Motherboard, CPU, Ram Combo?

[Andeh1]

I am looking to repurpose my 10 year old gaming PC, and hoping to reuse as much as I can... 520w Corsair PSU, 250GD SSD, Antec 900 case etc. It's been 10-15 years since I looked at desktop gaming in anger.

I only really play Steam/Valve/older games, except for WarZone/Call of Duty - so this on ''Medium - High'' at 4k resolution is the target.

Can anyone recommend a good starting point for where I should be looking for a Motherboard, RAM, Processor & Graphics card to achieve this?

Can I maintain my Antec 900 and 520 PSU to achieve this?

cheers

[BlueMR2]

If I was spending money upgrading/ replacing a PC, I wouldn't want to do it again a few months later because the old PSU took it all out.

The PSU is very important for stability and using a 10yr old one is risky IMO even if it has the correct plugs on it.

[Andeh1]

A good point well made, some of the prebuilt systems look quite reasonable, but if building is cheaper these days im happy to do so. Would £500 cover the main components for 4k gaming these days?

[BlueMR2]

I think building your own nowadays is often more about getting the specific parts you want rather than being cheaper.

Also graphics cards, especially if buying new are pretty expensive. Its probably around £300 for a basic 3060/4060, a cheap motherboard is probably £60/70.

Some of the cheapest new cpus are probably £100 for a basic i3. 16gb-32gb of memory is probably £60-£100, £50+ for an nvme ssd which is probably faster than what you currently have if its a sata 2.5" drive.

+ a PSU and a case if required etc.

If you want to buy new it just depends how much you are willing to spend and if you have to time to look into the specs and search for good quality bits with a good reputation or just want someone to put something together so you give them some money and it just arrives.

Some good quality PSU's can have 10 year warranties however if you buy from someone else as a pre built i'd imagine you would only get the 1 - 3 years they offer on the overall package.

It's just a question of how involved you want to be. Some places will let you choose from a range of parts and then build it for you, but you may be limited by the brands they buy in, eg certain makes of motherboard, graphics cards etc.

With the black friday deals coming up, you can get some genuine good deals.

Places like Amazon, if you make sure it's actually from Amazon, can be good value, arrive quickly and are usually pretty easy to return if you got the wrong bit/don't like it/something is incompatible, it can take a long time returning something to a PC component/system supplier, just make sure it's sold buy Amazon not some 3rd party seller to reduce likely hassle in the future

[grumbledoak]

If you want 4k gaming I would imagine all you'll be keeping from that one is the case.

If you want to build your own I would start here, maybe with the build guides
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/

[Ikemi]

Andeh1 said:

A good point well made, some of the prebuilt systems look quite reasonable, but if building is cheaper these days im happy to do so. Would £500 cover the main components for 4k gaming these days?

Probably not. It depends on the game, but it also depends on how many frames per second (and 1% lows) you find acceptable. You could mitigate this by opting for a 2K gaming build, whereby a £320 7600 XT would work well. That said, the 7600 XT should do Warzone in 4K in ultra settings. You can watch a video of the 7600XT running BO6 at 1080/1440/4K, with the respective frames per second values here:



As others have said, replace the PSU and upgrade from SSD to an NVMe M.2 drive ...

This looks like a good build for £1000: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/guide/PCWG3C/great-amd...

Downgrade to a 7600XT and remove the case from the list - a £800 build

Edited by Ikemi on Monday 11th November 13:56

[va1o]

Andeh1 said:

I am looking to repurpose my 10 year old gaming PC, and hoping to reuse as much as I can... 520w Corsair PSU, 250GD SSD, Antec 900 case etc. It's been 10-15 years since I looked at desktop gaming in anger.

I only really play Steam/Valve/older games, except for WarZone/Call of Duty - so this on ''Medium - High'' at 4k resolution is the target.

Can anyone recommend a good starting point for where I should be looking for a Motherboard, RAM, Processor & Graphics card to achieve this?

Can I maintain my Antec 900 and 520 PSU to achieve this?

cheers

I did similar recently and was able to retain a lot of old kit from 2010ish which all still worked fine and don't seem any different to the updaed versions - Coolermaster case, Corsair 650w PSU, Noctua fans and my SSD.

I used a new ASUS AM4 motherboard, Ryzen CPU and 32GB DDR4. Fresh Windows 11 install and running like a dream. Currently happy enough with the onboard Radeon graphics as I'm not a gamer but can easily add on a dedicated card in future.

Good luck

[Griffith4ever]

grumbledoak said:

If you want 4k gaming I would imagine all you'll be keeping from that one is the case.

If you want to build your own I would start here, maybe with the build guides
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/

Aye, you've got to really WANT 4k to run games at 4k - at the least be sat well back from a 65" TV and not 2 ft from a PC monitor where at ultrawide 2K+ you'll not see a single pixel. 4k puts a hell of a demand on your card.

I run a 3070 and most current games run at ulta. That's on a Dell Alienware ultrawide OLED. i5 last year gen.

This talk of PSUs failing... I was an IT manager and Director from 22 years old to 42 and PSU failures were practically non existent. Neither at home too where I've always run gaming rigs at the latest spec (when my employers were paying! ;-) ). I'm slightly mystified by the importance put on expensive over specced PSUs. I get it with a 4090, but anything less..... They are just power supplies. Nothing magical about them. They put out 12, 5 and 3v rails, which being DC are all stable. It's all about the current they can deliver, and you don't need to go much over what your card recommends (to allow for the rest of the computer) . The card rarely draws what its spec is. My 3070 recommends a 650w PSU, and I think I have one about that in it (FB marketplace, £20) - but my UPS shows my whole PC draws around 300W when gaming.

[Andeh1]

Thanks very much all for the advice, I would likely be running Dell 34" monitor from it, so gaming at a high resolution. I used 4k but from an uninformed point of view, but how would I tell if I should be considering it?

[xeny]

Andeh1 said:

Thanks very much all for the advice, I would likely be running Dell 34" monitor from it, so gaming at a high resolution. I used 4k but from an uninformed point of view, but how would I tell if I should be considering it?

3440 x 1440?

[Griffith4ever]

Andeh1 said:

Thanks very much all for the advice, I would likely be running Dell 34" monitor from it, so gaming at a high resolution. I used 4k but from an uninformed point of view, but how would I tell if I should be considering it?

Well, I mean you normally want to be running your resolution to match your monitor's resolution - that way you get 1:1 pixel mapping with no odd scaling going on..

4K? well really its the domain of big screens, like people playing on a huge TV.

Ultrawide works well on desktops as its a superb "enveloping" experience, same resolution as 4k across the screen, and about 2/3rd the res of 4k down the screen, but then the height is less in proportion, so it's pretty much the same level of detail, just wider.

That 1/3 less res horizontally takes a big burden off the graphics card.

I've also forced the refresh rate of some games DOWN from 144 Mhz etc, as it makes the GPU fan run full speed even on non demanding games like Manor Lords where max hz vs 60 hz just isn't noticeable, and then the step down to 30hz is only noticeable when panning. But I get a sient PC......