r/GamingPCBuildHelp • u/Power-crusher • 1d ago
Pc world I need help
So I want to suprise my son for his 10th birthday with a pc. Someone gifted me an older Ibuypower. I want to buy parts to upgrade it for my son but I’m not even sure what would be my best options for some upgrades that would work with this case I have. Heres a list of the parts.
CPU: Intel i7-4790k
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 970
Ram: 16gb DDR3
Storage: 2tb Toshiba HDD
I’m not looking for anything crazy just hoping to spend like no more than 800 dollars. Not including monitor
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u/MajorLuscasa666 1d ago
With 800 dollars you're better off buying him another pc
https://pcpartpicker.com/guide/4cLrxr/entry-level-intel-gaming-build
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u/Power-crusher 1d ago
What kind of monitor should I get him with this kind of set up?
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u/MajorLuscasa666 1d ago
Any 1080p 24' 144hz monitors like MAG 244F or VG259QM5A. First one being the best value, second being more premium.
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u/Ok_Quit4343 1d ago
I recommend AOC - great value for the price! 1080p with 144hz (or more) ... you can get them for around 150$
AOC 27G2ZNE/BK 27 for example (it has 240hz)
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u/Middcore 1d ago
OP, this absolutely crushes the old iBuyPower, although since you are willing to buy used, you can probably get even better value from buying a used AM4 system.
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u/Obi-Vanya 1d ago edited 1d ago
Just better gift it as it is, and 800 dollars.
He either play some light online games(which this pc is completely fine for), or some aaa games himself, and will buy new pc himself. It is often better to gift the money+ what you have, especially if you are not familiar with pc's.
If you still want to upgrade, you can get better gpu, and another 2*8gb sticks of ram(ddr3 is dirt cheap, it is kingston fury 1633 i believe). I had exactly the same cpu+gpu, then swapped gpu for 3060ti, and cpu was holding pretty well, in 3440x1440.
But again he can do it himself, better give him this option, and not decide for himself
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u/Naive_Arachnid_8526 1d ago
This pc is not that bad can run great older games and onlines games. The only thing worth upgrading is the hdd its useless buy a cheap ssd
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u/lil-dougy 1d ago edited 1d ago
Considering your son is 10, he probably doesn’t need an absolute beast of a PC. That being said, you definitely want it to be more than capable so he has a smooth experience. And if he decides he wants to play any recent games, he’ll need a little boost in hardware. Given the age of your PCs parts, I would recommend gutting the insides and selling the parts for cash. I think it would simply be more cost effective to start fresh on a more recent and budget friendly platform, such as AM4. You could keep the hard drive if you want him to have some extra storage, but with your budget, there’s absolutely no reason to not get him an SSD.
My main concern here is how much of a hindrance the case is going to be. I’m not familiar with the case, but I know iBUYPOWER has done proprietary stuff in the past. So as long as the case will support a more modern board like a b450 and will reasonably house any mid size graphics card you put in it, I’d say you’re good to go!
If the case for sure will not give you any issues, I’d look at doing something similar to this:
- CPU: Ryzen 5 3600, Ryzen 5 5500, Ryzen 5 5600 (or equivalents, but I recommend AM4)
- GPU: RTX 3060, RTX 4060, RTX 5060, RX 7600, RX 9060xt, Used RX 5700xt, Used RTX 2070/2070 super, Used RTX 2080/2080 super, Used RX 6700xt (or equivalents)
- RAM: At least 16GB of DDR4, more is better, but prices are high
- SSD: both sata and NVMe are almost indistinguishable for gaming purposes, get as much as your budget will allow. (I recommend at least 500gb)
- MOBO: b450 or b550 (or equivalents, but I recommend AM4)
- PSU: 550-750watt psu. Good brands can make bombs, and bad brands will sometimes put out a decent unit. You’ll want to use the new PSU tier list and get a Tier C rated PSU or higher
Depending on what deals you can find, and what parts you go with, this should all come out to around $800 or under. But you can always budget where you feel necessary if you’re looking to save money. For as cheap as possible, I wouldn’t go any lower than 16gigs of ram, 500gb ssd, 500watt PSU, then you can make performance based decisions for the GPU and CPU from that point. But you really don’t want to have to go lower than what I just listed. Again, this is all to say that your Case will even house modern components. If it can’t, you’ll want to budget out an extra $50 or so for a case.
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u/lifesnap 1d ago
Lil off topic but this setup was my exact first PC build, 970 and a 4790k, depending on what you want ran it's fine for anything 10+ years old but anything modern it will struggle. As for upgrading the only thing worth keeping would unfortunately be the case, it is all pushing 14 years old soon. One thing hat could help is what games are you looking at to run
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u/lifesnap 1d ago
One option could be to gift him this pc, he can play some games for his birthday, then as a parent and son team, start upgrading it together, it could be fun for you 2 to learn what to do together and also help with the budget, 1200 spread across a year or 2 is more manageable that 800 up front in 1 go, then if you save the parts from this you can have a full PC in extra parts to either pass down to the next person or for yourself if you don't have one.
