I’m not very tech savvy so please bear with me.
I bought a premade in 2018 and I’ve only updated the graphics card and ram since then. I’m using a 55" Samsung TV as a monitor. It’s really starting to get sluggish/finicky. Gaming example: it can run BGate3 on medium but starts having issues any higher.
- Processor: Intel Core i3-8100 Coffee Lake CPU, 4 Cores, 3.6GHz
- Graphics Card NIVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 8gb
- CPU Cooler: Intel Stock CPU Cooler
- Motherboard: ASUS Z370-P Motherboard
- Memory: 8GB DDR4 2400MHz Memory (2 x 4GB Sticks) + Crucial Ballistix BL2K8G36C16U4B 3600 MHz, DDR4, DRAM, Desktop Gaming Memory Kit, 16GB (8GB x2), CL16, Black
- Hard Drive: Seagate 2TB Firecuda Hybrid Hard Disk
EDIT for more info
It’s hooked up to my TV because I use it for everything from simple browsing, YouTube, streaming TV/movies, to gaming. For games the most taxing is something like BG3, but I can’t think of anything else in terms of taxing programmes.
I don’t think I’d have a use for it if I kept it. Even if I kept the hard drive I’d have to research How and What To Save To Which Drive On Your PC, but if that’s what y’all recommend then I can.
I’m not against investing a few grand if it’s the right money spent at the right time, if that makes sense? My worry about changing individual parts is the standard worries about installation and compatibility, but if it’s too soon to be changing the whole rig then I can get over that
Honestly that should still be holding mostly fine at 1080p. Your ram being at mixed speeds is gonna slow things down a tiny bit though. Also going from a hybrid hdd to dedicated ssd for the system will help a lot.
So just updating to a SSD might be sufficient? I was worried it was too late to be changing individual parts as the remaining parts wouldn’t be able to support them, but maybe not?
Yeah it’s worth a shot to start with an SSD worst case if it doesn’t work well then you’d have a ssd for the next system.
most newer games are expecting an SSD install, and a lot of them are beginning to straight up require one, because the current Xbox and Playstation come with them standard and you haven’t been able to run games off HDD at all on them for years. I ran up to this with Starfield, barely ran at all on a fast HDD. Hopefully your board supports a nvme but even if not, a SATA SSD would offer significant improvement.
Definitely get an SSD. Honestly I’m surprised it’s that recent and doesn’t have one.
It’ll give a small boost to load times, but a nvme SSD can at least be taken with you when you eventually upgrade the mobo/CPU/RAM combo. A 2TB drive can be had for £120 or so.
I’ve got more or less the same setup myself as your PC and it’s getting very creaky on newer titles. I honestly just use my PS5 for those atm.
I think I’d update the mobo/CPU/RAM first if I had your exact setup, but the GPU wouldn’t be far behind. You could run games with task manager open to see if you’re maxing out your CPU or GPU and take it from there. Depending on the games you play, it could be worth doing the GPU first.
Just make sure your PSU supports it, as those newer GPUs can be hungry.
Not only loading times, some games read files like textures only when needed and that can make a huge difference while playing.
SSD for sure. Even on devices less powerful the general desktop experience is superior on ssd than a more powerful PC. Boot time and programs load up so much faster making the OS feel way snapier instead of a constant wait for even a browser to load.
Edit: didn’t think to mention it because it’s so obvious to me, but you said you’re new, so I’ll mention it. Before you do anything below, make sure your heatsinks on your CPU and GPU aren’t clogged with dust. Blow the case and fans out with compressed air if needed. Once that’s done then proceed with my original reply below.
First off, pull the 8GB DDR4 2400MHz Memory because it’s slowing your faster RAM down. All of the RAM in a system will run at the rate of the slowest stick. You’ll be better off with 16GB 3600 than 24GB 2400.
A better GFX card will make a huge difference. Your CPU will be a bottleneck, but still, upgrading the GFX card will make a difference. For that matter, see if you can get an i5 or i7 for your generation socket on the cheap. Don’t spend a lot of money on a CPU though, because you won’t be able to move it to a new computer because of the socket.
