Your only reusable parts are probably your case, power supply, graphics card, and HDD/SSD. New processor will require a new motherboard and new heatsink. Your current PC is probably DDR3. I'd shoot for an AMD 5600x. You can find a combo with motherboard in the $250 range. Heat sinks are $20-$60. 16 GB of DDR4 for $40 here https://slickdeals.net/f/16322356-1...op-memory-kit-41-free-shipping?src=SiteSearch.
Microcenter: 5600x $150 - https://www.microcenter.com/product...ed_Processor_-_Wraith_Stealth_Cooler_Included Motherboard $110 ($20 bundled savings) https://www.microcenter.com/product/653046/B550-VC_Pro_AMD_AM4_ATX_Motherboard
Great find, thank you! Couple questions: will my old rx480 graphics card be compatible? Or does it at least have on board graphics to hold me over until I find a good graphics card deal? Also, in order to recover crucial data from older intel sata ssd, should I get another HD to do clean install?
Maybe you can find a cheap working computer of the same age as your computer. Use it to test the parts that you have on hand and backup your SSD. Maybe you can find one for Free (or close to Free) without storage that would allow you to test parts. How much data needs to be recovered from the SSD?
I found an older computer for $5 at a Goodwill electronics store (SW Houston). Grab a power cord and test instore to see if the power supply works. It lacked memory (DDR3) and storage which I have added. Sometimes they have used drives for sale. It appears to boot okay, so just need to add an OS (Ubuntu). There are going to be limits on what parts will be usable from your old computer in your new build. The prices on SSD storage have dropped, so I would lean towards buying new if possible. Running an OS on a USB drive/stick and then scraping the data from the SSD drive should be doable, but that is going to take time.
Goodwill, here I come! Thank you, will buy Duncan's combo and get cheap PC to test parts. Appreciate you both!
Maybe you know somebody or know somebody that knows somebody that got a new computer for Christmas and will sell you their old computer cheap. Even if they don't want to include their storage because of privacy concerns, it will give you a headstart on this testing project. As you put together a new computer, there might be enough older parts leftover for a backup computer. I don't know your computer situation at home, but a computer with 4 Gig and a Dual core CPU is enough for Internet and other moderate tasks. I could afford a nice computer with an expensive graphics card, but I don't need all of that. I used to play Wolfenstein, but that was many years ago.
Just installed and I see the bios, so the good news is that the old motherboard was indeed dead. Now, I'm just trying to figure out how to make my old ssd play nice with new mb. Any specifics to the installation process I should be aware off?
It's because your old SSD still thinks it's working with the hardware from the old computer. Is there anything you need from the old SSD? I'd try to start with a fresh install of Windows if possible. Download the Windows 10 boot, put it on a USB, set the BIOS to boot from that USB. Then reformat the SSD and install Windows onto it.
I will do that after I get some pics and documents off it. Thank you once again for finding a good deal, I'm excited to upgrade again!
No problem. I'll happily spend your money lol. That CPU will be good for at least 5 years. The next upgrade will be a GPU in another year or two.
I agree, my rx480 was a beast back in 2016 but it's beginning to show it's age. Should carry me until the next deal, hopefully bg3 will be out by then.
Yeah, I'm still waiting for that one to come out, too. I won't play it or Elden Ring until I build my new rig in the next couple of months. Hopefully nVidia comes to their senses on their crappy pricing -- even if it's just a $50 price reduction. lol. More than the crappy pricing, I'm hoping most early bugs are kicked out of the various components by the time I buy. I've been running my rig since 2015 or 2016, and you know it's time to upgrade when the games you're wanting to play are starting to suggest minimum CPU's faster than what you're running. But I'm really not struggling to play much of anything with this i7-6700k and GTX 1080, tbh.
Looks good to go. You might want to get one of those gaming external hard drives. When I started pc gaming around 2011, the storage space for the games were very reasonable around 8gb. Now they're like 70gb. 1TB wasn't enough for me as I am a files hoarder.
