Question Resurrect an old PC

[shoman94]

I have been out of the game sooo long but I have a 12 year old that is becoming interested in it. I have an old PC that was my last custom built PC that I was wondering if I could bring it back to life but buy a new Video card and be able to play Roblox or Fortnite? IF I have to buy new stuff I will but I don't want to spend too much for the first time learning experience for him.

The MB is a Asus P5WD2-E Premium with a 3.4GHZ CPU.
2x2GB OCZ Fatality PC2 6400 Memory
2x 36GB WD Raptor HDDs with a 1TB WD Cavier Black and all SATA for storage
Antec True 430 PS


Thank you!

 

[shoman94]

Go craigslist or Facebook a used rig, take it apart, and have your child assemble it.

No material difference between that and sourcing new parts.

Roblox can work on that P4 rig, Fortnite doubtful.

Yea I got that so I and purchasing some new and used stuff. I'm also incorporating some of what I already own. I listed it in the post just above yours.

 

[VirtualLarry]

This is what I got so far.....
MSI z490-A Pro (NEW)
Intel i3 10100 (NEW)
Asus GTX 1660 Super ROG Strix (USED)
Thermaltake Smart 600w (NEW)
Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x8GB 3200 (NEW)
Western Digital 2x36gb Raptors (Already Own)
Western Digital 1TB Black (Already Own)
Lian-Li Aluminum Case (Already Own)

Ditch the Raptors. Really. Spend another $40 on a 480GB SATA6G SSD (a cheap one will suffice). Really.

 

[shoman94]

Ditch the Raptors. Really. Spend another $40 on a 480GB SATA6G SSD (a cheap one will suffice). Really.

The Raptors in a raid 0 config is close enough in throughput speed to a single sata6.

 

[MrPickins]

The Raptors in a raid 0 config is close enough in throughput speed to a single sata6.

Maybe for sequential I/O, but definitely not for random, and that's where you notice it the most.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The Raptors in a raid 0 config is close enough in throughput speed to a single sata6.

Let me tell you this little anecdote:

When I got my P35-chipset ATX mobos (with ICH9R RAID support!), and Core2Quad CPUs, and re-formatted with Win7 (it had just come out), I also ordered 5x 30GB SATAII OCZ SSDs, planning to run RAID-0 of two each, on each of the two rigs that I had.

Biggest mistake in system-integration that I've ever made. Initial performance was nearly 2x in sequential benchmarks (Note, that was the SATAII era, no SATA6G on the horizen yet), but within a week, performance had degraded to less than that of a single SSD.

I don't know if that's quite directly comparable to your situation, but... a 36GB Raptor, as impressive as it might have been BITD, has no place in a modern rig. Hang it on your wall for nostalgia, sure.
But 36GB of storage, I can get thumb drives double that capacity for $5. It's way too small to be usable.

I'm not hating on you personally, or your raptors. I'm sure that they hold quite a bit of sentimental value for you.

But they're (even in RAID-0) too low-capacity to be an effective games drive, and they don't even have the IOPS or responsiveness that even a mediocre desktop SATA SSD has, for an OS drive.

To say nothing about the additional points of failure putting an OS on RAID-0 entails. Not to mention the age of the drives.

 

[shoman94]

Let me tell you this little anecdote:

When I got my P35-chipset ATX mobos (with ICH9R RAID support!), and Core2Quad CPUs, and re-formatted with Win7 (it had just come out), I also ordered 5x 30GB SATAII OCZ SSDs, planning to run RAID-0 of two each, on each of the two rigs that I had.

Biggest mistake in system-integration that I've ever made. Initial performance was nearly 2x in sequential benchmarks (Note, that was the SATAII era, no SATA6G on the horizen yet), but within a week, performance had degraded to less than that of a single SSD.

I don't know if that's quite directly comparable to your situation, but... a 36GB Raptor, as impressive as it might have been BITD, has no place in a modern rig. Hang it on your wall for nostalgia, sure.
But 36GB of storage, I can get thumb drives double that capacity for $5. It's way too small to be usable.

Yea I hear yea but the lines need to be drawn somewhere. I was looking at the Raptors at being for for system usage and the 1TB I have for storage purposes for him...... IDK. This project is already costing more than I wanted to spend.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yea I hear yea but the lines need to be drawn somewhere. I was looking at the Raptors at being for for system usage and the 1TB I have for storage purposes for him...... IDK. This project is already costing more than I wanted to spend.

you could try it, I suppose. If budget is that close, then as long as they're still working OK, you could use them. Just pointing out some reasons why it barely makes any sense.

