New CPU or GPU?

[Deehjay]

So I haven't really paid much attention to PC technology since I got my PC 2 years ago; it's pretty standard and mediocre (well compared to what you can get for money now anyway) -
CPU: i5-2500 non K
Mobo: AsRock Z68
GPU: 560 non Ti
My PSU is a pretty bog standard 80+ 650w (I believe the make is Powercool)

Anyway, I was wondering which CPU OR GPU I would be better off getting since I may be upgrading this Christmas. I don't really do anything MEGA CPU intensive apart from watching streams in 1080p which uses roughly 30% usage, and sometimes Maya for 3d modelling. I'd prefer a new graphics card, but I'm unsure whether or not something like a 680 would bottleneck my CPU (the main thing I use my PC for is obviously the internet, and games..) or whether it would fry my PSU.

Also haven't heard much about the 7xxx series from ATI - how do they shape up to the 6xx series?

 

[Deehjay]

Yes, I'd add a new GPU too. What's your budget?

Well I was looking at the 680 which seems to generally be in the region of ~£260 so somewhere around there I guess?
Not sure if I'd be able to upgrade the PSU as well though, which is what I was worrying about.

 

[Deehjay]

Oh god, I didn't even know that the 700 series was released lol. My bad. I suppose I could also get a decent PSU if people really think that the one I haven't got is suffice.

You might as well get the GTX 770 for around that price (2GB model)... It's basically a slightly improved GTX 680. Even a GTX 760 is a big upgrade from a GTX 560 . What Powercool model is that PSU?

It's a 650 watt high efficiency one, 12v 2.2, it has like a lime green fan. It can be found on that river website... (I don't believe they sell it at Oc)

A 770 is a "super duper" 680. I think CUDA (Nvidia) is slightly ahead of opencl (AMD) for maya but things might have changed since I last looked. Overclocking the GPU will boost the acceleration and help with gaming of course whichever brand you choose.

That PSU is gash to be fair. I would get something decent and use that old one as a known working PSU for troubleshooting. It might be worth waiting to see what the Mantle API for AMD GPUs will do for gaming performance. BF4 will soon (next month?) be patched to use it. The 560 you have isn't great to be honest wasn't much of an improvement over the 460, I still own the latter and can understand why you want to upgrade. You can't OC the CPU you have but you can OC the 560 GPU to practice on while you make your mind up......

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming Edition OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with BattleField 4 PC Game Included £239.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L8 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £59.99
Total : £299.98 (includes shipping : FREE).



Slightly more than you wanted to pay out but the GPU has a nice long warranty and includes BF4 (sell it to recoup cash if you already own it) and there is a decent PSU there too with plenty of juice for a single GPU setup

I haven't even seen this R9 280X thing before, how does it compare to the 770?


Edit: Oh and also - I wasn't really sure whether or not a massive graphics card would fit in my case; it's quite a budget case and obviously haven't tested with anything other than a 560 which is relatively small, and I'm not sure of the dimensions. It used to be on OcUK but it's been discontinued/removed
It kinda looks similar to this:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-059-OK&groupid=2362&catid=505

 

[Deehjay]

Looks like a Maplins special to me (not a good thing)... As far as i can tell it has dual 12V rails with 14A and 16A which is VERY poor for a 650W PSU. A decent branded 650W PSU will usually have at least 50A on the 12V rail. Definitely change it or you risk damaging other components if it blows!

Damnit, knew I shouldn't have gotten a cheap one when I got it 2 years back Although, I've literally had no issues with it whatsoever but I'm not sure I'd be willing to risk it with a £250 card in there.

I might just eventually end up building a completely new computer and maybe using a couple of the parts I currently have in it since I don't really like the case I have; I always wanted my case to look aesthetically pleasing but I was on a rather strict budget.

 

[Deehjay]

So hopefully I think I'll be going with the R9 280X as it seems like the best option and you guys say that it's faster than the 770 at stock (which is more than likely what I'll be keeping it at)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-322-SP
How is this Sapphire one? I see it's on sale at the mo. Or is it worth paying the extra tenner for the MSI one?

Edit: does anybody have the link to that website where you could compare the benchmarks for PC hardware? I forgot the name of it
How much of a difference will I notice between my current 560 and the R9 280X?

 

[Deehjay]

I suggested the MSI as it has a 3 year warranty and a black PCB to help tie in with the Asrock mobos colour scheme. The Gigabyte Windforce also has a 3 year warranty but is more expensive and has a blue PCB which might clash with your kit, as does the Sapphire but that has only a 2 year warranty

The 280X is a refined 7970Ghz edition, you can use THIS to help you do comparisons.

Yes, that's the website I was looking for
Thanks.
Aw, they don't have the R9 280X available for benchmarks yet on anandtech

 

[Deehjay]

Oh also nearly forgot, is there going to be anything else that I'm going to have to buy like any extra cables or anything? Just want to be sure.

 

[Deehjay]

Nope....You can buy me a beer though

 

[Deehjay]

Does anybody know how long the MSI R9 280X is on sale for? I just need to measure the dimensions of my case and current GPU to make sure that it'll fit.
Edit: Nvm, got it.
Thanks for the advice everyone!

