I don't know if you guys should try to get him to upgrade any of his computer parts. Didn't he spend like 10 years RMA'ing everything for every little nitpick he found?

Or whatever

a non-functional graphics card that went up in a puff of smoke is a little nitpick?

I forgot the 180w charger for my MSI GS63VR in a different city. Would it cause permanent damage if I temporarily used a 90w universal charger from Targus with it?

I don't care if the Targus charger overheats and blows up on me as long as it can carry me for the next few days while I wait for Amazon to ship me another charger.

I wouldn't do it (unless ther 180w charger was overpowerd), but check the laptop specs. Wattage (and Amperage) must higher or equal.

Also check voltage and connector polarity, they must be the same.

Assuming V is the same (has to be or you dmg laptop), a lower watt adapter has lower amperage, which MAY harm only the charger. May. Worth it to risk it? On the other hand it MAY also work perfectly, so *shrug*.

I wouldn't do it for me, but you know how important it is.

Same voltage, about 30% lower amp it looks like. Going to try but stay away from heavy work loads.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16824475001

144Hz, curved, 27", 1080p

Might go look at one today. Only 144Hz I've seen locally that's under $500

Amazingly with zero problems I have been running my current rig, no upgrades, since fall 2011 -- 6 years now. Pretty simple build, i3-2120, 8 GB RAM and a Radeon 6850HD. It has soldiered on admirably. I guess the only upgrade was installing an Intel SSD a few years ago which was great, no issues there either. I built this rig fwiw.

Anyways I think some upgrades are long overdue but my pattern is usually to research like crazy when I'm ready to buy/build, and then forget about the PC market until the next time.

I'm thinking I'll recycle my case, PSU, fans, SSD and HD. Probably a mobo, CPU, GPU upgrade. Is it necessary to get new RAM or is it okay to recycle that as well? Being lazy to not Google here.

I'll go read some stuff on Tom's and get a feel for what is out there these days but historically I've had better success with AMD GPU's than Nvidia. Any recommendations on standard stuff these days? I'm all ears -- no surprise I'm okay with not getting top of the line new components, I don't mind staying behind the tech a bit.

You will have to make sure that your RAM is compatible with your mainboard. You will likely have to upgrade but luckily RAM is relatively cheap.

More importantly, better performing RAM is probably pretty cheap

You'll likely have to upgrade your RAM. With a CPU that old, it likely uses DDR3 RAM. DDR4 is used with most of today's CPUs, which is not compatible.

Here's an overview of today's GPU's.



You can also go to http://www.logicalincrements.com/ to find out what the various tiers of CPUs, motherboards, and graphics cards are.

Nice chart, thanks for the replies. Will post results when I get some stuff.

Bought a 144hz monitor yesterday and am blown away. Anyone still using a 60hz (thats not playing at 4k) needs to upgrade ASAP.

I bought my 970 for around that price like years ago. Fkn bitcoiners

Checked my email, $300 on 1/2/2015. That's awful.

I thought everyone knew you could just download more ram?

EBAY has $15 off orders of $75 or more til 6PM PST with coupon code PSAVE15

picked up a Noctua cooler finally from newegg

So this machine from almost 3 years ago is now a little dated and doesn't meet the requirements for VR gaming. I was thinking of upgrading the graphics card to something like GeForce GTX 1080 - would this be sufficient for VR stuff for a few years? Also the power supply for XPS 8700 is modest at 460W - should I consider upgrading this as well? Is this a fairly straightforward upgrade? Thanks!

Or should I not bother and just buy/build a new machine? I feel most of the rest of the machine is still fairly decent though.

I should think a GTX 1080 will need an upgraded power supply, and is certainly enough to be VR capable now. "A few years", who knows.

Changing a power supply is not really a big deal at all.

Yeah prolly need a new PSU but what one do you have with that build?

Also intel about to release new CPUS... Excited to see how they compare to ryzen.

I built my PC with an 850w but almost went with a 750w.

I wouldn't go less than 750w.

I don't know the brand or anything but I'm told it's a 460W PSU.

Interesting - is there any reason beside price to go with a lower capacity one or is higher pretty much always better?

I think 3-4 years ago I would've agreed but power efficiency has gone up so much these days you don't need more than a 600w really for any single card setup.

I went with 850w b/c I planned on upgrading my set up and didn't want to have to get another psu.

When it comes to electronics I'm the kind of person that likes to plan for the future. I'm not a big believer in bare minimum specs.

If you're going to run a 1080 or TI get a better PSU.

Also get a gold rated or better one.

Does something like this work? The difference between 750 and 850 is just 10 bucks so I'm inclined to get the bigger one:

https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-SuperNOV...010HWDOH6?th=1

Also, do I need to worry about cooling with GTX 1080? I'm not looking to overclock or anything.