Build or upgrade for FPS titles??

Alex34 · 8 Mar 2022 at 16:13

Hi all. I'm currently a console gamer, PS5, and have been so forever. However, there are a few FPS titles I cannot get on console that I'm dying to play, Squad, Escape From Tarkov, BattleBit, etc.

We currently have one PC in the house which is my wife's photo editing PC and I wanted some advice, should I upgrade that PC or build a stand alone gaming PC?

The current PC was built in 2015 by CCL, is an Asus X99-S Socket board with a 256GB SSD and two 2TB HDD's, 16GB RAM, an i7 5820K CPU and a Sapphire Radeon R9 270X GPU.

I don't want to spend a lot of money, I just want to be able to play the previously mentioned FPS titles satisfactorily and we already have two Dell 4K monitors. I'm also open to buying used systems.

TIA for any help.

dfour · 8 Mar 2022 at 16:27

unfortunatly the anser is good luck if you want to use 4K. Your looking at £600+ just for a gpu capable of playing in 4k well.

Your looking at a 3070+ or a 6800+ and maybe a bigger psu to power them as well.

Alex34 · 8 Mar 2022 at 16:35

dfour said:
unfortunatly the anser is good luck if you want to use 4K. Your looking at £600+ just for a gpu capable of playing in 4k well.

Your looking at a 3070+ or a 6800+ and maybe a bigger psu to power them as well.

Sorry, forgot to mention. I will be gaming in 1080p or 1440p. The monitors are 4K capable though. Thanks.

dfour · 8 Mar 2022 at 16:41

The 'cheapest' way is just a graphics card upgrade like a RX 6600xt/rx 6700xt or a rtx 3060/ti/rtx3070. Due to the stupid gpu prices your still looking at £400+

You might also need a bigger ssd to run the games off as you really wan to avoid running them on an old spinning disc. also a psu depending on the capacity of the one you currently own.

Alex34 · 8 Mar 2022 at 16:48

dfour said:
The 'cheapest' way is just a graphics card upgrade like a RX 6600xt/rx 6700xt or a rtx 3060/ti/rtx3070. Due to the stupid gpu prices your still looking at £400+

You might also need a bigger ssd to run the games off as you really wan to avoid running them on an old spinning disc. also a psu depending on the capacity of the one you currently own.

Thanks for this.

Alex34 · 27 May 2022 at 17:13

Right.... I'm finally going to upgrade the GPU and storage.

I'm going with a Sapphire RX 6700 XT Nitro+ 12GB for the GPU.

For the storage though, I cannot make up my mind. Should I go with:

a 2TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 drive or...
two 1TB Samsung 870 EVO SATA 3 2.5 drives

If I go with the one 2TB NVMe M.2 drive I will have my wife's photo editing software and photo catalogue along with my games and OS on it.

If I go with the two 1TB SATA 3 2.5 drives I will have one dedicated to OS and my wife's photo editing and the other just for my games. In both scenarios I will keep the two original 2TB HDD drives for file and image storage.

Please let me know what are your thoughts and advice? Many thanks in advance.

JollyJamma · 27 May 2022 at 20:44

970 evo plus.

It’s hella fast.

Haz123 · 28 May 2022 at 02:35

This is photo editing so you will want to keep your OS and projects on different SSDs, In an ideal situation you will want your OS on a PCIe 4 NVME and then your projects on a different ssd. Do not think about just size and think about what is the best case scenario. Your mobo does not support PCIe 4 so you are limited to 3 so the 970 evo is amongst the fastest gen 3 drives available.

Put OS on the Samsung Evo and then get whatever is the most cost effective sata SSDs you can get. Having trouble finding how many nvme slots your mobo has but I know it will have a lot of sata connections to use. If you have more than 1 M.2 slots then it is often cheaper to get these drives than SATA ssds.

dfour · 28 May 2022 at 15:08

What motherboard is it you own??

As Has123 said if you have 2 *M.2 slots 2 drives will be better.

Alex34 · 28 May 2022 at 22:22

Thanks guys.

The motherboard is an ASUS X99-S. It only has one M.2 slot.

Specs state:
New Intel® Core™ i7 Processors:
1 x M.2 Socket 3, with vertical M Key design, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (Support PCIE SSD only)
Intel® X99 chipset:
1 x SATA Express port, compatible with 2 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports
8 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s)
Support Raid 0, 1, 5, 10
Supports Intel® Smart Response Technology, Intel® Rapid Recovery Technology
ASMedia® SATA Express controller:
1 x SATA Express port, compatible with 2 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports

So should I get a smaller NVMe M.2 drive (say a 500GB) with the two 1TB SATA 3 drives? I also read somewhere that, with my motherboard, if I use the M.2 drive it takes up two of the available SATA drives (I believe drives 7 & 8).

Haz123 · 29 May 2022 at 11:18

I agree that you should run your OS from an nvme, all about price what you go for, sometimes it is such a small amount of money to get 1tb over 500gb it is silly not to go for it. For the other SSDs looking on OCUK the Crucial BX500 is £80 , £20 cheaper than the Samsung drives, much better value and will do just as well for that purpose. You can also get a 2tb Samsung 870 for £180 which is again a saving. Of course if you are shopping around and getting the ones you are looking at for a good price then go for them.

Alex34 · 29 May 2022 at 12:57

Haz123 said:
I agree that you should run your OS from an nvme, all about price what you go for, sometimes it is such a small amount of money to get 1tb over 500gb it is silly not to go for it. For the other SSDs looking on OCUK the Crucial BX500 is £80 , £20 cheaper than the Samsung drives, much better value and will do just as well for that purpose. You can also get a 2tb Samsung 870 for £180 which is again a saving. Of course if you are shopping around and getting the ones you are looking at for a good price then go for them.

Thanks but should I have the photo editing and games on separate drives from the NVMe drive with OS? Trying to figure out how I should have the drives configured.

Haz123 · 29 May 2022 at 14:15

You can put the games folder anywhere you have space. Just keep the OS seperate to the project you are working on, can use the OS drive for storage np.

dfour · 29 May 2022 at 14:28

1tb nvme drive for OS and games. 1tb sata for your photoshop work and backup etc.

Alex34 · 29 May 2022 at 15:14

Someone suggested I just keep the OS on the 256GB SSD 2.5 drive that it's currently on and add the NVMe M.2 drive for the games and photo editing. That seems like a simple straight forward way of dealing with it, what do you guys think about that?

Haz123 · 29 May 2022 at 17:48

Yes that will work fine , not ideal but perfectly workable.