Some people have recommended an SSD. That’s a good idea, but if you have an extra PCIe port then I’d recommend an NVMe drive with the PCIe adaptor. It still won’t be as fast as a native NVMe, but it’s around 3-4x faster than a SATA SSD.
If your TV has gaming mode, make sure you use it. It turns off a lot of the upscaling and processing that TVs do, and optimizes it for refresh rate and response time. That alone will make your computer feel more responsive.
Order of priorities:
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Pull RAM
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TV gaming mode
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NVMe drive
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Better GPU with the idea that you’ll move it into your next computer when you rebuild.
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Cheap i5 or better
4 and 5 are interchangeable. It’s hard to say which you should do first. I’d lean towards a GFX card if you’re rebuilding in the next year, or the CPU if you’re not.
Edit 2: if you threw that 1070 into a cheap pre-built, I’ll bet you $5 the PSU isn’t outputting enough power. If the 1070 came with the computer then it’s probably fine, but I can’t imagine a company was selling a 1070 with an i3, and if they were, avoid their computers from now on. Use a PC power requirement calculator online, and figure out if you have enough power for the parts you currently have. A system without enough power will run like shit, regardless of how good the components are.
Thanks for checking on the basics. I do have and use compressed air but I literally had no idea that my TV had a gaming mode, which I’ve just discovered it does
The RAM I bought was recommended by a friend but perhaps they didn’t know they had to match idk.
I appreciate the order of priorities, that helps a lot
It doesn’t have to match, but it’ll all run at the rate of the slowest stick. I just added a note about your PSU too, so check the bottom of my comment if you didn’t see it already.
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As a fellow TV-as-a-monitor enthusiast, it might be your display. Most TVs do a lot of frame processing to give you smoother playback at the cost of latency, making games feel sluggish. My TV has a “Gaming” preset that actually turns off some of that processing, allowing for 60hz refresh rate and minimal latency. Might be worth checking your TV for a setting like that.
I had no idea this was a thing, I have found Game Mode on my TV, hahah
Will see what this changes
I usually leave mine on game mode for day-to-day stuff because the mouse latency is unbearable otherwise. However when watching a movie or TV show, I’ll swap it back over to cinema mode to smooth out frames and reduce artifacting.
What’s your budget look like? Because if you don’t have much to spend, you’re best off just tossing an SSD in as your boot disk. That’ll help significantly. After that, I’d grab 32GB of matching RAM(make sure it’s DDR4, not DDR5) and try that.
After that, you’re basically building a new PC because to significantly upgrade your CPU- which is the next thing you’d want to- you’d need at minimum a new motherboard as well and probably a case since prebuilt cases can have proprietary layouts and be weird.
If you wanna build your own PC, but can’t figure out what parts would be good/what you actually need feel free to reply with a budget and your general location- country is good enough- and I can send you a link to a part list. I used to hang out in /r/buildapcforme and I kinda miss it lmao
It’s so nice that we can build PCs again. In 2021 I moved across the pond for work and couldn’t bring my old PC with me. I wanted to build a new one, but it was impossible due to GPU shortage. I had to buy a garbage premade PC by Dell, because it had 3060 card and was cheaper than buying standalone 3060 card.
That GPU shortage absolutely blew. I used a 1650 the whole time, just sitting on my hands waiting for something to be vaguely affordable. Ended up snagging an RX 6600 right at the very very end of the shortage- caught it on a steep sale and paid $220 for it, and my exact model is $200 now so I did pretty good I think lol
Very kind of you I use it for everything (I’ve edited the post to give more info) so I’m not against spending a few grand (UK£) if now is the right time to do so. If it’s not the right time then I’m trying to work out what I can replace that will be compatible and easy for a noob to install I guess
If the most resource intensive thing you’re looking at is BG3 @ 1080p/60fps, you definitely won’t need to spend a few grand. Now is a great time to build. You can get pretty great price/performance at the moment.
Here’s a link to a build, I’d suggest buying the SSD in that list, and replacing your hybrid drive. You can keep the hybrid as a spare, if you want, but you don’t have to. If that solves your issue and gets you the performance you want, cool.
