Modzy
Posts: 9 +4
Hey everyone,
Some of you maybe familiar with this build from Episode 9 of Upgrade My PC Please. If not this is my fiancee's old AMD A8 6600K based system that I built for her over 4 years ago. and it was to serve her for a short time until we could do a much better upgrade.
Sadly over the years other commitments have taken priority and her poor PC, (and even mine) have taken much lower priorities. Now how ever my partner is currently over seas in Italy on holiday for xmas with her parents, and I'm back here in AU still working. BUT... I've been able to pickup a couple items to do a system rebuild for her, and give her a slight upgrade over what she previously had.
I know they are minor'ish upgrades, but it all had to be done for under $250 & within the 3 week window while shes away. so it' will be a nice surprise when shes returned first week of Jan. Now you may notice that cost of the upgrades = more than $250. This was because some of the parts were picked up second hand really cheap, bought off ebay or facebook marketplace or bits I already had on hand. All the parts I paid for totals $248.95. Which was absolutely using my budget to the max to upgrade as much as I could.
From:
AMD A8 6600K
2x4Gb 1600 Ram
ASRock FM2A75M-DGS
Aerocool Predator Cube Black
Asus GTX 960 Turbo 2Gb
Old keyboard/mouse will be ditched.
Asus USB WiFi adapter
Onboard Audio
Upgrades:
Intel Core i5 2500K (my old one that does 4.6 at stock voltage)
2x8Gb Corsair Vengeance 1600
Gigabyte 1155 GA-Z77MX-D3H (matx w/sli & xfire)
Phanteks Eclipse P300 Tempered Glass Black Case
New Purple Corsair LED fans (couple old ones had bad bearings)
New Cooler Master RGB Keyboard
New Corsair M65 Pro RGB White Mouse
Reference Geforce GTX 770 2Gb*** (see notes below)
DLink Wireless AC card
Asus Xonar DGX Sound Card
Keeping from old build:
250Gb Samsung 850 Evo SSD
750Gb WD 2.5" Storage drive
500Gb WD 3.5" Storage drive
Corsair VS650 PSU
CoolerMaster Hyper212 Evo
Couple Purple LED corsair fans.
I am customizing the case for her. I'll be applying some purple carbon vinyl wrap to the front panel and other subtle parts of the build to give it a very unique look and keep the Purple Pixel Eater theme she loves. However the vinyl wrap is on back order and wont be arriving until late January but ill update with photos once its done.
I'll be posting photos of the process over the next couple of days. I am also planning to do a video build log of the build as well. So ill post a link to that.
*** Why the swap to the GTX 770?
So part of the major issues we were having with the system is major drop is FPS while playing newer games. In the short term since the Upgrade my PC episode, I swapped out my GTX 770 from my lounge room racing rig and put it into her system to see if that helped at all.
And It did.. surprisingly the GTX 770 no longer causes any very low FPS drops. It also performs on average about 10-15% faster than the GTX 960. I tested this across not only 3dmark firestrike, but GTA, Mass Effect: Andromeda, dragon age Inquisition & a couple of the other games she plays.
First using the AMD A8 6600K @ 1080p for comparison. 960 vs 770.
Firestrike went from 5247 to 6322
The average fps across all the games I tested went from 53 to 62
With 1% lows going from 14 to 38, which was the biggest issue we where having before.
Then 2500K@ 4.6 + 16gb ram + GTX 770
Firestrike went from 6322 to 7416
The average game fps went from 62 to 71
But 1% lows went from 38 to 45
Before / After
Firestrike: 5247 > 7416
Games Avg FPS: 51 > 71
1% lows: 14 > 45
Over all, I am very happy with the nice jump in performance. And I know she will be too. Keep in mind this was using the same mix of custom settings she used to use, not a blanket setting like medium.
Build photo's to follow soon.
Francesca was also very happy to see so much support for her build and wishes to thank everyone for voting for her PC and was honestly shocked to even rank where she didn't.
