My next upgrade?

shawry · 9 May 2013 at 14:56

Ok so i wanna improve my in-game performance but not sure what my next upgrade should be, here is my build.

CPU Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor
Video Card PowerColor HD 7870 PCS+ Vortex II Edition 2GB GDDR5
Motherboard ASRock Z77 Pro3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
Power Supply Corsair CX500 - 500 Watt
Storage - Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Memory - Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory

DaleTheWhale · 9 May 2013 at 15:00

How much do you have to spend.

An 3570k will give you a nice boost, but if you had the extra, could always grab the next gen Haswell out in June.

Jumper118 · 9 May 2013 at 16:34

You could overclock your graphics card if you haven't already, although your cpu is probably holding the game performance.

Ninja_Ferret · 9 May 2013 at 16:58

Yeah a new CPU would give you the biggest boost, or an SSD.

Jony27 · 9 May 2013 at 17:16

I would go for an SSD now and wait for Haswell.

varkanoid · 9 May 2013 at 17:29

128gb SSD to boot from then Haswell.

Tim2100 · 10 May 2013 at 13:12

SSD first
Then follinwg that an upgrade to a i5 3570 or i7 3770.

Yes the haswell will be a quicker chip but that will involve a new motherboard. i think the 3*70 will drop into your MB.

4737Joker · 10 May 2013 at 13:25

Ok so i wanna improve my in-game performance but not sure what my next upgrade should be, here is my build.

will having an SSD actually improve him in game performance?

What games do you actually play?

personally i havn't noticed a difference on BF3 in game using an SSD other than load times when changing maps. i went from an i3 to an i5 and there was a big difference in performance and it was noticeable, felt like i had spent my money wisely

DaleTheWhale · 10 May 2013 at 13:39

SSD will be great for loading times and menu's, Skyrim see's a huge benefit from an SSD compared to a HDD. But for in-game performance the CPU will be your money maker.

ussie · 10 May 2013 at 13:56

SSD with your OS and applications will increase boot and load times for games and other fairly big programs.

Also once in game for example you change a map, it'll again be much quicker as the read time from an SSD is better than a normal hardrive.

On top of this you could possibly get a new cpu.

Your graphics card imo is perfectly fine, 7870's are great especially considering its price.

So as a summary just as everyone else above has mentioned:
Option 1: SSD + CPU
option 2: ssd
option 3: cpu (or just wait for haswell)

Future option could be crossfire 7870 in which by then u'll probably need another cpu (preferably 600-700w with xfire 7870 if I remember correctly)