Basic current specs are an i3 with 8GB RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti (2GB). Will likely go to an i5 and 16GB RAM, plus a new GPU - can anyone recommend something that will give a significant upgrade without breaking the bank? Would stretch to €300-ish for the GPU.
Also the current motherboard is an MSI H81M-E33, while this should accommodate an i5 is there much to be gained from a new motherboard (assuming there's nothing wrong with the old one)?
I'm not sure if I want the hassle of going with an AMD CPU instead as we'd have to re-register Windows etc. - no idea how much hassle is involved here though beyond the physical build that I'm comfortable with.
Thanks!

Hyzepher

Maybe this for GPU - 1080
And this for the cpu/mobo/Ram - bundle

minitrue

Saying losing FPS makes me think a clean reinstall is going to do some wonders but an i3-4xxx and 750 ti is quite long in the tooth and going to struggle more and more with anything more demanding. With €300 available for a gpu alone I'd post the template for a new build https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=74542374 and make sure to specify the power supply you have already!

To really give that a worthwhile lease of life an i7 would be a much better bet, an i5 would really be a stop-gap short term band aid, but the pricing of those is quite horrible generally which means a new build (salvaging everything you can) is likely much saner and depending on the existing power supply and what you had in mind for the i5 and ram you can probably get something sane into the budget. You might be able to find deals second hand on 2nd/3rd gen Ryzen including bundles like the one listed but note a new 2600, B450 and 16GB of fast ram is about €274 from Amazon today and with the slow ram in the bundle listed about €261 so I wouldn't pay anything remotely close to €250 for it.

The 1080 is probably too much for your power supply without even beginning to think about what sort of price it's worth!

Homelander

You really want the guts of a new PC here. An i7-4770 or i7-4790 is still a decent gaming CPU and a monumental upgrade on an i3 4th gen but second hand they sell for more as a new Ryzen 3100 which is a better processor and supports way newer tech as well.

Ryzen 3100 (£95) 16GB DDR4 3200Mhz (£60) + A320M (£45) will get the job done. That's about €230. Then get something like a GTX1660 Super for £215 and you're set for all the latest games at high/ultra 60fps.

The lazy, hassle free upgrade would be a 2nd i7-4770 or 4790 (€130 or so) and a GTX1660 Super. Still a good combo but dated/not the best bang per buck at all, but it would be fine either and it's zero effort.

I wouldn't bother with i5 4th gen, they are very cheap (about €40) but are very limited in some of the latest games. Rainbow Six would obviously be perfect, as would games like Apex Legends, but if he's into COD or similar games, they struggle now with those i5's.

fmcco

Thanks all. Already did a clean install a few months back but didn't help. Power supply died a while back too and I deliberately over-specced the new one so it should be able to handle a better GPU etc.
Might just bite the bullet and move to a Ryzen as I'm scared of buying second hand components in case they're dud.