 

[Deehjay]

One final thing just to be absolutely sure, will my motherboard be ok with the R9 280X?
Here's a link to the specs of it but it doesn't tell me whether or not it's PCIe 2.0 or 3.0 (I've seen that if it's 2.0 then the performance of the card will be hindered?)
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=Z68 Pro3

I just want to make sure there'll be no bottlenecks in my system!

Edit: Found this in the specs section:
1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot (blue @ x16 mode)
- 3 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots
- 2 x PCI slots

 

[Deehjay]

There is very little if not any difference with a 280x running in a pcie2 or 3 slot. 1 or 2fps and you won't notice.

Ok thank you

 

[Deehjay]

Get the GPU and try pushing the i5-2500 to 4.1ghz .... Your board should allow for it as I can do it with my i7 2600

Check this and the link in my sig for non-K OC

If you're not satisfied by the results .... upgrade the CPU

Is there going to be a big difference in FPS in games between keeping my i5-2500, or for instance getting an i5-3570k?
I'll probably upgrade my CPU in the future but judging from this picture the difference seems to be quite marginal;
http://i.imgur.com/O5axjN5.jpg

 

[Deehjay]

I doubt you'll notice any difference when running both at stock clocks, but you can overclock the 3570k.

Yeah, I'll probably end up getting an Ivybridge 3570k later on in the year or even an i7 since they're still compatible with my Z68... or is it worth buying a 1150 mobo and getting a Haswell? Is there much of a difference in games between these two (overclocked)?

Hasn't it been proved that BF4 is one of the only games to scale with the number of idle threads available ?

Not really sure what this means but I doubt I'll be playing BF4 anyway, probably will end up selling the free copy I'll get with that GPU.

 

[Deehjay]

Ok thanks for that regarding the CPU.

I think the PSU I'm going to be going for is the BeQuiet 600w 80+ Bronze someone linked in the previous page. Is this a good recommendation and will it be compatible with my motherboard?

Thanks again

 

[Deehjay]

Yep, it'll be compatible with your board and the Be Quiet! range are pretty decent. Get the 3770k as it's all you'll need for at least the next couple of years... The 4770k really isn't worth it once you consider the cost of another mobo and then the hassle of reinstalling everything! And the fact there's no noticeable improvement over the 3770k .

That's brilliant then, thanks.

Do you think it would be wise to uninstall the drivers for my current 560 when it comes round to installing the new card?

 

[Deehjay]

You should definitely uninstall them and maybe run a driver sweeper if you get an AMD card... I don't think it matters too much if you get another nvidia card though (just download and install the latest nvidia drivers over the version you have now).

Ok, I just installed the Driver Uninstaller from Guru3d just to take a peak before I get round to it and it's pretty straightforward. The option to remove the C:\NVIDIA folder by default is unticked; would it be worth deleting this as well? Don't wanna screw anything up

 

[Deehjay]

Yeah that was me

It's down to you dude. a lot of it comes down to the pricing and the weekly offers.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Seasonic G series 550w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £71.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L8 530W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £65.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L8 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £59.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L8 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £53.99
Total : £251.95 (includes shipping : FREE).



The 500W is only marginally cheaper so I just plumped for the 600W. The L8 530W is semi modular (you attach the extra cables as needed), I own the 630W version had it for must be nearly 3 years now (touch wood) it's still going strong.

The seasonic unit is also semi modular but with a gold efficiency rating and Seasonic are pretty much the top dog in PSUs. It's on offer currently but the offers change on wednesday.

In regards to the C:\Nvidia folder, this is where the drivers are extracted to before they are installed. You'll probably find a few folders in there where you have updated your drivers over time. It's perfectly ok to delete the folder, it's just wasting HDD space.

Yeah thanks for that. I think I'll be going with the 600 watt BeQuiet one as it seems like the best bang for buck (I can literally spend about £65 maximum) and I don't really know the difference between a normal PSU and a modular one anyway.

MAYBE I'll be able to get the Seasonic one since it's on sale and it's Gold rated and not Bronze, but is there any major difference between normal power supplies and modular ones?

 

[Deehjay]

The 600W has ALL the cables hard wired into the unit as it's not modular. A fully modular PSU means you can disconnect ALL the cables which makes it a doddle to remove to give it a quick dusting off to clean it.

Semi modular it does vary. My L8 630W has the 24pin and 8 pin mobo power cables hard wired to the unit. You add the sata, molex, PCI-E cables as required. I've used Corsair units and they had the most commonly used cables hard wired to the unit and you could add extras.

If your case is relatively cheap it might lack cable management options and/or have little room behind the mobo tray. Having a semi-modular PSU means you don't have a vipers nest of excess cabling to hide or block airflow in the case.

In short I'd probably prefer the L8 530W but had I suggested that then somebody would say buy the Seasonic on offer it's not much more. You have to balance the budget for yourself bud.

Does that mean you're suggesting a modular one would be better for a cheaper case? I could stretch the extra fiver to get the Seasonic one if it's going to be efficient and future proof.

 

[Deehjay]

http://i.imgur.com/OeNg0j9.png
Just the PSU to go now ;o