 

[shoman94]

you could try it, I suppose. If budget is that close, then as long as they're still working OK, you could use them. Just pointing out some reasons why it barely makes any sense.

I hear ya.... I could spend 2k building a great PC but this is my 12 year old's first PC that he is going to use Xmas money and chore money he has earned to build. I'm prepurchasing the parts without him knowing so that Christmas day he can give me the Amazon bucks he gets and they will magically be here for him to start. I also know that some of it will be out of my pocket sooo....

Right now he's happy playing Roblox on one of my Acer AspireR14 laptops with an i5 and a mobile ssd from probably 2013\14 maybe. I can't imagine this rig won't outperform that even with Raptors. I use to run them on the rig in my sig and never had slowdowns..... IDK. It's been so long I don't know anything anymore.

 

[VirtualLarry]

but this is my 12 year old's first PC

Perhaps I should keep thing in perspective, a bit, and see things through you perspective. Thing is, I guess, from my perspective, if you're getting a Z490 mobo, 10th-gen core cpu, 3200 ram, why hobble the performance of the rig with some positively-ancient hdds. I can see the flip side though, if he's only 12, what does he even know differently?

 

[shoman94]

Perhaps I should keep thing in perspective, a bit, and see things through you perspective. Thing is, I guess, from my perspective, if you're getting a Z490 mobo, 10th-gen core cpu, 3200 ram, why hobble the performance of the rig with some positively-ancient hdds. I can see the flip side though, if he's only 12, what does he even know differently?

Yea yea.... LOL

 

[Raincity]

I would just wait until cpu and video card stock come back to normal and pricing come back to release pricing. Sell the parts of your old rig now. Retro gaming is in big demand now and your motherboard cpu ram combo will go fast for someone wanting to build a XP gaming machine right now.

 

[shoman94]

I would just wait until cpu and video card stock come back to normal and pricing come back to release pricing. Sell the parts of your old rig now. Retro gaming is in big demand now and your motherboard cpu ram combo will go fast for someone wanting to build a XP gaming machine right now.

I'd sell it in a heartbeat. Where are people buying?

 

[Charlie98]

Also if 550.would be overkill why wouldn't my 430 still work fine?

It's not the wattage, it's the age of the unit.

I hear ya.... I could spend 2k building a great PC but this is my 12 year old's first PC that he is going to use Xmas money and chore money he has earned to build.

Truthfully, you don't have to spend $2K... but I understand what you are saying. The problem is you are trying to upgrade an existing and obsolete PC, with the exception of the case... and maybe the HDD... all of which needs to be replaced.

 

[shoman94]

It's not the wattage, it's the age of the unit.




Truthfully, you don't have to spend $2K... but I understand what you are saying. The problem is you are trying to upgrade an existing and obsolete PC, with the exception of the case... and maybe the HDD... all of which needs to be replaced.

Which I have at this point if you saw my list above. Just pushing back on the HDD for now.

 

[Torn Mind]

Does this thing still have a Windows install?

I mentioned the specs a few posts earlier, but it might play Roblox just fine.

The board uses PCIe, so buying a GPU to plug and play shouldn't be an issue. Throw in a yesteryear card like a 750 Ti, and see how it goes?

The graphics card can migrate if the CPU is not enough. P4 are "slow" but it will feel like it's a proper desktop.

If it is too slow, then you can hunt for something like a Haswell era rig that is complete and loaded or perhaps an AMD APU system(those are more rare and hard to find). Pricing can be capricious but there should be someone willing to sell such a box for under $250.

 

[shoman94]

Does this thing still have a Windows install?

I mentioned the specs a few posts earlier, but it might play Roblox just fine.

The board uses PCIe, so buying a GPU to plug and play shouldn't be an issue. Throw in a yesteryear card like a 750 Ti, and see how it goes?

The graphics card can migrate if the CPU is not enough. P4 are "slow" but it will feel like it's a proper desktop.

If it is too slow, then you can hunt for something like a Haswell era rig that is complete and loaded or perhaps an AMD APU system(those are more rare and hard to find). Pricing can be capricious but there should be someone willing to sell such a box for under $250.

I pretty much bought everything except a new HDD and case. Just waiting for the video card to arrive. USPS is not doing well at all right now.

 

[shoman94]

I just found this: OCZ GXS700 PSU.

Would this work?

 

[shoman94]

NVM, I just used the new PSU.

 

[shoman94]

The MSI z490 Pro doesn't have Bluetooth built in?