Should I go GPU or CPU? which upgrade should I do.

[hyperst]

Thinking about upgrading something but unsure what I should do.

Was thinking of getting another 480 for some SLI or was thinking I should go SB and motherboard, namely the Z77 chipset that is coming.

If I go GPU it means me sticking with my i5 750 for at least another year and it will cost me at least around £350 to do it as I will need a new PSU at least 850w corsair and another water block.

If I go with motherboard and SB2500k I think it will cost me in the region of about £170 to do after I sell on my cpu+ board +ram.

What should I do as I can only do one and have been looking at SB for a while and these new Z77 look so nice but on the other side if I go SLI I will get a boost in game, mainly Bf3.

 

[F1aw1ess]

id go ivy bridge and z77 especially as you'd have to buy another block for a 480 to keep them in check although another gpu would almost certainly give u better fps gain for your money, looking at the bigger picture though your following upgrade path would fit nicely into a straight change to kepler or the equiv at the time

 

[cmndr_andi]

TBH, a 4GHz i5 750 won't be holding you back in many games - even with a GTX 480 SLI setup. Therefore, upgrading the CPU/motherboard won't yield much of a performance increase for a ~£250 outlay.

As for what to upgrade - you could get the EVGA GTX 480 GPU that is currently on offer - but as you say that will also require a new more beefy PSU. Instead, I would personally suggest you hold on for a month and wait for the new Nvidia Kepler cards like the GTX 680 to arrive. This may offer you a better option to greatly increase your gaming performance without needing a new PSU and running a very warm SLI setup.

 

[setter]

850w will be pretty severely pushed with gtx 480's in sli, particularly if you oc the cards and the cpu.

 

[hyperst]

850w will be pretty severely pushed with gtx 480's in sli, particularly if you oc the cards and the cpu.

I thought 850w was considered plenty for SLI 480's, I run the one I have at 850mhz so would do the same if I got another, this is getting trickier, really don't know what to do.

As suggested by cmndr_andi, holding out for Kepler seems a good idea as well.

Now got three options to think about.

I only use 1 screen at 1920x1080 but run BF3 mainly on low settings with a few on high to get good fps and it's totally playable so that is why I am swayed to do the CPU upgrade but on the other hand going from a 4ghz i5 750 is not going to most noticeable, damn this is hard.

 

[setter]

Ive seen a few users on here killing motherboards with high clocked sli gtx 470's and i7 cpu's with 850w psu's. I run a corsair hx 850 myself with the spec in sig, though the cards are on a mild clock of 750mhz on stock voltage.

 

[deusexlumina]

you could always just not spend the money you have a gtx 480 with a 4ghz quad....thats plenty for everything at the moment.

if you dont have an ssd, then spend the money on that. much more worthwhile upgrade.

 

[IvanDobskey]

Nearly all current PC games are just Xbox 360 ports, and you don't need a cutting edge rig to play those. A 480 and a 4Ghz i5 are probably overkill for any current game anyway. I'd save my money personally. But if I had to spend some cash, i'd probably wait for the GTX680 and then sell the 480 to offset the cost.