MovinTarget, on 26 October 2017 - 04:03 AM, said:
Again, you have to ask yourself, if you are willing to pay for all these bandaids, are you better off buying a much newer system thats still on the cheap?
There's a gamble of hardware failure either way, but apart from xWiredx's suggestion of taking off the baffle and squeezing a (small, but 2 slot) 1050Ti onto your current board for ~$160, you should seriously consider upgrading in general due to costs.
The problem is that sure you can get an old Sandy Bridge chip, but its a modest improvement on your current situation at best and leaves very little room for additional growth. You can probably get a refurb system *now* that has more potential for growth in the $200-$300 range that would be a better platform for adding new components in the future.
Granted, you can get a I5 2500 for about $110 on newegg right now (again refurb), but then you may have to keep the cooling system that takes up so much space and not fit the 1050Ti...
You have a couple of different things working against you, the fact that most Dells (and other mass produced "business" desktop models) are basically not designed for much updating/growth/expansion which is why they squeeze everything into a tiny box to minimize the desktop footprint.
Hence business computer vs gaming computer...
Again, ^this.
There is a fundamental problem with upgrading the CPU: it requires more energy. You can get a lower-end, but still better, Sandy Bridge chip but it will almost certainly use more energy even if the TDPs are equal (as TDP is not a representation of actual power usage). More energy use means more heat generated, too. That means if you upgrade the CPU, you've got to worry about cooling in a SFF case. Like I said, you could use Thermal Grizzly or MX-4 to help a little bit with that, but if you're also upgrading the CPU then the benefit is basically null. What you would gain in dissipation you would lose in greater heat from an upgraded CPU.
The upgraded GPU is going to be heavily bottlenecked by the CPU, so even with everything at low you're not going to gain much in FPS. Or, rather, you might see a gain in maximum and average FPS, but your minimum FPS will either be the same or lower. The lower the minimum, the more 'choppy' your experience could end up being.
Overall, I'd still stick with replacing the thermal paste, keep the CPU, and get a 1050 or 1050 Ti. That card can be put into a new system when more budget opens up. A new Sandy Bridge CPU... won't. This late in the game, a Sandy Bridge platform just isn't worth it. The parts are old, almost all EOL, and Haswell parts won't carry much if any of a price premium over them. So if you're making one purchase, the GPU should be it.
Realistically, though, I'd save up and plan on a new system. Technically, we can assist you with building a new system with any budget, but a minimum of $500 is kind of the rule, and preferably $700+.
Edited by xWiredx, 26 October 2017 - 06:29 AM.
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