Need to walk through some computer upgrade stuff.

Basically, here are the relevant specs:

  • 1 x AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz(4.2GHz Turbo) CPU and AMD 760G Chipset Motherboard Combo
  • 1 x AMD Radeon R9 280 3GB Video Card (Require Min. 600W Power Supply)
  • 1 x CYBERPOWERPC 600 Watt 80+ Power Supply
  • 1 x 8GB DDR3 1600MHZ (2 X 4GB)
  • 1 x Major Brand 1TB 7200 RPM SATA III 6.0
  • 1 x AMD CPU Cooler
  • 1 x 12X Blu-ray Player & DVD-Rewriter Combo Drive

My priorities for upgrades are as follows:

  1. Switch out the video card for, probably, a GTX 780 (cheaper on Newegg than Amazon).
  2. Get my RAM up to 16GB.
  3. Add or switch my hard drive to 2TB or above.

I don’t think that the video card upgrade should be too troublesome. What I’m trying to figure out is whether I have the slots to just dump another couple of 4GB chips into memory, or whether I need to switch out the 2 X 4GB for a 2 X 8GB chip (either the specs are unclear, or they’re beyond my skill level, or both). I’m also unsure whether to simply shove in another hard drive and put all of my non-gaming stuff in it.  I have a huge tower, in case you were wondering: there’s space to do most of it.

Thoughts welcome, obviously.

15 thoughts on “Need to walk through some computer upgrade stuff.”

  1. Well, if you have a couple of empty slots next to your current memory connectors, you can just add. If not, you will have to replace. What is the brand and model of motherboard? That’ll help.

    You can go either way with the hard-drive upgrade, but it is more convenient to just have one drive. OTOH, migrating everything over to the new drive is not for the faint-of-heart.

        1. The way it was written it looked like a generic description, but yes, it only has 2 slots.

  2. A 6GB GTX 1060 will be faster than a 780, and probably use less power, at about the same price, not to mention having more video RAM (I gather some modern games want more than the 3GB the 780 has).

    A quick GIS suggests that 2 slots is somewhat more common than 4, although as Jeff said, just look at whether you have extra slots on the motherboard next to your current RAM.

    1. I’d agree on this one. I have a 780 and it chugs a bit on say Andromeda. It has been a good card though.

      1. I’ll concur here, as well. The 1060 will outperform a 780, it won’t be as taxing on the power supply, and it will run cooler on an equivalent work load. NVIDIA has vastly improved the performance / watt of their cards over the last couple of generations.

        16GB memory for sure. Lower than that becomes painful.

        If you’re going for a mechanical hard drive, I’d say add one, and get a higher-performing model if you can.

        However … give an SSD a serious look. Switching from a mechanical hard disk to an SSD was the single largest performance jump I’ve ever had in my PC. My current PC takes longer to run through POST (before it starts loading Windows) than it does to load Windows and provide the login prompt.

  3. What is the make and model of your motherboard? Can you supply pictures? I’d lay odds your board has at least two empty memory slots as I’ve not encountered two slot boards in years, so getting two 4 gb 1600MHz sticks should be fine to get to 16 Gb. However, 8 GB 1600MHz DDR3 sticks aren’t that expensive, so grabbing 2 of those to put you at 20 GB is a good idea. (FYI, sticks are in pairs because modern pc memory is dual channel, that is, two banks can be accessed at the same time (more or less))

    As you say, the graphics card should be simple. Your power supply is stout enough for the new card so no trouble there.

    As for the new hard drive upgrade, if you plan on moving over to a new single drive, make sure the drive comes with drive cloning software. Retail drive kits (that is, drives packaged for sale to consumers, not OEMs) used to come with boot disks you could use to clone the old drive to the new one. Not sure they do anymore. (haven’t bought a retail drive in years). If not, there are drive cloning programs available for sale. It’s one of those things you don’t need every day, but when you need it, you NEED it.

    Just adding in the new hard drive as additional storage is pretty simple. There might be a couple of steps to get the drive initialized, if it’s not pre formatted, but that’s easily googled and the drive may come with instructions anyway.

    Money may not permit it, but I’d highly recommend getting a SSD for your main drive and a huge conventional HDD as your secondary. Having the OS and commonly used programs on the SSD makes the computer soooo much faster. There is also the data security factor too as SSD’s don’t have the mechanical failure rate of traditional HDDs as they have no moving parts. As I said, money may not permit it, but something to consider for later or for the next PC.

  4. If I may thread-jack a little?
    .
    I’m an off-the-shelf buyer, I don’t prefer to build my own.
    .
    What would the downside be to picking up, say, last year’s model Dell Precision workstation?
    .
    Mew

    1. The last computer I bought, I got it from Puget Systems. Kind of pricey, but it has been the best computer I have ever had for games. And very quiet too.

      1. Since it’s going to live in the living room next to the flat-screen (and presumably next to the Amazon Fire box) quiet is going to be a requirement…
        .
        Mew

    2. The budget can be expanded to allow me a better video card. But the days when I can idly replace a perfectly good desktop have been over for a while. 🙂

        1. It’s a metric showing how often we click on Moe’s “Shop Amazon” link before making purchases, of course.
          .
          C’mon, people! Support your friendly neighborhood word-slinger!
          .
          Mew

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