Should my friend upgrade his CPU?

[Drojman]

Hi all,

Friend asked me to help out with his new build - he's on a pretty tight budget, so he's not going all the bells and whistles maybe 200-250 quid to spend on mobo and CPU together.

His current rig is:

Gigabyte GA-H61MA-D2V
Intel i5 3470
HD 7970
8GB of RAM.

Does he need to upgrade his CPU? I ask because I have a spare 7970 I would let him have for Crossfire, but his current mobo doesn't support it. ATM I'm unsure whether to tell him to just get Mobo supporting Crossfire, or if he should replace his CPU too.

Any help would be really great,

Cheers.

 

[gpuerrilla]

I would sell the board and the cpu. Get a second hand k i5 that you can overclock with a crossfire board - give him that 7970.

 

[andy_mk3]

Pick up a used 2500k for ~£80, buy a new or used mobo that supports Xfire and he'll see a vast improvement

 

[P4Clock]

CPU will be fine. dont go backwards to a 2500K.

Get a nice board that will do CF and keep the CPU it will do 12 months. then if you have to change get a 3570k

if he is playing at 1080 on one monitor one 7970 is fine, however a second will never be a bad thing.
I pulled one out of my boy rig as the second just wasn't needed for 1080, he gets BF$ 120FPS on pre set high Vsync locks it to 60FPS and all is good.

280X(7970) is listed as been ok for GTAv @ High


If that was my rig i would 100% get a new board as that one is crap, then set the CPU to run at 3.8(turbo speed) on all cores
drop an SSD in it.
If the PSU can take a second 7970 i would fit one.

 

[Drojman]

Thanks for the advice everyone. Still not sure how much closer I am to a decision though, haha. I would like to get rid of the board for him for sure, I'm pretty sure it's his weakest part.

Any more input?

 

[P4Clock]

Thanks for the advice everyone. Still not sure how much closer I am to a decision though, haha. I would like to get rid of the board for him for sure, I'm pretty sure it's his weakest part.

Any more input?

the board is a piece of poo. however if its not throttling the cpu under load... why replace what works, unless he needs to change it.

the is a 3570k in the MM for £100 that would be a nice upgrade.

 

[Drojman]

That's awesome pricing, can't see the MM unfortunately. I really should post more, haha.

 

[P4Clock]

That's awesome pricing, can't see the MM unfortunately. I really should post more, haha.

dont fix whats not broken pal. right now my rig is at default and it maxing games out @ 1080p

if your friend set the CPU to run at max turbo on all cores(3.8 me thinks) he will be fine for CPU.
The mother board is poo that should be upgraded but it still should be cheap as your upgrading discontinued tec and therefore it as no future if you get what i mean.
Ram 8gb is fine 16 would be sife for a few years but in the here and now 8 is fine.
GPU again i have the same one and all is good @1080p.

if your pal as £250 to spend i would start with a used 4670K @ about £120
New motherboard as used ones can be a bugger https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-276-MS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2811, its cheap but z97 boards dont need to be expensive to over clock. that board should see you ok to 4.2