Kid's PC's - upgrade or replace? • Non-Gaming • PC Hardware • Eurogamer.net

gregjd 14 Jun 2017 18:10:07 22 posts
Seen 1 year ago
Registered 9 years ago

My two teenage boys are wanting to spend their savings on upgrading the GPU and RAM on their PC's but I wonder whether they are better to continue to save for a new PC each altogether (considering the PC's are now 4 and a half and 5 years old).

Would a GTX 1080 make a massive difference on the specs below or would there still be bottlenecks because of the rest of the hardware? What about a cheaper upgrade to a GTX 1060 or similar and maybe going from 8GB to 16GB RAM instead? The current specs are as follows:

PC Number 1 (Dino PC)
Intel Core i5 Ivy Bridge 3570K
Overclocking: 4.3Ghz - Moderate Overclock
CPU Cooler: Xigmatek Loki SDS963
Motherboard: NEW! Asus P8Z77-V LX2
RAM: 8GB Corsair 1600mhz Vengeance (2x4GB)
Hard Drive: 2TB S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s
Optical Drive: 4x Blu-Ray ROM S-ATA
Graphics card: NEW! NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2GB
Sound card: Onboard 7.1 Audio
Case: Xigmatek Asgard
PSU: 600W Xigmatek

PC Number Two (Palicomp):
CPU Intel Ivy Bridge i5 3570K (OC)
Mobo Gigabyte Z77-D3H
RAM 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz
HDD 2TB SATA3
Optical LG Blu-Ray Reader/DVD+/-RW Combo
Case Coolermaster Elite 330 & CIT 750W PSU
Gfx AMD Radeon HD7850 2GB
Cooler - Thermaltake Contac 21Heatsink
Cooling - Extra Case Fan at Front

Any advice or suggestions much appreciated thanks! "Monitors" are 40 inch 1080p Samsung TV's at the moment.

BeebleB 14 Jun 2017 18:14:59 1,340 posts
Seen 14 hours ago
Registered 13 years ago

yea 1060's and an extra 8gb of ram would bring them up to a place where they could play what they wanted without breaking the bank.

dagoberto 14 Jun 2017 18:17:48 323 posts
Seen 2 years ago
Registered 16 years ago

That 3570k is still a decent cpu , you would see huge gains with a gtx1060 over those gpus, all the amd gpus are sold out from guys mining etherium which has caused the nvidia ones also to rise.

gregjd 14 Jun 2017 18:27:26 22 posts
Seen 1 year ago
Registered 9 years ago

Thanks, that seems to be about the sweet spot I guess. Will need to check whether I have slots to add another 2x4GB or replace the existing 2x4GB with 2x 8GB. Seems a shame to get rid of the whole PCs when a couple of 200 pound upgrades might get a few more years life out of them.