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    Looking for upgrade recommendations for daughters' computers.

    SimCalamitySimCalamity Posts: 43 Member
    in PC - Technical Discussions
    I need some upgrade advice for older computers to run The Sims 4 better. My daughters both have a pc with an i7 860, 8 gigs of ram, 1tb western digital black hard drive. Both run latest Windows 10. The only difference is one has an Nvidia GTX 560 with 1 gig of memory and the other AMD R7 240 with one gig. The Nvidia one runs The Sims 4 noticeably worse. The graphic settings are exactly the same on both systems. Which are medium settings, no AA at 1680x1050. Turning them to low doesn't improve the performance significantly.

    What do I need to upgrade? I'm guessing video card, but I want to spend as little as possible (around $125 each) but I don't know if there is another issue with the specs of the pcs that I should upgrade first or instead. Thank you.

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      phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
      Your processors are 9-10 years old. intel is on the 8000 series now. This game is processor heavy. Give the computers age, your motherboard may not support newer hardware. You would need a new motherboard for newer processors. You may even need a new motherboard for newer cards. It might not be worth upgrading and better off with investing in a new computer with all new modern hardware.

      What are the makes and models of your computers? If they are custom would need all hardware info , motherboard, PSU, Case model, etc

      @chesterbigbird is a build expert and can help you further
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      SimCalamitySimCalamity Posts: 43 Member
      One is an HP Pavilion Elite HPE-150f Desktop and the other is a Gateway Desktop PC FX Series FX6831-01 Desktop.
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      phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
      If I look up these models the HP originally came with a GT 230 card and the Gateway came with an AMD HD 5850 . Did you already upgrade the video cards to the GTX 560 and the r7 240 card? The GTX 560 is old and the r7 240 is below recommended requirements. I will wait for chester's input I don't think you can upgrade these anymore with newer hardware. It would be like you building a whole new computers since you will need newer hardware overall. It would be better to just buy a new computer that meets recommended requirements. If that is the case average price of a new computer that meets recommended requirements runs $700 and up USD. If your going to go for a new computer, it's best to buy one specific for gaming because they will come with a computer case that is designed for gaming. It should have good cooling and room for upgrades and or switching out hardware. HP , Gateway. Dell etc off the shelf come with cases that don't have great cooling, they are hard to upgrade, no room. In your case your hardware is also very old.
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      chesterbigbirdchesterbigbird Posts: 8,581 Member
      Both of those would need a new power supply if it's still using the original one. You're motherboard would have a slot for a new card but the power supply needs replacing. You may also run into heating issues with a more powerful card as those desktops do not have proper ventilation. You would need to spend allot more then $125 each. Possibly $300 each just for card and power supply.
      i7 6700K
      16GB hyper X fury
      MSI GTX 1080
      MSI gaming M5 mobo
      Evga 750 supernova
      Corsair hydro h110i GT
      Corsair obsidian 750D
      500GB SSD
      6TB Seagate Barracuda Pro
      LG 34" ultra wide


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      SimCalamitySimCalamity Posts: 43 Member
      Update: I ended up getting two GTX 1030s and SSD drives. Both systems are running great now. As for the GTX 560, the reason why it was performing so much worse than the r7 240 was its fan had stopped working. poor thing must have been throttle like crazy just to stop from melting.
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      chesterbigbirdchesterbigbird Posts: 8,581 Member
      SimCalamity wrote: »
      Update: I ended up getting two GTX 1030s and SSD drives. Both systems are running great now. As for the GTX 560, the reason why it was performing so much worse than the r7 240 was its fan had stopped working. poor thing must have been throttle like crazy just to stop from melting.

      What size SSD? And is the game installed on that drive?
      i7 6700K
      16GB hyper X fury
      MSI GTX 1080
      MSI gaming M5 mobo
      Evga 750 supernova
      Corsair hydro h110i GT
      Corsair obsidian 750D
      500GB SSD
      6TB Seagate Barracuda Pro
      LG 34" ultra wide


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      SimCalamitySimCalamity Posts: 43 Member
      I got them samsung 840 evos and I think they were 477 gigs after formatted. I imaged their C drives and swapped the ssds for their hard drive.
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      Sid1701D9Sid1701D9 Posts: 4,718 Member
      edited July 2018
      A little bit of advice, the i5 -i7 are still within the high end and especially if they are duo or quad core processors, the name of the processor would help to because it would say what generation. Also the GTX 560 is mid low end, I myself got a GTX 660 and have been playing the game without a problem ever since. Also my computer is 3rd gen i5 3570 @3.40GHZ 4 cores and 4 logic processors. This processor from what others from tomshardware.com have wrote and did benchmarks on says it can handle a nvidia GTX 1080 GPU with little bottlenecking.


      I just want to clear that up. Its not the proccessor that matters, but the clock speed and cores of the proccessors.

      edit: my proccessor name is iverybridge which is 3rd gen, haswheel is 4 gen. Sandybridge is 2 gen, and I can't remember what first gen is.
      Sid1701d-"I love my life, live my life and live to play, laugh and have fun."

      "Love will Fight, Love will Win and Love will Survive."
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      SimCalamitySimCalamity Posts: 43 Member
      Sid1701D9 wrote: »
      A little bit of advice, the i5 -i7 are still within the high end and especially if they are duo or quad core processors, the name of the processor would help to because it would say what generation.

      I just want to clear that up. Its not the proccessor that matters, but the clock speed and cores of the proccessors.

      Its an I7 860 so Lynnfield. Quad core, 2.8 ghz with boost to 3.4ghz
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