Also looking for GPU recommendations
I saw a similar thread recently and since I also happen to be looking for a gpu, I thought I'd ask here as well.
Soo, I suppose I should start by saying that I really do not know much about hardware. All the computers I had were purchased pre-built and I didn't really open them up apart from occasional cleaning or plugging in a new drive. Either way, my current hardware is as follows:
- CPU: Intel i7-8700
- RAM: 16GB DDR4
- GPU: integrated Intel CoffeeLake-S GT2
- Displays: 2560x1080@60hz and 1920x1080 up to 165hz but usually sitting at 60
- Motherboard: 0NC2VH (from Dell OptiPlex 7060 SFF)
- PSU: 200W
So the 2 things worrying me here are:
- The PSU power output is probably too low
- The entire case is kind of on the smaller side, I'm not sure what gpu would be able to fit there (though that's a thing I asked about when buying this pc, and apparently small form factor gpus should be fine?)
As I said earlier I'm really clueless about this kind of things and I'm not sure where to start, so I don't even have any candidates. Generally, I don't do too much gpu-intensive stuff (which is why for a long time I've been fine with an iGPU) and most of the games (2d stuff like various roguelikes or Factorio) I play run fine, but recently I've been playing some more games like Fall Guys or Supermarket Together with friends and it's been a bit frustrating to lower the graphics settings to the very lowest they can be and also decrease the resolution to have them run at a playable framerate (though even Factorio has been having some frame drops recently as my factory keeps growing, but I'm not sure if it's actually the igpu causing the bottleneck).
Any advice would be appreciated! I can provide more information if there's something relevant I haven't mentioned (which I imagine is quite possible)
Edit: I am now instead considering a full upgrade, since it might make more sense as people pointed out
Edit2: a pretty important thing I forgot to mention is that I primarily run linux, so driver compatibility is a big thing for me.
Size-wise you can fit a low profile GTX 1650 or even a 4060. But power-wise I don't think there are any cards worth getting that will run on a 200W power supply. If it was 300W you could get a 1650 or a comparable AMD card. You'll probably need to start over from scratch with a new PC if you want to upgrade your graphics - unless you can find a higher wattage PSU for your PC. But it's probably some weird bespoke Dell design so there's a good chance nothing higher wattage exists.
Yeah, I'm now realising that a full upgrade might be the best idea in this scenario. Thanks
Your cpu is quite old at this point, I would consider doing a full upgrade if I were in your boat.
But almost any GPU would be a significant upgrade over the integrated graphics, though as you pointed out, 200w probably won't cut it for power. You'd likely want a 600w psu for a more modern GPU
An RTX 3060 or RTX 4060 would be the two best value options right now. I'd go with a 4060, it's the best perf/$ at the moment and should last quite a while.
Honestly you're making a pretty good point with the full upgrade, this might be the thing that makes most sense here, thanks!
I just did a boxing day bundle upgrade for an i712700k, 16GB of DDR4, a sexy case, motherboard and 850W power supply all for 700 CDN. Paired with a used 1070ti for HD gaming, I'm future proofed for well under $1000.
Lots of sales - watch for the great bundles, I'd say.
Looking for an entirely new setup does make sense. SFF cases by themselves are not necessarily a show stopper as low profile GPUs do exist for this purpose, but the 200W power supply which is also probably nonstandard (and therefore can't easily be replaced with a better one) definitely is. If you had a more standard case and motherboard I'd probably suggest simply going for a PSU upgrade alongside looking for a GPU (the CPU might be old but it's still perfectly serviceable for light gaming, in fact I happen to know a professional streamer who uses that exact CPU. This thing was excellent back when it was released and it's still pretty good today.) but knowing Dell, this is going to be a PITA without replacing both (and that's if there even are LGA 1151 socket motherboards still on the market at sensible prices, which I'm not sure), at which point you might as well save yourself the trouble and get a new rig entirely.
Given the shift from looking for a GPU to a full upgrade, the most important thing to know would be how much budget you have to allocate to a new computer. The most cost effective solution is likely to be buying components separately, then putting them together yourself. Another significant factor is how much physical space you have available; Is your existing computer in an SFF case because it needs to be small or do you have enough room for, say, a regular mid-tower case? If there are space constraints, it's going to be an important factor to choose your components.
Depending on your budget, there are four ways to go about this:
We can help you coming up with a list of components to buy if you have an approximate budget in mind.
I’m not the OP, but rather than start up my own thread I’ll jump on this bit! I think most of my parts are relatively new (but certainly nothing flashy) and therefore don’t need replacing, but right now I’m borrowing a friend’s GPU, and if they ever want it back, I’ll be back to my old GTX960
PSU = 650w “gold” (whatever that means)
RAM = 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4
CPU = Ryzen 5 5600
Mobo = MSI B550-A Pro
If my budget is about USD $500 (AUD $800) for a new GPU and maybe also squeezing in a RAM upgrade within this same budget, what would you recommend? I don’t really play modern AAA games or anything particularly demanding, but soft request for if it could support running VR for my Quest 3 in PC mode. Though that’s a “nice to have” rather than any actual requirement.
