Upgrade for gaming £500-700

[OllieC]

Hey folks. I'm looking to upgrade my PC after 3 years for gaming. Right now my set up is:
ASRock H81 PRO BTC
i5-4460
16gb HyperX Savage DDR3 RAM
Nvidia Geforce GTX 970
Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250gb
1TB SSHD
550W PSU

I'll mainly be upgrading for World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth which I know is more CPU intensive, but I play other things such as Battlefield, Skyrim(modded), Overwatch etc.

Just looking for advice on which way is best to go. Do I just spend my budget on a new MOBO+CPU+DDR4 RAM and keep the 970? Do I get a CPU upgrade on the same MOBO socket and spend my budget on a GPU? Do I upgrade MOBO+CPU but get one that supports DDR3? These are things i'm not really sure about, so would really appreciate any help!

 

[demonic186]

Although your system is still hefty I'd save the cash and slowly transfer over to a new mobo + DDR4 system, no point really investing just now on your current setup - DDR3 is still relevant though it is slowly being phased out so it'd not be worth while buying a new CPU for your current mobo or faster DDR3 RAM.

However it also depends on whether or not you want to play AAA titltes at higher resolutions, frame-rates too and what your total budget is because right now RAM + GPU prices are quite high above the RRP due to the whole crpytocurrency mining thing..

 

[OllieC]

Well I seem to struggle. Battlefield for example gets quite laggy, and always maxes out 100% on my CPU. WoW is generally okay, but when there's a lot of people agthered, it gets quite laggy, and this is not with max settings either, some of which are even set to low. This is generally the case for every game.

 

[mrbazmondo]

Depends on your budget and resolution/refresh rate you want to play at.
You know your're currently CPU bound so address that first.
If you have a low budget I'd look at your motherboard spec page to see what CPUs your board can take, then look for a second hand one thats better than what you have now, and try and sell the one you have.
If you have a bigger budget then look at something like an i7-8600/i7-8700(k).
If after upgrading your games are playable then stick with the GPU and switch later when you need it to be faster, hopefully when better ones are released and the current good ones ones have potentially reduced in price.

 

[OllieC]

Depends on your budget and resolution/refresh rate you want to play at.
You know your're currently CPU bound so address that first.
If you have a low budget I'd look at your motherboard spec page to see what CPUs your board can take, then look for a second hand one thats better than what you have now, and try and sell the one you have.
If you have a bigger budget then look at something like an i7-8600/i7-8700(k).
If after upgrading your games are playable then stick with the GPU and switch later when you need it to be faster, hopefully when better ones are released and the current good ones ones have potentially reduced in price.

Thanks for the response Mrbaz. I see the i7-6700k works with my current DDR3 RAM, but uses a LGA1151 socket. Worth Getting a 1151 MOBO + the i7-6700k? And then possibly a 1060 GPU if I wanted to spend that much? I'm not sure how much better all that is compared to what I'm currently running.
Might be worth noting I only just replaced my RAM, so another possibility might be to get a new MOBO + CPU that is DDR4 and sell my DDR3 RAM? I've no idea what second hand RAM sells for though. Only had them a couple of weeks

 

[mrbazmondo]

The CPU you have picked is about twice as fast:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i5-4460-vs-Intel-i7-6700K/2230vs2565

But the GPU you have picked is only slightly faster so not worth the upgrade:
https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2954&cmp[]=3548

 

[OllieC]

Any other gpu you might recommend instead that would be worth it? Or perhaps what I added at the end about the RAM and DDR4 with possibly a different cpu? You might have missed that since I edited it late. My bad!

 

[pastymuncher]

While there were some DDR3 motherboards for Skylake you will be pushed to find any now and there are none for sale on here. You get the best performance with DDR4 anyway. You would have to be out of your mind to buy a 6700k now though. If you are spending £300 on one of those you would be much better off spending £319 on the latest 8700k. If it is BF1 that you are playing then AMD's Ryzen cpu's work very well with it plus it's a much cheaper platform than Intel.

An alternative would be to drop a i7 4790 or even the i7 4790k in your current board. You wouldn't be able to overclock the 4790k (4Ghz base/4.4Ghz boost) but it is 400mhz faster in both base and boost clocks than the non-K 4790 (3.6Ghz base/4.0Ghz boost). You will be hard pushed to find one anywhere for a decent price though. On Ebay you are looking at £150-180 for a 4790 and well over £200 for a 4790k and it comes to a point when it's just too much to spend and makes more sense to switch to a more modern platform. Don't get me wrong, Haswell is still very potent platform and I am not getting rid of mine anytime soon, it's just the outrageous prices that people are asking for their cpu's on the likes of Ebay make looking at a new platform make a lot of sense.

