PC component upgrade questions

moggi1964

moggi1964

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Morris
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My setup is in the image attached.

My PC is pretty old now but I cannot afford to move to a modern generation setup just now. Thinking I could change the Mobo and CPU and keep the DDR4 ram; RX580 card and the EVGA 550W PSU.

Can anyone suggest a worthwhile upgrade at around £250? I'm not interested in getting a Mac Mini.

I use Affinity Photo; ACDSee 2025 and Luminar Neo. Looking to speed up the AI tools in Neo and the catalogue searches in ACDSee.

If you think I am unlikely to see any drastic improvements then happy to hear it. I'll just wait till I can spec a DDR5 based machine.

Computer stats.jpg
 
My initial thought would be to simply replace the CPU as it is 6th generation

Here is the list of socket compatible CPU up to 9th generation and all bar one i9 they are all low wattage demand in keeping with your modest 550W PSU


NB you will need to cross-check the motherboard BIOS listing in case that needs updating to work with e.g. a 9th generation CPU
 
Box Brownie said:
My initial thought would be to simply replace the CPU as it is 6th generation

Here is the list of socket compatible CPU up to 9th generation and all bar one i9 they are all low wattage demand in keeping with your modest 550W PSU


NB you will need to cross-check the motherboard BIOS listing in case that needs updating to work with e.g. a 9th generation CPU
Click to expand...
Had not even considered that to be an option. I'll take a look.

Sadly the Mobo only supports 6th and 7th gen.

Cheers!
 
Last edited:
moggi1964 said:
Had not even considered that to be an option. I'll take a look.

Sadly the Mobo only supports 6th and 7th gen.

Cheers!
Click to expand...
Ah! I have just looked and see that....

I think I saw 3 versions off the 7th generation i7 so depending on the cost maybe worth a punt???
 
moggi1964 said:
Had not even considered that to be an option. I'll take a look.

Sadly the Mobo only supports 6th and 7th gen.

Cheers!
Click to expand...
Sadly, the issue you ran in to with Box Brownies suggestion is very typical with upgrade ideas.
In my experience, if the PC is old enough for an upgrade to make a substantial difference, you run in to compatibility problems.
If you do find a path I would still be very cautious. Plastic connectors and things like cpu fan anchors tend to get brittle with heat and time.
I cant read your spec on my phone but if you don't have a solid state HD carrying your operating system, I would certainly rectify that.
 
I would up your budget a bit and get a complete mobo upgrade from say CCL computers
at your spend remember most of your money is a new mobo and ram, not any real performance upgrade
yes the mobo and ram will be a bit quicker but realy speed is CPU, SSD and GPU.

run a few of these specs and see how the play?

 
You might be better off looking for a second hand MB/CPU/RAM bundle, something like a 11th/12th gen processor and re-use your DDR4 RAM. However, a lot of the AI functions (particularly in Adobe which you don't use) utilise the GPU, so upgrading that might be a viable option for the same budget.

Just be aware that the price of DDR5 ram has skyrocketed over the past few weeks. Down to supply and demand with all the global AI investment swallowing up all available production capacity, so there's much less stock getting to the consumer market. Just getting 32Gb of DDR5 would likely blow your budget!
 
For around the £250 mark you could get a Ryzen 5600 or 5700 with a B550 MB bundle. Not cutting edge but powerful enough plus you can reuse your DDR4 and PSU as its only 65w TDP. Also its PCIe4 compatible for if/ when you upgrade your GPU. Check out AWD IT as they have a few good bundle deals at the moment and were good when I did a build last month.
 
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