Willing to wait 6 months for prices to adjust given the RTX 5000 just got announced, and might bump down 4000 and 3000 prices to give me more value per dollar.
So I am the person who started the GPU threads earlier this week, and you have similar specs to me. It might be worth checking out my thread here. Although you do have a higher budget than me, it may help you get a baseline. I ended up ordering the AMD RX 6650xt for $330 CAD that was on sale
I never remember my own specs off the top of my head, so when I saw your thread I never noticed the similarities, but you’re right they’re definitely in a similar place! I’ll go and take another look with this fresh perspective
PSU tangent
A PSU's main job is converting current from AC to DC. This process isn't, and cannot be 100% efficient so the PSU actually pulls in more AC power than it gets delivered as DC power, but the loss can be mitigated to a point. That "gold" probably refers to the 80 Plus program (assuming there's a corresponding sticker and it's not literally just part of the model name), which certifies that the PSU has been tested so that the efficiency in converting power is at least 80% at various loads, and the various metal names are shorthands for specific results, the more precious the metal the better. Ultimately it doesn't mean much regarding how reliable the PSU actually is since that's not what being tested, and how efficient the PSU is matters a lot less to you than whether it will suddenly decide to convert AC to smoke instead of DC in 3 months. Not having a 80 plus certification of any kind, though, would be a bad sign.
Regarding RAM, there is no real use in upgrading the RAM if you aren't running into situations where RAM gets completely filled up and your computer starts locking up. Unless you recall running into issues with that, 16GB should be plenty for light gaming. You haven't specified the clock speed of your RAM which might have a minor impact if it's too low given that you have an AMD CPU, but replacing your RAM with a faster kit would be much less cost effective than spending that money on a better GPU instead.
Regarding the GPU, assuming you want a brand new unit and no RAM upgrade is needed, 800 AUD is enough for an AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT (this website has one on sale for ~700 which seems to be the lowest price it'll go for: https://www.jw.com.au/product/asus-dual-radeon-rx7800xt-oc-edition-16gb-gddr6-graphics-card). NVIDIA doesn't have an offer that can compete AFAIK; the 4060 Ti can be found at the same price point but it's also much, much weaker, and anything more powerful is overpriced.
I don't think you need to wait for the RTX 5000 cards given the perfectly suitable AMD model on offer unless you have a specific reason to pick an NVIDIA GPU. If anything the trend is pointing toward prices inflating even further given the obscene announced prices for the new lineup.
I didn’t realise things were that bad for nvidia at the lower end, I’m glad I checked!
Currently using nvidia and I’m enjoying that shadowplay can be set to just press a button to retroactively record the last 20 minutes, but really that’s the only thing I can think of. I’m sure I could tinker and set up something else to give me what I want with an AMD GPU but I haven’t looked into it yet.
Thank you for taking the time to lay it all out like this, I appreciate it!
At the moment I’ve got a second pair that doesn’t play nice, so I’m actually at 32GB but at base clock speeds. I’m thinking of getting a matching pair since they’re nearly down to $60 nowadays, which would hopefully let me use the 3600 that it boasts on the packaging
The only thing that’s pushing my RAM requirements is Star Citizen, which is probably the most demanding thing I play at the moment although I don’t play it that often, and it’s got a lot of optimisation to do before it’s really polished
Can I also jump on the bandwagon of getting some help on what to do?
I built my own setup maybe ten years ago and I suspect it's time to refresh all components but would love confirmation that it's better to start fresh than to make a few minor upgrades for a couple more years of life:
Cpu: Intel i5-3570K, not overclocked
Mobo: BIOSTAR tz77xe3
RAM: 8 GB DDR3-1600
GPU: ASRock Radeon 570X 8GB
PSU: 650 W 80+ Bronze
Atx case that can be reused.
I do light gaming on low or low-medium settings and it's been fine for me but it would be nice to do more. If I were to go new, I'd like to be able to dual boot Linux and windows so would appreciate if there is anything I need to be aware of there in getting compatible components. Thanks!
I would need to have an idea of how much you can afford to spend to figure out which would make the most sense. Since the case and maybe storage are the only parts that can carry over, I suspect that it would only make sense to spend your money on an upgrade to the existing computer if the budget is not high enough to buy a decent complete setup in the first place.
Let's assume somewhere around $800 which could stretch to 1k if there's a compelling reason. I'm in no rush so I could wait for good deals, etc to maximize performance for budget.
Under the following assumptions:
I have selected the following parts list using PCPartPicker (a website that lets you browse components and assemble parts list while cross-referencing the more common e-tailers to find which one has a given component for the best price) for $810 as I'm writing this: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/P44KqH
Excellent price for the performance, not as powerful as the Ryzen 7 5700X3D but not by enough to justify the 2x price increase picking that one would entail (and since the 5700X3D doesn't come with a cooler unlike the 5600X which comes stock with a pretty competent one, you'd need to buy one too, further increasing the price)
Having a B550 motherboard isn't strictly necessary as the most significant concern, which is PCIe 4.0 support compared to PCIe 3.0 for B450 motherboards, doesn't matter with the chosen GPU, so it's more a future-proofing measure in case newer GPUs down the line can leverage the bandwidth increase, and the price increase compared to B450 boards is negligible, at least for the models I checked, so might as well pick the newer chipset.