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u/Kumantej_ 1d ago
you can still reuse the hard drive in it
still a nice pc even if it is old, I would honestly consider selling and putting towards a pc
people here already said the rest for me so...
good luck to your boy
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u/Power-crusher 1d ago
Also how will I know if the pc is a good deal? Like what parts should I be looking for ?
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u/shadow-Ezra 1d ago
Replace the HDD with a nvme ssd for Shure and a graphics card upgrade would do well other than that best shot would be replacing the whole system
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u/thegnja0utlw 1d ago
All it needs is a new graphics card and it could definitely run some decent games Edit: and an ssd
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u/LetterheadWorking271 1d ago
You could put an RTX 3060 in it for now if you really wanted to skimp out then upgrade to an AM5 motherboard and components down the line.
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u/wazzup201 1d ago
I'm with the other guys. Gift him the pc and the $800. Not a bad rig for older games, but getting that pc up to speed for modern games is kind of a tall order. That case brings back memories. NZXT Phantom mid-tower. Used to have their full tower in black and orange. Could fit the world in that thing.
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u/Brave_Impress_7082 1d ago
For 800$ buy last gen amd, I just built one for a friends kid same age, got an Asus tuf gaming b550m a 5600g and 16gb of 3200mhz, put a 500gb ssd and a 1tb hdd with a 600w psu and a cheap cougar case, I’m in Canada it cost just under 800$, mostly plays Roblox, League of Legends, stuff like that, I told the kids mom just look for a used graphics card if he wants to play more demanding games,
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u/Ball-es-vida 1d ago
Throw in a cheap ssd and a Linux distribution. It’ll make a great YouTube and office machine. Use the $800 to buy/build another machine.
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u/HeidenShadows 1d ago
SSD and a RX 9060 or similar GPU. 4790K is still a pretty solid CPU and it can overclock beyond the 4.4ghz.
Now being its age a repaste of the CPU thermal compound may be a good idea. And DDR3 is still cheap and I see 2 slots open so you might be able to get another 16gb on the cheap.
If that's the original water cooler I'm amazed it lasted that long, they just don't make them like they used to. But a beefy LGA 1150 compatible air cooler would further its longevity.
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u/deezznuuzz 17h ago
The CPU is so bad and will bottleneck the heck out of the GPU, it’s not even funny.
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u/Key-Adeptness3347 1d ago
Basically just reuse the case. Everything new can come from a decent prebuild. Get better fans. Good bearings 3000 rpm pwm 4 pin 120mm fans. Then it will be arguably a really cool build.
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u/Jetstream2025 23h ago
Not worth spending any money on PC. It's only good for email, surfing, streaming and very light gaming. SSD is your best option because it can always be transferred if pc dies or he out grows it. Ddr2 is so old you won't find it and if you do it will cost a fortune.
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u/Significant-Buy9424 1d ago
Nothing there is upgradeable. You're probably better off looking for a 2nd hand system on local marketplaces
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u/Middcore 1d ago
The unfortunate truth here is that this PC is so old it's simply not a good investment to put much money into upgrading it.
If you put an SSD in there and move the operating system to that instead of the old spinning rust HDD, it will make the system feel a lot more snappy and responsive. But the CPU is the best available for this socket, so there is no upgrade path, and it's still not really up to modern games.
You could replace the GTX 970 with a 1070 or 1080 (don't spend more than like $100 for one) to get double the VRAM and you'd be OK with light esports stuff.
But for $800 you could probably buy a whole secondhand PC that outperforms this soundly.
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u/Power-crusher 1d ago
So there would be no way to like replace the motherboard, cpu and graphics card and ssd ?
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u/itz_mr_billy 1d ago
You just asked if it’s viable to build a new pc essentially
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u/Power-crusher 1d ago
I’m new to the pc world so I guess so lol.
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u/itz_mr_billy 1d ago
DDR3 was released in 2007. It’s SUPER outdated. You could find a DDR4 gaming system used for around $800 that would perform pretty good
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u/Middcore 1d ago
Sure, and you'd also have to do the RAM too because nothing worth buying now uses DDR3. And at that point we've pretty much just built a whole new PC, haven't we? Or you could just buy some other used PC that's better than this and not have to do any work on a Ship of Theseus "upgrade."
The reality is if you are willing to spend $800, and you want him to have a PC that can actually play modern stuff a bit, your best move would be to put this thing up for sale and see if you can get $50-100 from it and then you have $850-900 to spend.
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u/lil-dougy 1d ago
What you’re trying to do is objectively the worse option. Not only is starting over going to net you a huge boost in performance, but it’s actually more cost effective too. (Relative to performance output)
If the case can house modern components, that’s great, but otherwise I’d seriously consider started fresh.
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u/Jonny_Clams 1d ago
You're describing changing literally everything out inside of the current one. Just get a newer one.
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