Hi there. I'll be upfront — I need some advice on the dark art of necromancy. Here's what I have on hand:
An Acer Aspire Z3770 all-in-one PC (Motherboard: IPISB-AG, CPU: Pentium G2020, RAM: 8GB DDR3, GPU: GT620, HDD: 500GB, OS: Windows 8.1) with a 180W power supply.
I want to pay tribute to the PC of my childhood and, now that it's been passed down to me after my parents used it, upgrade it into something at least halfway usable.
Here’s a list of questions, along with my own assumptions. I’d like to hear whether I’m thinking correctly — and if not, what the actual truth is.
1) What’s the most powerful Core-series CPU I can install in this system, regardless of the power supply limitations?
My assumption: I could install a Core i7-3770K or i7-3770S, but I’m not sure which one is more realistic.
2) What GPU would give me the best price-to-performance ratio in this setup?
The motherboard has a single PCI-e x16 slot and no additional power connectors.
My assumption: Maybe a GTX 1050 or 1050 Ti would be the ceiling for this CPU. But just for the fun of it, I was wondering if a low-profile RTX 3050 6GB (which doesn’t require additional power) could work in this build. Is that even realistic?
3) A 180W power supply is obviously not enough for a setup like this.
Can this problem be solved simply by swapping in a more powerful PSU if the connector fits? Or will that potentially damage the motherboard, assuming it wasn’t designed to handle more than 180W?