If it doesn’t solve your issues, you can just buy the rest of the parts in the list and build a new PC. It’s a PCPartPicker link for the UK, so it’ll tell you the best places you can order each part in your country. Alternatively, you can buy a prebuilt- probably wanna aim for $1000 USD or so for a prebuilt. I can’t really help you with that, not my thing.
If you do end up building your own there’s an extremely helpful very long Linus Tech Tips video that breaks down how to assemble the whole thing.
Wonderful, many thanks
Lot of useful advice here for ya already, OP. Though you could get even better answers if you gave us some more insight into what you are trying to do.
Are you gaming? Is it for work? Is it for computer intensive stuff like video/3d/audio production? Is it for light use like web browsing and watching videos?
Do you want to sell your old computer or throw it away? Are you trying to keep it as a backup?
You don’t have to get too personal, but a general idea of how much you want to spend would be good for getting you better tips.
Sorry, yeah I’m new at this. I’ll edit to add info
It’s hooked up to my TV because I use it for everything from simple browsing, YouTube, streaming TV/movies, to gaming. For games the most taxing is something like BG3, but I can’t think of anything else in terms of taxing programmes.
I don’t think I’d have a user for it if I kept it. Even if I kept the hard drive I’d have to research How and What To Save To Which Drive On Your PC, ha
I’m not against investing a few grand if it’s the right money spent at the right time, if that makes sense? My worry about changing individual parts is the standard worries about installation and compatibility, but if it’s too soon to be chasing the whole rig then I can get over that
Ok, I think I have a better idea of your situation now. So your computer is starting to feel a little weak when it comes to gaming? We’ve all been there before.
I’m not against investing a few grand
If it’s too soon to be chasing the whole rig
Depending on how easy/difficult it is for you to spend a couple grand, you might simply be best off buying a new PC at this point. If you’re gonna keep the 55" TV hookup and your mouse/keyboard/controller/speakers, then you could find even a cheap prebuilt tower for under $1000 easily, and if you wanted to spend more, you could do that too if you want your build to stay relevant longer. Pretty much anything you might buy today, even stuff considered mid or entry level, will give you a noticeable improvement over your i3 and 1070.
Of course, the cheapest way to go would be to build the whole thing yourself, though it’s entirely understandable if you just want to go prebuilt again so you don’t have to worry about that stuff.
If you want to be more frugal, your best most effective single part upgrade would be a new SSD, preferably an NVME of good quality. Think in the $80-$200 range. If your motherboard doesn’t have an NVME slot (possible, though unlikely) then a standard SSD is good too and would be a little cheaper.
For the rest of your system:
Upgrading your processor is probably not a cost effective solution. If you wanted a newer processor, you’d need to buy a new motherboard too (Google motherboard sockets for a full explanation). Depending on the type of motherboard, you might have to buy different memory too - I just upgraded to a new motherboard and I had to buy fancy (and expensive) new memory for it since my old DDR4 is no longer supported for it.
1070 is probably good for now, even though it is older. My 1080 handled BG3 just fine, as a point of reference. If you’re ok with not playing at max resolution ultra super mega detail, just ride it out. GPU pricing has been effed since all the crypto bros made the prices skyrocket in 2021. Ride that 1070 until it dies, then buy something that is midrange today in a few years when it will be even cheaper.
Thanks for this. I’m not 100% against learning how to build my own, it’s more that the more I read the more confused I get about what order to prioritise upgrades and the various knock on effects everything has. I appreciate you coming up with an order to go about things
Other than the graphics cards, looks pretty bottom of the barrel. I haven’t been selling client systems for Microsoft office with less than 16GB of RAM since 2016. As soon as I hear the word “game” I immediately jump to ryzen 5/i5, and always have. Those are your weakest links for sure. Storage definitely is next on the list. A hybrid drive just doesn’t cut it these days.
The thing about gaming PCs is if you spend a little more up front, they last longer.
