Upgrading Old Gaming Computer - Suggestions?

[SteveGrabowski]

Just separating the Windows installation and the game install onto different drives improves usability and load times. Since an SSD improves Windows performance the most, buy an SSD, put Windows on that, and then use the current HDD as a dedicated gaming drive.

That seems like a waste to me. Chrome starting instantly instead of in a couple of seconds doesn't do much for me. Windows booting in 20 seconds doesn't either since I turn my computer on 2-3 times a day. The only place my SSD seems to make much of a difference to me is in loading into games quicker, loading savefiles quicker, and so on. I don't agree with the "feels snappier" argument everyone throws around, I would much rather lose my SSD than downgrade my video card, RAM, or case for example. The SSD was literally the last major upgrade I did to my computer, with my upgrades (from a cheap G3258 H81 system) going in order:

1. Power supply (Antec Earthwatts 380 to Antec Neo Eco 620C)
2. Video card (GeForce 8400 GS (lol) to GTX 970)
3. CPU (Pentium G3258 to Xeon E3-1231v3)
4. Case (Antec GX500 to Phanteks Enthoo Pro)
5. Motherboard (Gigabyte GA-H81M-DS2V to MSI Z97S Krait)
6. RAM (8GB DDR3-1600 to 16GB DDR3-2400)
7. Mouse (Logitech EX100 mouse to Logitech G602)
8. SSD (nothing to 500 GB 850 EVO)

I think I did the upgrades in the right order for the amount of utility I feel I got from each, and the old stuff got recycled into an HTPC.

 

[2is]

That's ridiculous. I can't believe how much people overhype SSDs.

What you call overhyped is what "people" consider essential.

If you think going from 8 > 16GB of ram has more utility then HDD > SSD, I would strongly advise anyone reading to not take your advise, ever.

 

[Arachnotronic]

What you call overhyped is what "people" consider essential.

If you think going from 8 > 16GB of ram has more utility then HDD > SSD, I would strongly advise anyone reading to not take your advise, ever.

An SSD is a big, big improvement, but for a low-cost gaming-focused build I would not sacrifice storage space and/or graphics performance for an SSD. I recently had to make this (painful) trade-off in a system that I did. Guy needed lots of space for games and wanted something with a lot of graphics grunt.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

What you call overhyped is what "people" consider essential.

If you think going from 8 > 16GB of ram has more utility then HDD > SSD, I would strongly advise anyone reading to not take your advise, ever.

Going from DDR3-1600 to DDR3-2400 gave me significantly higher minimum framerates in cpu heavy games like GTA V and Fallout 4, while my SSD does nothing for framerate. So yes, I consider the upgrade in RAM speed to be a much better investment on my rig.

 

[Sheep221]

That's ridiculous. I can't believe how much people overhype SSDs.

Agreed, my every PC now except my HTPC does contain SSD drives and I have to say after being long term user of SSDs only reason to buy one is to not hear the spinning drive and have slightly faster boot, transfer speed offered by SSDs is not utilized by vast majority of users. It is completely rational to go without SSDs in new computers. I'm also doing a new builds that only have mechanical HDD, people working in office and some players who just want to play their game, don't really care, they do not need to pay for something they find unworthy to own.
Also improved boot algorithms in windows 10 effectively mitigate the boot time on HDD to near SSD level.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

If you guys can live with slow pagefile swapping and stall outs then so be it, but I can never go back to a non-ssd system.

 

[Sheep221]

If you guys can live with slow pagefile swapping and stall outs then so be it, but I can never go back to a non-ssd system.

This is not very wise, it's definitely better combo of having enough RAM so your OS won't swap(with pagefile completely disabled even better) and HDD, than being low on RAM and having SSD which does contain activated pagefile. More swapping causes even more swapping and you will reach guaranteed TBWs of your SSD way faster, which means your computer is more prone to reliability issues.

 

[IEC]

That's ridiculous. I can't believe how much people overhype SSDs.

If you value your time at all, an SSD is absolutely essential. At as low as $50 on sale for a 240-256GB SSD, it's not exactly going to break a budget on anything but the most budget of builds.

 

[2is]

Going from DDR3-1600 to DDR3-2400 gave me significantly higher minimum framerates in cpu heavy games like GTA V and Fallout 4, while my SSD does nothing for framerate. So yes, I consider the upgrade in RAM speed to be a much better investment on my rig.

