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[Thief^]

I would consider getting an SSD, if he can at all afford it. It can make a night and day difference in a computer's performance. It doesn't really need to be that large, I have a 120GB Samsung EVO in my pc, with a 1TB secondary hdd. My personal recommendation is for Samsung EVO, but there are plenty of good brands. It's not an easy upgrade to make later.

The power supply is probably over-spec for a single mid-high range graphics card. Some quick googling suggests that that setup will use somewhere in the vicinity of 300W, so a 400-500W PSU would be more than enough. You could maybe save a little here.

Ram-wise, make sure to buy two matched sticks rather than one. Everything's dual-channel these days, so you will get double the ram performance out of 2x4GB than 1x8GB.

I would consider upgrading to 16 GB of ram in the future. The current consoles only have 8 GB, so 8 GB will likely be enough to run games for several years, but there are already games coming out that "recommend" 16 GB. The motherboard looks to have 4 sockets (two pairs), so you can easily upgrade to 16 GB later.

[Sonlirain]

Quote

Considering you don't need that much power you might want to downgrade the wattage and take a weaker but more efficient PSU like this for example.
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=220-G2-0550-Y1 It still has more than enbough power and should lower the energy bills (and pay for itself in the long run. And the run will be long because it has a 7 year warranty)

I have the exact same CPU and i'm happy with it. Altho it hails from glorious year 2012 it still has quite a bit of power for running games and an amazing power to price ratio. However i don't think it will hold out for too long now so you might want to check for stronger alternatives. Can't really suggest anything tho because 6300 is the king when it comes to power/price ratio..

[highzealot]

I'm wondering what would be the best CPU and GPU upgrades I could get without replacing my motherboard or power supply

That really depends on your budget and opinion on specific brands.

For budget, I'll say around $400 usd.

I prefer Intel CPUs and nvida GPUs though I would be fine with any brand

While I would prefer specific part recommendations, just knowing if I can get a decent upgrade on both CPU and GPU without issues from not having enough power from the psu is fine

[Thief^]

It's definitely doable. 400W doesn't give you the headroom for absolutely top-end components - but they'd be out of your budget anyway.

You can get an nVidia GTX 960 or AMD R9 380 for ~$200, leaving ~$200 to get a similar clock speed quad-core i5. That only totals ~220W leaving loads of headroom in your PSU. That's for the nvidia card, it's ~290W with AMD GPU + Intel CPU, which might be pushing it.

Disclaimer: Prices from newegg.com, I'm not US-ian, use your preferred retailer

[Bohandas]

Downloaded this thing to fix the onscreen keyboard on my tablet. But now I have the opposite problem of the keyboard popping up when no text entry box is active.

Can any of you see a solution that doesn't entail uninstalling the fix?

Here's that link again for reference:
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/threads/my-fix-for-keyboard-popup-in-desktop-mode.54862/page-11

[Sonlirain]

Sooooo... funny story.
I instaleld the new PSU and R9.
All was well.
Alas i'm a dumb urist and... well... while my PC is semi good i soon learned a few things about having a powerful GPU plugged in.
For one thing after your PC graduates from home to "Gaming" you... umm... well you need case fans. Something completely alien to me till now.

So Long story short. After running a benchmark i noticed the GPU was roaring. A quick check of the temperatures revealed that my HDD is currently cooking in 56 degrees.
So Bechmark off and a quick google leads me to believe that case fans are a standard piece of hardware rather than what i was assumed to be a money sink for crazed overclockers.
So yeah... lesson learned without any real damage (thankfully).

I have to either strip the case and put a fan next to it or pony up more money for fans (or a case that supports those in the first place).

OH WELL! At least nothing caught fire.

Sonlirain dabbling hardware specialist.

[Thief^]

You should be fine with just an intake fan in the front of the case, and an exhaust at the rear if your CPU and GPU coolers don't direct their air out of the case by themselves. Get the largest fans that will fit (most likely 80mm or 120mm, 80's more common), they'll be quieter.

I don't know of any cases that don't have those two mounts, and you don't really need any others.

Was that 56°C? That's quite hot for a hdd... Not unusual for CPU or GPU temperatures though.

[Lord Shonus]

You can shave several degrees by good cabling practice (cables are quite good at restricting internal air flow), and even more by a thorough dusting. You'll also see great benefits just by taking your case's main panel off when you game - this is what I do as my case is too small for what I have in it.

[Aklyon]

If your case is too small for what you have in it, you should probably get a bigger case, not just leave the side off. That leaves the entire thing open to dust.

[Lord Shonus]

If your case is too small for what you have in it, you should probably get a bigger case, not just leave the side off. That leaves the entire thing open to dust.

Computer cases cost money. I'm perpetually short on that, and can't spare it to solve a problem I can put off easily enough.

[Sonlirain]

Right. So i tried taking off the case. It helped And i could run several bemnchmarks. However the HDD temp rose stably and in around 50 minutes it started hitting 50 degrees (A lot better than having it hit 56 deg in one go)

Puting a fan next to it helps with the problem but a loud rickety ghetto fan blowing at an open case is not my idea of a 330$ computer upgrade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--7OxLq4ofk&feature=youtu.be

I'm kinda worried really because i don't know if the case fans i'll grab tomorrow will be enough

[Thief^]

I don't think your hard-disk temp can be accurate. HDDs simply don't get to 50+ degrees C...

[Sonlirain]

That's what Speccy shown. I can't really say how accurate it is however.

The HDD temp with the GPU idle for some time apparently dropped to 47 deg. Again can't say how accurate it is.

[Thief^]

Are you sure its not in Fahrenheit?

[Sonlirain]

If it was Farenheit the number wouldn't be yellow at 50 deg and red at 55.
Also.
698GB Seagate ST3750640NS ATA Device (SATA)   49 °C

It quite obviously says Celsius. It might have something to do with my positioning i guess. I put the HDD as far away from the GPU as i can. However "as far away" was in a 5.25 inch slot a bit above and to the side so the heat
 radiating upwards might be getting to it.
Other than that i have no clue.