Yeah I guess I’m trying to work out if now is the right time, or to hang on a while
I’d definitely keep the HDD as a data graveyard of course, since for your in-use drives you’re using solid state drives nowadays but those while large now are still small-ish and games are huge.
Other than that, depends on what you want to do. For 1080p at 60 FPS, that sounds fine, so I’d keep the geforce at first. Replace MoBo+RAM+CPU, then later replace the graphics card and the monitor.
I’m currently using my TV as monitor because I use the pc for everything, I don’t watch regular TV and anything I do watch I stream. Is using a TV as a monitor a bad thing?
Also make sure you’re not running into thermal throttling.
Open hardware monitor is my go to for that.
https://openhardwaremonitor.org/
Depending on who made the pre-built it’s not uncommon to start running into that at this age. If you are then solving it could be very cheap.
Interesting, what kind of temps are a bad sign?
Depends on a few variables. But the pattern is the same, track on a graph both temps and usage of your CPU (might as well do GPU as well) and if you see one of two things:
First frame rate drop and then come back look at the graph, did usage drop and thermal drop and once temp got to a given level performance came back. To fix start with blowing everything out with canned air and ensuring all the fans are working. Fix any that aren’t and see if that helps. If it doesn’t help and it’s the CPU look into redoing the cooler on the CPU.
Second thing you might see is performance is better and then drops and sustains at the lower level once thermals hit a given level. This is most common on mobile devices like a laptop but has been seen on pre-built PCs from some vendors (Dell, CyberPower, most often) in which case upgrading the cooling after the above.
In the end this is unlikely but start looking at the least expensive route first (like this) and then look into upgrading.
As the other responses point out mix-matching RAM speeds isn’t a good idea, most mother boards will just run both sets at the lower speed and it’s not a problem just not optimal. Some custom boards (Dell most often) aren’t smart enough for this and it’ll introduce extra stuttering.
In the same app you can track ram usage, if the stuttering is worse when you use more than half than less than half this is most often the cause and replacing RAM so they’re both the same speed (preferably from the same company) is the most frequent fix.
Upgrading the GPU is probably next if the above isn’t the issue or doesn’t get you the performance you want. If you do make sure your PSU can handle the extra draw. Pre-builts (Dell mostly) often put in PSUs that are just powerful enough barely run what’s installed and things will start to fail if you exceed it’s power output.
Most pre-builts are just fine, don’t let elitists convince you otherwise. A few are known for taking shortcuts but most are just fine.
Good luck!!
Appreciate this, thanks
You’re welcome!
you could literally just get a better graphics card and this is all fine but because it’s an older machine it should be quite inexpensive to upgrade everything to max spec and get another 6 years out of it
I got a good 10 years out of my previous machine using in place upgrades like this.
Upgrading SSD, RAM and an in-socket upgrade for the CPU will be pretty cheap. If he spends more money and upgrades the GPU as well then he should be good to go.
Sorry, I’m being a noob, but what does “upgrade everything to max spec” mean? Does that mean to replace everything, in which case are you suggesting it’s time for a whole new rig?
What he means is to upgrade to the highest version of parts that your motherboard will support. So as an example, figure out the highest model i7 that will fit your chipset and socket and look into that. Because it is older it won’t have the premium price a new model will have but would still be a considerable upgrade for you. This upgrade would replace your CPU, RAM, Storage, and if you can afford it then GPU. You can do them in stages to save money as well in which case I would recommend this order, Storage > CPU > RAM > GPU.
Ah I understand, thanks
So is the motherboard the best thing to use as The Thing I Keep and level up everything else to meet its ability?
This is a bad recommendation. You’ll be dumping a lot of money into antiquated tech that can’t be upgraded further. Only upgrade things that you can take to a new high spec MOBO (hard drive, GFX card, PSU). It does make sense if you can get the components for dirt cheap, but a lot of times previous generation components are more expensive, not less, because they’re not manufactured anymore, and supply is limited.
Depending on budget it can be a great option. I suggest pricing out what it would cost to upgrade the pieces on the existing motherboard vs what it would cost to build something in the current models with a new motherboard. At the end you will end up with better classes of parts from 2018 but they will still be older and lacking in the efficiencies of newer.
