Best upgrade for me?

murah

murah

murah

Soldato
Joined
15 Nov 2009
Posts
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Location
South east
So recently I've been feeling that I'm missing out and due to software updates and game updates etc that my performance isn't what it once was.
I've done all the normal stuff like clean ups from day one I'm pretty confident that an aspect of my hardware could be changed round to generate the effect I desire.

My system is in my sig, and the options I have so far are:

Change 3570k to an i7 of sandy/ivy , hyper-threading, slightly more performance, possibility of unleashing more power (less CPU over-head for more GPU usage). £230+ new, hard to find on Members market and usually gets snatched up pretty fast. Possibility of selling my 3570k at around the £100 mark for regain of money spent

Add more ram, with more memory being used now days I'm finding myself in the most demanding games at around 2GB left of overall memory. I don't know if this would help at all?

Change from SLI GPU's to a single card solution, I love my 670's they add some flash to my rig but I'll be honest it hasn't always been smooth sailing. There are some games that just don't like or are not optimised for multi-gpu and they tend to be a complete nightmare, I end up disabling a GPU and lose overall performance because of it. In games that SLI works great (BF4, Crysis 3 and a handful of others) it's all smooth sailing bar my GPU usage isn't at its max because my 3570k appears to bottleneck the GPU's. I guess on this point I'd love to know what it's like with everything maxed without bottlenecks.
But my original point about games that I frequent not utilising mutil gpu's effectively the extra power usage and heat generated is not worth it so maybe a single card would be better? £300 new, multiple on the MM, possible recoup of £100 ish per card

Add some more SSD's, I have one SSD that the OS and a handful of games are installed on but the others run off an ageing 1TB mechanical HD that is noticeably slower on loading. £80 ish

Let's say my max budget is around £250-300 what would be my best investment?
Thanks for taking the time to read this :D
 
Hmmm.

That is a tough one.

Not sure you will see any gain in games from getting an i7.

A single fast GFX card (GTX970) would be good where SLI doesnt work well.

Single 670 vs 970 - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1355?vs=1349


Edit..

You should get £100 a pop for each of your cards, so £200 for the pair, the GTX970 upgrade will set you back £50+'ish.
 
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As stulid has written, I think its the GPU that's needs updating, we all know SLI can be a nightmare, especially when its a game you play often.

The 970 is a great choice. As said, will only set you back £50-£100 too (with selling you cards). This will eliminate any SLI woes and still give huge FPS. With being a single card you should definitely look into OC it, it comes out near 980 performance with a decent OC.

This will also still be decent when you come to upgrade your CPU, if you thinking skylake/skymount.

With the extra money you can add an SSD, the Mx100 256 is amazingly priced, around £80.

Games do tend to use around 6gb of RAM, but that is the maximum really, no need to grab some more.

So really, you can get a GPU and an SSD with only a £150-£200 outlay, winner
 
I'm inclined to agree with the above posts. Moving to a single card would take some load off of your CPU as well, and you could add a second gpu later at low cost when you need the extra grunt. Put the rest into more solid state space (I have a 120gb drive purely for games that benefit from it ) and use steam mover to push your heavy loading games onto it.
 
Thanks for the replies, I was dreading the GPU's being the answer :D but I can see the sense in it and I can sell them together to re-coup a fair wack of cash. I already do the steam mover trick but a 2nd SSD would be handy considering my 120gb is nearly full now.
Would anyone suggest going for a fresh install of windows while I'm at it? Considering this install has been up over 2 years, updated regularly and cleaned/maintained but I've done a lot of tweaks for various things over those 2 years and I'm wondering if it might help to go back to basics and install/tweak only what I need now.. also I can't remember all the things I've done so reversing them would be a little difficult.
By tweaks I mean registry tweaks and such.
 
Keep your SLI 670 4GB wait till Q1/2015 new GPU's due.

Thats what l'm waiting for using SLI 670 4GB myself, how about one big SSD just for game's thats what l did instead bought a 500GB 840 Evo.
 
I could wait it's not terribly important although with Christmas coming up :D , the games I play the most are always on my SSD, it's just occasionally I might want to boot up BF3 or something similar that is on my mechanical HDD, I'm pretty sold on the SSD now but the main issue is performance.

How are you finding your 670's with an i7 , do you get consistent GPU usage and good smooth performance in games that utilise SLI well?
 
murah said:
I could wait it's not terribly important although with Christmas coming up :D , the games I play the most are always on my SSD, it's just occasionally I might want to boot up BF3 or something similar that is on my mechanical HDD, I'm pretty sold on the SSD now but the main issue is performance.

How are you finding your 670's with an i7 , do you get consistent GPU usage and good smooth performance in games that utilise SLI well?
Click to expand...


Hi, using x79 4820K:4.6GHz no problems at all BF4 Ultra smooth as cream.

I use to have a 500GB mechanical HD with other game's on found a SSD just for game's a good upgrade.

Yes keep a eye out for a i7 sandy/ivy and 8GB[2X4] ram is the morn these days.
 
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