A GTX1060 is not enough extra performance to warrant changing from a GTX970. Either stick with what you have or go GTX1070 or higher for a real upgrade.

 

[OllieC]

Thanks for the input. Yeah 1060 doesn't seem worth it at all, so looks like it'd have to be 1070 or higher.

In terms of CPU, maybe it's worth moving to DDR4 then and selling my current ram. Someone has offered me a 4790k for £150 but I don't really trust him, and also feel a bit uneasy about buying second hand stuff myself for my pc.

 

[RusselFM]

Thanks for the input. Yeah 1060 doesn't seem worth it at all, so looks like it'd have to be 1070 or higher.

In terms of CPU, maybe it's worth moving to DDR4 then and selling my current ram. Someone has offered me a 4790k for £150 but I don't really trust him, and also feel a bit uneasy about buying second hand stuff myself for my pc.

Where are you finding these products for these prices? You buying from a third party shop?

 

[OllieC]

Where are you finding these products for these prices? You buying from a third party shop?

Someone I know at work who builds pcs and such. He offered it to me. Always trying to sell me stuff, but like I said, don't feel very comfortable buying used hardware, but that might just be me being silly.

 

[pastymuncher]

Nothing wrong with buying used. My 4790k was used and there's nothing wrong with it. I would be tempted to snap his hand off for that price to be honest, £150 is a damn good price for a 4790k these days. At least if there turns out to be something wrong with it you work with him so it's not as if he can run and hide.

 

[RusselFM]

Got in the habit of buying refurbished products recently. I have been happy but always am hesitant from the moment I hand over my credit card! I feel like I make a grave mistake each time. Has not yet failed me with mobile devices yet. Computers, a whole other ball game I feel.

I am impressed at the prices, though. Too good to be "good." You know what I mean?

 

[OllieC]

Yeah, it'd be pretty silly to scam someone you work with as well. Still feel abit icky about doing that though. Could be worth a shot and then drop my money on a 1070 or a 1080. Anything else that might be worth looking at? Regardless of whether I went for a 1070, a DDR4 mobo + Cpu or whatever, would I need to upgrade my PSU?

 

[pastymuncher]

A 1070 is a good match for a 4790k and rather than upgrade any of my hardware I upgraded my monitor to the excellent Dell 27" 2560x1440 Gsync and am very pleased with it. Hopefully they should keep me going for another good couple of years at least.

What make and model is your 550w psu?

 

[Sao_Sin]

I'd be inclined to agree and go down the more bang for your buck used route. I'd also be more trusting of a person I know selling me their old CPU than CEX or someone like that. Ask him some questions about it if you're uneasy - why's he selling, what's it been used for OCd etc.

 

[OllieC]

He said the the CPU is 2 years old. The thing that makes me feel uneasy is my PC is already 3 years old, if I put in a CPU that's already 2 years old, wouldn't I be looking to upgrade relatively soon again? I know it's cheaper than the others, so there's that, but still. And the fact he tries to sell me everything, and because I don't really know much about what he's trying to sell me, he just throws info at me and things i've never heard of to make it sound incredible, instead of just trying to help me, if that makes sense.

 

[pastymuncher]

I don't know why it makes you feel uneasy as the 4790k is still a excellent cpu. We still have people happily running Sandybridge systems on here and that's another two generations older than Haswell. Intel only makes tiny incremental increases in performance with each release meaning that performance hasn't moved on that much. Near enough all reviews comparing the 4790k to the latest 8700k come to the same conclusion that for gaming it is not worth upgrading from a 4790k. Like I have said already, I am not planning on getting rid of mine anytime soon. The £150 that he is asking for it is a good price but I would try and knock him down another ten or twenty quid to see if there is movement on the price.

What make and model is your 550w psu?

 

[OllieC]

What make and model is your 550w psu?

It's an Antec VPF550

 

[OllieC]

So you think going to i7-4790k for £150 at most + dropping in a GTX 1070(maybe 1080 if I'm feeling naughty) is the best thing to do? Would I need a better Motherboard? I was told mine is pretty crap, but I know next to nothing about them.