How and what to upgrade? (Predator G3-710)

Tobi6000
Tobi6000 Member Posts: 6 New User
edited February 15 in 2019 Archives
I've got a little extra money and thought i would like to upgrade my G3. The problem is i have never tried it before and have no idea what is most "pressing" to upgrade. The specs are:

CPU: 6th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-6700 processor
GPU: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 970
RAM: 64GB DDR4 2133MHz

I am also totally oblivious as of how to do it, so any tips would be greatly appreciated :)

Answers

  • Tobi6000
    Tobi6000 Member Posts: 6 New User
    I know how to put in new RAM, but graphics card i'm a bit lost and cannot really seem to find videos about it for this pc
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    You're pretty maxed out in terms of the original build. The video card is the obvious upgrade, since a sixth -> later gen requires a motherboard swap as well as new processor and memory. Check to see how big your power supply is then look at upgrades to either current generation video cards or the previous generation. I'm guessing you'll want something like a 1080 ti and 600W supply...
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  • Tobi6000
    Tobi6000 Member Posts: 6 New User
    so it is a bigger operation? i cannot upgrade my graphics card or add ram witout putting other new stuff in?
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    edited February 2019
    The G3-710 supports up to a maximum of 64GB of memory and you are already there. You have the motherboard that supports the 6th gen processors and you have the i7-6700 that runs at 4.0GHz, there's an i7-6700K which runs at 4.2GHz and allows overclocking, but I'm not sure your BIOS supports the overclocking and the 5% speed upgrade is likely not worth the effort to replace. You have the GTX 970 from NVIDIA which was pretty much the top end when your machine was released and you can upgrade it pretty easily for better gaming. The latest models from them are the 20 series, such as the GTX 2080, 2070 and the recently announced 2060. The previous models were the 10 series, including the 1080, 1070 and 1060. Because the 20 series is new (I think they started shipping in September) the prices are still fairly high, but the 10 series are being discounted a bit now. Most of the G3-710 SKUs shipped with a 500W power supply, so that's what you likely have (check to be sure, it'll be written on a label on the supply). With the max memory and the fastest processor you are comfortable with the 500W, but if you add in the extra power needed for the newer graphics cards you might be pushing it with a 500W. It'll likely work, even with a 2080 ti, but better safe than sorry and a 600-750W supply isn't too expensive when compared to the GPU price.
    So ... upgrading video is a slam dunk for better gaming performance, but going higher than that really requires a new motherboard, processor and memory (the memory will be a different speed than what you have now). That's a major enough upgrade to be tempting to just upgrade the whole system with a new Predator Orion.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • Tobi6000
    Tobi6000 Member Posts: 6 New User
    *****, props to you for guiding a newbie ;) thx alot :))

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