Cheapest kit of 3600Mhz 2x16GB sticks at the time I checked. 32GB is probably overkill but DDR4 RAM prices have fallen low enough that the price increase from 16GB is negligible. Once again, more a future proofing choice than anything else. Given that the motherboard has four slots, this also leaves the option of upgrading again to 64GB if that's ever needed down the line for some reason. You can save some money by going with 2x8GB (and later buying a second kit for the two remaining slots if it does turn out 16GB wasn't enough in the long term) if you want, but the difference is on the order of between $10 and $20.
A budget NVMe PCIe 1TB drive with good reviews. Will take advantage of the B550 chipset's PCIe 4.0 support. Depending on your needs, picking a higher capacity drive might be warranted. If that's the case, the 2TB variant of this same model is also a good choice, albeit predictably twice as expensive. Amazon doesn't have the 2TB variant in stock as of writing this, but Newegg does.
Given that you intend to go for dual boot, it would be best to pick an AMD GPU as NVIDIA driver support is, while better than it used to be, not perfect on Linux. Conveniently, it's also the better option overall given that the 4060 Ti is actually less powerful while not being cheaper (except the 16GB VRAM model which is still less powerful and more expensive than the 7700 XT). Note: I picked the 7700 XT in order to stay within a ~$800 budget, but if you're willing to spend more for the sake of better performance the 7800 XT can be found at $500 like this one. There's no wrong choice here, both options absolutely obliterate the RX 570, though given how old that model is the alternative would be worrying.
A reputable model, rated for 750W which will be more than enough for this build and allow for a more powerful GPU if needed in the future. It's also fully modular making cable management easier. Picked under the assumption that your current PSU is an old unit. If that's not the case, you can disregard this choice and just use your current one.
Important note: the chosen motherboard has a header for a front panel USB type C port which, assuming it is as old as the rest of the setup, your case definitely doesn't have. If this matters to you, you might want to get a case that has a USB type C port to replace your current one. Picking a case is a matter of personal taste more than the rest of the components so I don't have much meaningful advice to give, but as an example this one fits the bill while not being absurdly expensive.
Some of these components might change price over time making other similar components a slightly better option than at the time I made the list, so you might want to check that when you do decide to buy the parts.
Feel free to reply to reach out if I made a faulty assumption/overlooked something or you have other questions.
Wow, thanks! That really helps and I appreciate you sharing the justification for the choices you made. So, do I understand it correctly that at this range/performance extra money is best spent on a better graphics card over a processor?
As a general rule, you will see a more significant improvement (at least in gaming) from investing more in the GPU than in the CPU, yes. There are limits to this; investing your entire budget into a $800 GPU and putting that in your current computer with no other upgrade would have been unwise for example, and there are some use cases where CPU clock speed and core count matters more than the GPU (e.g running virtual machines and/or containers, compiling software, video encoding/decoding whenever the GPU cannot do it...). If gaming is your only concern, though, the GPU is the most important component to maximize investment in. A common rule of thumb is that the GPU should make up roughly half of the entire budget.
Definitely recommend what you updated your post to mention which is the full upgrade path. A small card that has no external power requirements and only gets power from the slot could potentially work, but, having been in similar situations before with Dell systems, I find it better to get away altogether, if it's feasible for you, because of their proprietary nature.
The 0NC2VH, like many other Dell systems, is a non-standard motherboard and has non-standard power connectors, so trying to find a better PSU becomes its own pain since an off-the-shelf model will not simply work, and majority of cards, if you're looking for any decent amount of performance, will require a PSU upgrade.
I have come to absolutely loathe proprietary systems like this after owning them and struggling with upgrades. They're user-hostile e-waste-generating nonsense
The Intel Arc A310 graphics card is recent-generation technology that is fairly low power. Like many cards, lots of manufacturers make their own version / implementation of the card. The specs from Intel say a TBP of 75 Watts.
Now, for a 200W power supply, that may still be asking a bit much.. however, the Taiwanese manufacturer Sparkle makes a 50W TBP low power, low profile, single-slot version called the Sparkle A310 Eco which I think will work for you. It is also backwards compatible with the PCIe 3.0 x16 card slot your motherboard has.
Now, these cards are not exactly expensive, but not exactly cheap. Going rate on eBay if you don't want to hunt for a deal is around $150, down to $100 or less if you find the occasional good price - basically a matter of how long you want to wait.
It will not be as powerful for gaming and such as an AMD or NVidia card of comparable year, but it may well compete.... somewhat reasonably against an AMD or NVidia card you could get for the same price range.
If you don't want to replace your computer, this is a solid option, and very likely the newest card you could install in what you have. If you know you want to game with AAA performance-demanding titles, then you're going to be looking at a new system anyway.