Advice on upgrade

JamesTuc

JamesTuc

JamesTuc

Associate
Joined
10 Jun 2010
Posts
342
Location
Coventry
Hi, so it's been a very long time since I gamed much other than some casual gaming. This is mostly 5+ years old games, so no issues playing.

I'd like to play Hunt: Showdown, PUBG and other newer titles, but even running horrible graphics I get very low FPS. No need for ultimate settings or high res, just 1080p and smooth frames without having to drop settings ridiculously low will keep me happy.

Currently running:
Phenom II X6 1055T @ 4GHz
4x4GB RAM
2xRadeon HD 5870 in Crossfire
1200W PSU
Massive case (Define XL or something like that, can't quite remember)

I assume CPU and RAM are ok and that I'm due a GPU upgrade? But would love some feedback and suggestions of reasonable hardware choices.
 
Depends on how soon you want it. Might pay off to wait a few weeks to see what ryzen 2 brings to the table.
But that being said, ryzen 1600 is stonkingly good value for money
 
If your tight on cash, core components upgrade which should squeeze some FPS out of current cards or be a better foundation for a new GPU like RX 570/80 or Gtx 1060

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £387.47 (includes shipping: £10.50)​
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Those CPUs are surprisingly weak for the specs they offer, I would consider going for a octa-core Ryzen or an 8th gen i7...

Probably easiest upgrade would just be to do your graphics card for now, as you'd still be able to move that into a newer system in the future
 
JamesTuc said:
I was hoping not to need a complete new system build, but maybe that's on the cards...
Click to expand...
Phenoms were left far behind by Intels already many many years ago.
Despite of lot higher power consumption they basically struggled against (by now) ancient Core 2s which had lots of overclocking room with minimal power consumption rise.
After fiasco of Pentium 4/NetBurst Intel literally pulled rabbit out of hat with Core 2.

Also while extremely good at its time HD5870 is very dated by now and having advantage from two cards relies heavily on driver optimizations.
Something very unlikely for that old card.


While not catching Intel in everything Zen architecture of Ryzen CPUs is more than viable alternative to Intels and equally power efficient.
In fact with Intel now using toothpaste under heatspreader (for profit maximizing) AMDs with soldered heatspreader are even easier to keep cool!
Also unlike Intel having swapped CPU sockets for minimal/no real advance of CPUs, AMD will be using current CPU socket up to 2020, with more major architectural and manafucturing process upgrade scheduled.

Right now its only few weeks to Zen+/Ryzen 2 CPUs which improve clock speeds some and have improvement to cache/memory latencies, which should narrow Intel's advantage in games.
Myself certainly going to consider upgrading from Haswell.
So would recommend waiting for that.


Though before that upgrading graphics card would be easy.
Unfortunately graphics card prices are rather seriously bloated at the moment, but at least 1080p doesn't require high end graphics card.
 
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