Personally over the past few years I would recommend looking into a newer model AMD Ryzen system. Look into a motherboard from a couple years ago that supports the current gen CPU socket and DDR5 to set yourself up for the future. Get yourself an NVMe M.2 SSD and a Ryzen 5 with 32 GB of DDR5 and you would notice a huge difference and have great upgrade potential with current gen parts.
This all depends heavily on your budget however. Use a site like PC part picker to through all the parts for a few builds in and see which fits comfortably in your budget just recognizing that depending when you plan for your next upgrade, the only thing you could take from maxing out your old system would be the SSD.
Thanks for this
It’s a six year old system. Optimistically you’ll be able to salvage the PSU, case and storage. Whether you should salvage the PSU and case is up to you, prebuilts aren’t known for picking the best of these.
Personally I’d use the machine for something else (or sell it to someone for $300-400) and build what you want. (Edit: I’ve had good results moving the core system components into a USFF or NAS case and repurposing as a home server. That’s a pretty typical end of lifecycle role for an aging gaming desktop.)
I’ll Google “what does a home server do” and get back to you, ha
Hmm, I bought a prebuilt in 2019 and the most annoying thing about upgrading it was that it had a custom motherboard, power supply and the case wasn’t compatible with anything else. I read the thread but missed who your prebuilt was from, as that might have a lot of bearing on how customizable your system is as a platform.
Your setup looks like it’s showing its age. How much you could/should salvage depends entirely on how much of an upgrade you want and what your budget is. You can of course keep using your peripherals as long as they aren’t giving you any trouble.
If you are looking for some inexpensive upgrades, I would look at getting an m.2 SSD and at least 8gb additional ram. You could also do some things like uninstall unused software, clean out any crapware or any unneeded processes, defrag your hard drive, or even reinstall your OS.
No idea where you live or what performance targets you would be looking for, but you can get a decent prebuilt for around $800 USD.
Isn’t 24GB enough??
I’d go SSD for convenience but the real bottleneck here is the CPU! You got DDR4 with a wheezy i3. Chuck in a 8500 after checking the PSU is up for the extra watts.
Yeah if you’re going for trying to get the most bang for your buck, you could consider getting a match set of either 4x8 gig or 2x16 gig ram, an i7 8700 flavor CPU, and upgrade the graphics card from your 1070 to a 3070 or even a 4060, and put in a nice two terabyte SSD
That would probably run you in the neck of $500.
If it’s helpful and you want to stick with prebuilt I saw a $900 computer at Costco that had an i7 14700, 32 gigs of ram, a 512 gig SSD and a 4060 in it.
If 900 is too much, consider going to your local pawn shops. A lot of people have been all floating their 10th and 11th gen computers with 3070s in them and I’ve seen them for sale for sub $500.
Sure, but I think your ram swap won’t do much, and with too nany upgrades better roll an amd mobo + proc I think.
So I stick to my guns, SSD (there are 1tb evo samsung for dirt cheap) & a better CPU (and thus maybe a beefier PSU), more and I’d personally reroll with as said a newer amd kit
But well, that’s just my gut feeling:-)
and at least 8gb additional ram.
Honestly, I’d suggest getting 32gb of RAM with a decent speed and just tossing the rest of that mishmash.
Bad news: nothing is really worth salvaging except maybe the HDD as a spare data drive but SSDs are cheap enough to warrant the upgrade and the TV (though a monitor would be better)
Good news: PCs aren’t that expensive right now and you can make a good build for even a cheaper budget. Check out this channel for more info https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL30pfjH1BVN908ZV3QJRAakq-4mANnInm&si=Wth4bAzl_3uA5Mk-
Any new parts are most likely going to necessitate a complete rebuild. Your mainboard probably tops out at PCI3, a new GPU will be PCI4. It’ll work, but you won’t see as big an improvement as you expect. Any new CPU is going to need a new mainboard because intel. New mainboard means upgrading to DDR5 RAM because that’s the standard now.
Alternatively go the secondhand route, you should be able to pick up an i5 or i7 that’s socket compatible for not much.