Some of you maybe familiar with this build from Episode 9 of Upgrade My PC Please. If not this is my fiancee's old AMD A8 6600K based system that I built for her over 4 years ago. and it was to serve her for a short time until we could do a much better upgrade.
Sadly over the years other commitments have taken priority and her poor PC, (and even mine) have taken much lower priorities. Now how ever my partner is currently over seas in Italy on holiday for xmas with her parents, and I'm back here in AU still working. BUT... I've been able to pickup a couple items to do a system rebuild for her, and give her a slight upgrade over what she previously had.
I know they are minor'ish upgrades, but it all had to be done for under $250 & within the 3 week window while shes away. so it' will be a nice surprise when shes returned first week of Jan. Now you may notice that cost of the upgrades = more than $250. This was because some of the parts were picked up second hand really cheap, bought off ebay or facebook marketplace or bits I already had on hand. All the parts I paid for totals $248.95. Which was absolutely using my budget to the max to upgrade as much as I could.
From:
AMD A8 6600K
2x4Gb 1600 Ram
ASRock FM2A75M-DGS
Aerocool Predator Cube Black
Asus GTX 960 Turbo 2Gb
Old keyboard/mouse will be ditched.
Asus USB WiFi adapter
Onboard Audio
Upgrades:
Intel Core i5 2500K (my old one that does 4.6 at stock voltage)
2x8Gb Corsair Vengeance 1600
Gigabyte 1155 GA-Z77MX-D3H (matx w/sli & xfire)
Phanteks Eclipse P300 Tempered Glass Black Case
New Purple Corsair LED fans (couple old ones had bad bearings)
New Cooler Master RGB Keyboard
New Corsair M65 Pro RGB White Mouse
Reference Geforce GTX 770 2Gb*** (see notes below)
DLink Wireless AC card
Asus Xonar DGX Sound Card
Keeping from old build:
250Gb Samsung 850 Evo SSD
750Gb WD 2.5" Storage drive
500Gb WD 3.5" Storage drive
Corsair VS650 PSU
CoolerMaster Hyper212 Evo
Couple Purple LED corsair fans.
I am customizing the case for her. I'll be applying some purple carbon vinyl wrap to the front panel and other subtle parts of the build to give it a very unique look and keep the Purple Pixel Eater theme she loves. However the vinyl wrap is on back order and wont be arriving until late January but ill update with photos once its done.
I'll be posting photos of the process over the next couple of days. I am also planning to do a video build log of the build as well. So ill post a link to that.
*** Why the swap to the GTX 770?
So part of the major issues we were having with the system is major drop is FPS while playing newer games. In the short term since the Upgrade my PC episode, I swapped out my GTX 770 from my lounge room racing rig and put it into her system to see if that helped at all.
And It did.. surprisingly the GTX 770 no longer causes any very low FPS drops. It also performs on average about 10-15% faster than the GTX 960. I tested this across not only 3dmark firestrike, but GTA, Mass Effect: Andromeda, dragon age Inquisition & a couple of the other games she plays.
First using the AMD A8 6600K @ 1080p for comparison. 960 vs 770.
Firestrike went from 5247 to 6322
The average fps across all the games I tested went from 53 to 62
With 1% lows going from 14 to 38, which was the biggest issue we where having before.
Then 2500K@ 4.6 + 16gb ram + GTX 770
Firestrike went from 6322 to 7416
The average game fps went from 62 to 71
But 1% lows went from 38 to 45
Before / After
Firestrike: 5247 > 7416
Games Avg FPS: 51 > 71
1% lows: 14 > 45
Over all, I am very happy with the nice jump in performance. And I know she will be too. Keep in mind this was using the same mix of custom settings she used to use, not a blanket setting like medium.
Build photo's to follow soon.
Francesca was also very happy to see so much support for her build and wishes to thank everyone for voting for her PC and was honestly shocked to even rank where she didn't.
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