Upgrade Advice

Sleeve

Sleeve

Sleeve

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Hi,

Looking to go for an upgrade, hoping really I can get away with just getting a new GPU, but I'm aware my CPU is getting a bit old now. Current spec:

AMD Phenom X4 @ 3.9ghz
Asus M4A78LT-M 760G Motherboard
7950 Boost
8gb RAM
500W Antec PSU
60Gb OCZ SSD
1tb HDD

Ideally I'm wondering if I can just stick in a 970 and be good to go. Granted, my CPU is old, but I dont think it's bottlenecking my 7950.

Budget of £350

Advice please?

Danke!
 
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ShivP

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What res do you play at? The 7950 = an R9 280, so that should play fine. I'd think it's your CPU tbh, upgrading to something like an i5 would be good, the GPU is still fairly decent
 

ShivP

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Hmm, I expect the 7950 will be okay for that resolution still, it should play at mid-high settings with basically no problems on most games coupled with a nice CPU
Which exact CPU is this Phenom? What RAM do you have also?
 

Sleeve

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Im mainly looking for more FPS in games. In honesty I'm not really struggling THAT much. But since starting back on WOW im struggling to maintain a stead 30fps, so It leads me to think an upgrade may be due.
 

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Cheers
Doesn't look like that motherboard will play too nicely with CPUs like the 8320, so I recommend a CPU/board transplant. You have 8GB DDR3 which is ok, so how about this?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-SLI - Devils Canyon Core i5 4690K Bundle **£14 Saving** £264.58
Total : £274.18 (includes shipping : £8.00).



This is a far superior CPU and mobo combo, and iirc WOW is only dual threaded so if you OC this CPU the two threads will be fast indeed. Like most MMOs, WoW is CPU bound so this would give good boosts

You could spend a bit more and get this;

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-012-GI

But obviously it's over budget and wouldn't give massive benefits over the i5 for gaming. The ~£100 saved you could put forward for a GPU upgrade in the future? Something like a GTX 970 perhaps?

Do you have a CPU heatsink also?
 
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Sleeve

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Yeh I have a CPU heatsink. Corsair H60.

Will I see much improvement out of the box with the bundle suggested? Or would it be more of a slight increase until I oc?
 

ShivP

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Sleeve said:
Yeh I have a CPU heatsink. Corsair H60.

Will I see much improvement out of the box with the bundle suggested? Or would it be more of a slight increase until I oc?
Click to expand...

Well, this shows benches in Cinebench

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/88?vs=1261

The i5 completely destroys it, WOW is quite CPU heavy as a pose to GPU heavy so I think you will see good boosts, yes. OC'ing will of course gain even more, but even at stock it'll eat it up :)

Some random website I found;

http://versus.com/en/intel-core-i5-4690k-vs-amd-phenom-ii-x4-955

Do you have the 1155/1156/1150 socket mounting for the H60?
 
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ED209

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if your just replacing the cpu, mobo and ram you shouldn't need to format, I went from AMD to a Intel mobo ram and cpu with no need to format
 

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I'd preferably reinstall windows, but as Ed209 said you might be OK. You will need to install drivers etc though for the new motherboard and CPU (Ethernet etc)
 
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