Dunno what to do...

Swampster · 15 Oct 2011 at 13:07

OK, so I'm thinking about upgrades again.. but I'm unsure which way to go. Lots of questions/scenarios here, so I hope you can help

Was hoping Bulldozer might have been my solution but we all know how that turned out... :rolleyes:

Currently I have a.. 1090T @ 3.8 sat in a Crosshair IV, coupled with an Nvidia GTX 280 (the idea was with the intent to replace the gfx card when I built the PC, as and when I got more cash)... anyway about 18 months later

So, I'm stuck with a few choices.. stick with what I have, and simply drop in a couple of 6950's... or add in a GTX580 (yeah i know I cant SLI - but I figure the card is probably more than enough for my usual 1920 x 1200 gaming res). The only problem I forsee here is perhaps the CPU bottlenecking the gfx in games like Rift (maxed), and looking down the line GW2, possibly Tera and Archeage.

The alternative, is biting the bullet and gutting my PC essentially, and going Intel, with the 580, and debating the 2500k/2600k.. is it going to be worth the £800+ cost for this upgrade over what I've suggested above?

Also, looking at the type of games I play.. MMO's mostly (not WoW though).. would a 3Gb 580GTX benefit me over the 1.5Gb?

So over to the floor... happy to see any suggestions/spec builds etc, and/or general advice

Swampster · 15 Oct 2011 at 21:07

*sniff*

..nothing?

:confused:

J-FRO · 15 Oct 2011 at 21:11

Well you can completely gut it and get a pretty nifty rig for around £500. If you're only playing MMO's though, I wouldn't bother with 6950's in SLI or a 580. Not worth the money.

What's your absolute budget for investing in new tech?

Swampster · 15 Oct 2011 at 21:38

My budget, about £850 max at present..

The latest MMO's are pretty gfx intensive.. can't run Rift with all the whistles and bells for example on anything near a respectible framerate with my current GTX280, and future titles are just going to get more intensive.. Archeage for example is going to be using the Cry 3 engine.. but then they're also by their nature pretty CPU bound too hence my concern about my current 1090T.

Hyburnate · 15 Oct 2011 at 21:43

I'd stick a 6850 in it. Maybe upgrade to another 4Gig of Dominator? That should bring it to around £300. Maybe a new SSD? Or screw that and go watercool?

Swampster · 15 Oct 2011 at 22:55

Hyburnate said:
I'd stick a 6850 in it. Maybe upgrade to another 4Gig of Dominator? That should bring it to around £300. Maybe a new SSD? Or screw that and go watercool?

A 6850 is hardly any improvement over the GTX280 other than the addition of DX11?.. I'm certainly going to be adding more ram, but the SSD I have is fine as it is.. and I have a Corsair H50-1 which I think is fairly adequate for the CPU cooling..

Hyburnate · 16 Oct 2011 at 10:07

Then don't do anything else than add another couple of Gigs of RAM then.

BuToNz · 16 Oct 2011 at 13:13

GTX570 is a nice option

Swampster · 17 Oct 2011 at 01:59

Hyburnate said:
Then don't do anything else than add another couple of Gigs of RAM then.

But that's not exactly going to make much of a difference to my gaming experience either.. as I said, my PC struggles with Rift already when getting towards the top end of settings, so it's certainly going to struggle with the games coming in future that I mentioned..

BuzZz said:
GTX570 is a nice option

Yeah it's certainly food for thought I guess.. but I'm pretty certain if I wen that route, I'd end up having to go the gutting route as I'd be scuppered for SLI in future.