PC upgrade what should go first?

robwigan

robwigan

robwigan

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29 Aug 2012
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After countless threads about new builds,laptops etc i have convinced my other half to allow me to keep my full size tower (4 years old) given how much money i will save.

I have the following spec'd PC just for gaming
-i5 4670k 3.4 ghz stock (very decent cooler not over clocked as im to scared of frying it) cant remember the name but it was a good £40 rajtec 30mm air cooler the salesman raved about
-Gigabite z97-d3h
-r9 280x msi
-8gb what i think is ddr3 ram
-win 7
-ssd 256gb still fine
-1tb standard hard drive
-corsair case carbide not sure of number but not great


I am really worried about upgrading it but know my system is aging quite a bit, with £500 what would you recommend doing? i may invest in a 1440 monitor but i have 500 to upgrade my pc.

does my motherboard need changing and cpu? or focus on gpu?

also what do you lot think of windows 10 over 7? i know im late to this party but i just never bothered about it

goes without saying but im really not confident about building but i know its showing its age a bit now so looking for advice
 
What's your current monitor ?
GPU prices have gotten a little crazy lately .
CPU should be fine, specially if your wanting to go higher Res such as 1440p. Just OC a little to get it to stretch its legs :)

Worth the bump to windows 10 personally. And AMD cards, old or new get an advantage with DX12 games :)
 
I would look to overclock your cpu being careful with temps and power.

You can then see what is the bottleneck for your usage. Keep in mind some upgrades such as more ddr3 ram can not be moved to a new motherboard as current ones use ddr4 memory.
 
As pointed out the CPU is absolutely fine but you should look into overclocking it to get some more life out of it. It's really not risky as long as you stick to sensible voltages and keep an eye on temps under heavy load.

Honestly it's not a very good time to be upgrading ATM with DDR4 and GPU prices the way they are. I would either stick with the DDR3 you have or perhaps upgrade to 16gb if you're going to commit to keeping the CPU you have for another couple of years (which you should be absolutely fine doing, I'm on a 4770k that is fine with everything I throw at it)

You should probably be able to get £100 for your 280x so that could go towards a new GPU. I went down the route of 2 780Tis in SLI which was NOT the best idea but for around £200 gives me performance to trouble a 980ti in titles that support it, which at the moment is good value. I could never recommend someone go with SLI due to incompatibility with a growing number of games so a 980 or 980 ti should be a nice upgrade if you can find one for a sensible price.
 
britain4 said:
As pointed out the CPU is absolutely fine but you should look into overclocking it to get some more life out of it. It's really not risky as long as you stick to sensible voltages and keep an eye on temps under heavy load.

Honestly it's not a very good time to be upgrading ATM with DDR4 and GPU prices the way they are. I would either stick with the DDR3 you have or perhaps upgrade to 16gb if you're going to commit to keeping the CPU you have for another couple of years (which you should be absolutely fine doing, I'm on a 4770k that is fine with everything I throw at it)

You should probably be able to get £100 for your 280x so that could go towards a new GPU. I went down the route of 2 780Tis in SLI which was NOT the best idea but for around £200 gives me performance to trouble a 980ti in titles that support it, which at the moment is good value. I could never recommend someone go with SLI due to incompatibility with a growing number of games so a 980 or 980 ti should be a nice upgrade if you can find one for a sensible price.
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what about throwing 500 all at the 1070 would it fit in my mother board with my ram ?
 
higher the res you play, more system ram you'll be using - and then games played also effects amount of ram needed, can max out 16gb on city sklines easily with few mods - hit 24GB when I have all 32 tiles unlocked!
 
how easy will it be to upgrade a you?

and i dont know the exact specs of my ram is there a way to find this out, and will another 8gb have to b3 the exact model i already have?
 
I would put first priority on a new GPU, then after that some more RAM. Although you can tweak stuff it's really not going to make much difference. A new GPU however, may well be the most expensive option, but it's going to yield a pretty spectacular boost.
 
robwigan said:
how easy will it be to upgrade a you?

and i dont know the exact specs of my ram is there a way to find this out, and will another 8gb have to b3 the exact model i already have?
Click to expand...

It helps if you get the same as you already have, although it's not critical. The simplest way to find out exactly what it is, is to gently remove one stick and read the product number off the back of it. It will be DDR3, probably 1600, but you may well be able to get more of the same stuff since DDR3 is still widely sold. Even if you can't get the same make you should be able to get the same spec.
 
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