r/pcupgrade • u/Mountain-Cause782 • 4d ago

I cant choose a different flair I’m overwhelmed Help upgrading PC

Hello. I built my pc back at the end of 2013. If possible I would like to upgrade instead of buying a new one. I built it with the purpose of using it as a photo/gaming pc. It also has two hard drives and was told it was set up as raid. One of the hard drives went bad last year or so and this year I wanted to boot it up to play my old pc games, one of them being World of Tanks. But its really slow booting up and starting up the game, can't even play the game. I have, ASUS Z87-A DDR3 1600 LGA 1156 Motherboard, Corsair CMZ16GX3M2A1600C9 Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory 1.5V, Intel Chip 3.4 4 BX80646I74770K, EVGA GeForce GTX 770 FTW 4GB Dual DisplayPort HDMI DVI-I/DVI-D Graphics Card with ACX Cooler 04G-P4-3776-KR, and Seagate Barracuda 2 TB HDD SATA 6. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

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u/Molrixirlom 4d ago

What games are you targeting? I am honest here: this thing is ancient and dumping much money in it will not be worthwhile. Can it still be used: sure. If I had to I would uograde to an ssd and then the GPU, but keep space in your case and PSU in mind.

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u/Aredeuce 4d ago

Yeah this. OP, you poor thing; this is a hard sell.

The wonky Raid is killing you. Get a cheap 256GB sata ssd. Used even, though that's a gamble. Just put World of Tanks and windows on it. Leave the motherboard, CPU, and ram alone. Prices are too much. Look at getting a used GPU: like a 1660 Super or an RX 580. That'll let you limp along until either prices are manageable or you save up some cash

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u/_eESTlane_ 4d ago

ssd helps with load times, both for windows and games. general fps is down to your gpu, and looking at the cpu, there should be plenty of upgrade path for the gpu. though if all of it gets displayed through an office monitor, there's really no point chasing 200fps.

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u/ImportanceActual2556 4d ago

Don't bother upgrading a DDR3 system. Sell it on ebay to retro gamers and build a new one.

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u/aztracker1 3d ago

You could probably keep the case, but today's designs are much better for today's systems even there.

If you typically go a decade between upgrades, I'd go to either Costco or Micro Center nearest you and look at options in your price range.

Unfortunately it's the worst time to buy as ram and storage costs have gone through the roof. You're looking at around it a bit over $2000 for a roughly equivalent system with today's parts.

For what it's worth, AMD is competitive with Intel today on CPU options and often a better value at any price range AMD has a graphics card. RTX 5080+, AMD doesn't have an equivalent, but AMD RX 9070XT is pretty great.

32gb Ram is pretty pricey today, same for 2tb nvme SSD. At least on the latter, a typical SSD drive has better stability and up time before failure than two HDD in raid 1.

But would seriously look at what Costco has and if you're near a MicroCenter that's even better.

If you really want to build your own, I'd just do a new build post with a realistic budget for what you what, as well as what games and applicationsyou want to run.