1) You said 8 > 16 GB not 1600 to 2400
2) Please post your before after benchmarks, because your system seems to be different then almost every review I've seen regarding memory speeds and gaming performance which by in large show very marginal improvement going from DDR 1600 to anything higher for the vast majority of games out there

http://techbuyersguru.com/does-ram-speed-matter-ddr3-1600-vs-1866-2133-and-2400-games?page=0

 

[Bacon1]

1) You said 8 > 16 GB not 1600 to 2400
2) Please post your before after benchmarks, because your system seems to be different then almost every review I've seen regarding memory speeds and gaming performance which by in large show very marginal improvement going from DDR 1600 to anything higher for the vast majority of games out there

http://techbuyersguru.com/does-ram-speed-matter-ddr3-1600-vs-1866-2133-and-2400-games?page=0

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...it-finally-time-to-upgrade-your-core-i5-2500k

Shows RAM speed can make a huge difference, GTA went from 58.1 -> 67.7 from 1600 -> 2133 DDR3.

 

[2is]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...it-finally-time-to-upgrade-your-core-i5-2500k

Shows RAM speed can make a huge difference, GTA went from 58.1 -> 67.7 from 1600 -> 2133 DDR3.

I said "vast majority" I'll give you another one it makes a difference on.. FO3/4. Still makes a marginal difference for the vast majority. The benefits of an SSD will be apparent every single time you use your PC

 

[SteveGrabowski]

1) You said 8 > 16 GB not 1600 to 2400
2) Please post your before after benchmarks, because your system seems to be different then almost every review I've seen regarding memory speeds and gaming performance which by in large show very marginal improvement going from DDR 1600 to anything higher for the vast majority of games out there

http://techbuyersguru.com/does-ram-speed-matter-ddr3-1600-vs-1866-2133-and-2400-games?page=0

I did say it was a RAM speed upgrade, not just a capacity upgrade. My exact words were:

6. RAM (8GB DDR3-1600 to 16GB DDR3-2400)

My minimums in GTA V went from around 52 fps to around 57 fps in one easily repeatable area by Mt Chiliad where there are a lot of shadows from all the trees. The drop to 52 fps is immediately noticeable while the one to 57 after the faster RAM was installed is pretty hard to notice unless I have a frame counter onscreen. In Fallout 4 my minimums went up from the high 40s to the high 50s where I measured in the place that dropped my framerates lowest: the speakeasy in Concord in an upper floor where light coming in through a window illuminates a lot of dust particles floating around. That one location seemed to kill my framerate worse than anywhere else in the game, though I noticed drops below 60 fps became very rare after getting the DDR3-2400 kit while they happened pretty regularly on DDR3-1600.

I only mention those two games because they are the ones I knew exactly how to trigger a minimum framerate in and what my minimums were with the DDR3-1600 kit. I figure it makes an improvement in Witcher 3 also based on Digital Foundry's tests, but can't confirm there since I don't remember how bad my drops were with my DDR3-1600 kit in Novigrad on that game.

I do understand this only applies to games that are heavy on the cpu, and not even to all of them (for instance Crysis 3 runs exactly the same for me on DDR3-2400 vs what it ran on DDR3-1600). But I care way more about framerates and smooth gameplay on my gaming system than I do about shaving a couple of seconds off launching Chrome, so the RAM was a much better upgrade for me than the SSD.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Going from DDR3-1600 to DDR3-2400 gave me significantly higher minimum framerates in cpu heavy games like GTA V and Fallout 4, while my SSD does nothing for framerate.

I find it hard to believe that an SSD didn't make any difference in those large open-world games. Did you have those games on the SSD, or just the OS?

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I find it hard to believe that an SSD didn't make any difference in those large open-world games. Did you have those games on the SSD, or just the OS?

Those results were with my system and games on a 7200 RPM Seagate drive. I didn't buy an SSD until about a month and a half after getting the fast RAM.

 

[Bacon1]

I said "vast majority" I'll give you another one it makes a difference on.. FO3/4. Still makes a marginal difference for the vast majority. The benefits of an SSD will be apparent every single time you use your PC

Oh sure I'd recommend an SSD to anyone. Just wanted to show that RAM can make a huge difference. I used to recommend the cheapest whatever brand but now will recommend faster stuff if price isn't massive difference.