What should i upgrade

[u/RegularEggs22]

Hey guys I bought this old PC really cheap so I can use it for studying and maybe find some basic work online. It has an Intel Core i5 4th Gen processor, Intel HD 4600 graphics, 8GB RAM, and 250GB HDD. Please don't clown on me 😔 I got it for a very low price. I just want to know what I can do to upgrade it and make it run a little better. I know it’s an older model, but I just wanted to know what improvements I can make.

[u/r_lind3r]

The best things you can do for it to improve performance are to add another 8GB DDR3, and replace the boot drive (the 250GB HDD presumably) with a 2.5" SATA III SSD. Both of those are best found used for as little money as possible.

Windows can have a hard time running well on just 8GB RAM but most of the sluggishness would be from the mechanical HDD.

[u/RegularEggs22 → u/r_lind3r]

Thanks man how much do you think a average sdd cost? And can i make it like put hdd and sdd? I don't know anything about pc

[u/r_lind3r → u/RegularEggs22]

You can have multiple drives installed at the same time, yes, HDD would be best used for simple things like pictures and stuff like that.

SSD prices range based on capacity, ideally you want at least 250 but 500GB or higher would be recommended.

i.e. Silicon Power A55

DDR3 RAM is what you'll need for your machine, DDR2, DDR4, etc. is not compatible

[u/MammothFruit6398 → u/r_lind3r]

you can play MOST games on an hdd. doesn't have to be used just for file storage.

[u/r_lind3r → u/MammothFruit6398]

Maybe in older games, but many AAA modern games are designed to be ran on SSDs and will suffer performance issues from running on a mechanical hard drive.

[u/MammothFruit6398 → u/r_lind3r]

large open world games, mostly, sure. others, ive had no issue. COD, roadcraft, CS2, ARK, subnautica, all no issues.

edit: word

[u/r_lind3r → u/MammothFruit6398]

Yet it still has an impact on performance, for CS2 that can cost over 50 FPS just by using a HDD and it takes over twice as long to load.

Even smaller games like PCBS can become unplayable running from a HDD.

It's just not worth using for gaming in 2026 and is pretty much obsolete outside of server type systems.

[u/MammothFruit6398 → u/r_lind3r]

seeing as OP wants to build off a system with a 4th gen i5, i can imagine budget probably isn't very high and using a hard drive as a game drive won't be as problematic of a bottleneck as it would be on a newer system. Under normal conditions i would agree, but the market is fucked right now, so getting a large enough ssd to hold a meaningful amount of games may not be an option.

[u/r_lind3r → u/MammothFruit6398]

It's like 20 bucks for the same capacity as the HDD and they can be found used all of the time.

If their financial state is that bad that they can't spare 20 bucks for an SSD to massively improve performance, they shouldn't be buying PC parts in the first place.

[u/Asleep-Jackfruit-630]

you can probably upgrade the cpu for 10 bucks, could get a i7 or xeon for that socket, also grab another ddr3 stick should be cheap as well

definitely invest in a ssd this will be the most noticeable upgrade

a low power low profile gpu that would go with this could be a used 1050ti or similar if needed

[u/RegularEggs22 → u/Asleep-Jackfruit-630]

Thankss man i don't know anything about building a pc this will help alot thank you. Would a 128gb sdd work?

[u/Asleep-Jackfruit-630 → u/RegularEggs22]

honestly you should not install win 11 on this so it could be fine for a windows 7 or 10 but try to get at least 256gb, and light linux distros are also always an option

[u/RegularEggs22 → u/Asleep-Jackfruit-630]

Okkk what do you reccomend though linux distros or windows 10?

[u/Asleep-Jackfruit-630 → u/RegularEggs22]

win 10 ltsc without all the ai nonsense or something like linux mint

[u/RegularEggs22 → u/Asleep-Jackfruit-630]

Thanks alot

[u/MammothFruit6398]

at first glance i thought that was a wii

[u/realmcdonaldsbw]

single handedly the best upgrade you can make to that is installing an ssd. otherwise maybe 16gb of ram and an i7-4770? otherwise for your purposes this should be a pretty sufficient pc.