So I’ve had this thing for half a decade at this point. It was the first PC I ever got and I’ve been dealing with it being a PC which was cheap and not made for gaming. I’d like to see if there’s any recommendations I can add or upgrade to make it better rather than buying a entirely new PC
Here’s the specs
Acer Aspire TC-875
Intel® Core™ i5-10400 CPU @ 2.90GHz 2.90 GHz
8.00 GB (7.89 GB usable)
Intel® UHD Graphics 630 (128 MB)
477 GB SSD
Id like to cram a GPU in there if possible but I suck at hardware related topics so I’m not sure if could, which one I would, etc
So any recommendations would be helpful thank you!
Used gpu and memory.
The power supply of your system looks to be limited to 300W, that will limit your GPU choice severely.
I had a look on Newegg, and it looks like you might be able to squeeze in an RTX3050, which would be a good upgrade, but personally, I would go for more RAM first.
You are limited to only DDR4 memory, but you can max it out with 32GB. I checked on Newegg, and you can get a kit from Crucial with two 16GB modules for less than 150USD:
If we got back to your PSU, your power supply, here you need to verify if it is a standard PSU, computer manufacturers like Dell and HP will often use non standard power supplies, I don’t know about Acer, so you need to research that before you run out and buy a new PSU and GPU if you want something more powerful.
Adding onto this, it looks like the motherboard has an unusual layout (assuming it’s the same as shown in this thread) and that may make fitting some GPUs in physically difficult/impossible. Well, at least without sticking a riser in and turning it into a tentacle monster…
I suggest opening the case up and measuring clearances before getting parts.
First thing that comes to mind for me is the RAM, I have 16GB and my games are always crashing from lack of memory, so I can’t even imagine what it must be like for you.
If you can, I’d upgrade to an i7 or an i9, but I’d leave off the GPU unless you prefer graphics-heavy games.
I have 16GB and my games are always crashing from lack of memory
Something sounds very wrong… games do not require 16GB or more of memory. Is this just the current state of windows?
According to the Valve hardware survey, over 50% of machines have between 8GB and 16GB of RAM
If there are some slots open I would say it’s worth adding another 8GB, but they should be at a minimum spec with their current RAM.
I use Linux, but I believe it’s mostly because I tend to play games like rimworld, factorio, or Minecraft. All of which have very high RAM usage.
I must just be bad at Rimworld because I don’t think mine has high memory use. Or maybe you have way more mods than me. I think Minecraft is a solvable problem in the settings, I’ve only had memory capacity issues hosting servers but not on the client.
Yeah, lots of mods. Small ones to be fair, but several hundred at least. It adds up.
Being fully honest, with that motherboard it will likely be better to attempt a new, fresh build.
Maybe something like this, reusing your RAM, using the stock cooler.
I know you want to upgrade your current parts, but there isn’t much that hadn’t already been said (motherboard layout, case size, power supply). Bumping up RAM to 16GB or even 32. Maybe looking at SFF GPUs like this.
