SNOW DAY upgrade question..

adamknox · 20 Dec 2010 at 09:48

Sitting at home today on this glorious snow day...I’ve noticed how..un-upgraded my pc is looking

And seeing As I broke up with my girlfriend last week. I have about £300 free to spend In Jan

(we were saving for a holiday..sort of)
I have posted a similar question a few months back but as things have changed so much, i thought id do a bit of a repost.
My spec:
955 Overclocked to 3.7Ghz
4Gb of ddr3 ram
Sapphire 5870
XFX 850W Black Edition Power Supply
windows 7 Home 64bit
two monitors 1:22 inch Samsung (a rubbish one but still nothing majorly bad) 2: 24inch Samsung a pretty good monitor that I’m very happy with
razer copperhead mouse, G11 keyboard.

P.s NO SUGGESTIONS FOR SSD, I HAD ONE ONCE BUT SOLD IT BECAUSE IT WAS THE BIGGEST WASTE OF £200 I EVER SPENT. ...ty

I mostly use my pc for gaming. The games i mostly play on are MMO's & rpgs, with a bit of varity thrown in, in the form of FPS's & Strats. I mostly aim for my pc to run my games on High setting (based on a game that you can use Very high settings apart from metro) With a fps above 50 at all times. So what upgrade option would I see the most benifit from?

Op.1: Cpu upgrade + Mobo Upgrading
Buy A second hand i7 920 and Oc'ing it upto 4Ghz, with a new mobo (for around £160) but keeping my duel channel RAM. I feel GPU i enough for most of todays MMO’s and tomorrows too. I have heard though that the CPU will become an even bigger part of helping MMOs/rpgs run in the next year or so.

Op.2 Selling the graphic card.
Selling my 5870 and getting a card that warrants an upgrade. (not just spending £300 for an extra 5 fps -_-

Op.3 Xfire
Keep my 5870 and Xfire it with a second 5870. Seeing as the prices of 5870's have dropped quite a bit in last few months. This could be pretty good...altho the noise and heat could get a bit to much -_- But seeing as 5870 is coming to the end if its active life, this may be a bit of a exspensive mistake.

Thanks for any advice you may have. - Adam-knox

razorback09 · 20 Dec 2010 at 10:11

Depends what games exactly, some games are cpu heavy which i would say wait for sandy bridge since it comes out 9th jan.

Some games are gpu heavy, then id say get a 2nd 5870. Or drop it, get a 6970 and then buy a 2nd when you got the money.

At the moment i only really play black ops, which is very cpu heavy, hardly uses any gpu at all. I myself are waiting to see how they play out, and if its worth investing in one.

adamknox · 20 Dec 2010 at 10:25

razorback09 said:
Some games are gpu heavy, then id say get a 2nd 5870. Or drop it, get a 6970 and then buy a 2nd when you got the money.
QUOTE]

Isnt the 6970 not that much better than a 5870? it does chandle data slightly better tho (spesh dx11) but not worthy of an upgrade from a 5870. ..thats what ive ehard anyway been out of graphic cards a while lol i dont know my stuff any more :'(

EDIT: sorry I read up on it and found its slightly slower than two 5870's but is louder & is a lot hotter. my bad.

Howitzer · 20 Dec 2010 at 10:33

Your spec looks pretty top notch to me! there's not really anything better than a 5870 out there atm (with reasonable bang4buck).

I would suggest either:
- selling your smaller monitor to match it with the other.

- or getting an SSD (a large one at that price so you can fit your games on) and smashing those loading times!

- or if you really want, x-fire with another 5870 if you feel you really need it.

My vote would be SSD for the reason above.

adamknox · 20 Dec 2010 at 10:39

Howitzer said:
- or getting an SSD (a large one at that price so you can fit your games on) and smashing those loading times!

QUOTE]

I had a SSD i wasnt impressed and sold it meant to put that in O.P loL! Ty i think ill deff look at a second 5870 :$ they look pretty imba

adamknox · 20 Dec 2010 at 23:23

very very VERY shameless Bump... I just posted this question on yahoo answers..too which i got two very noob answers lmao..

"Easy upgrade choice. Upgrade your ram because your rig can play any game of today at 1920x1080 and still have a great fps. Try adding another 2gb ram and you'll get about 5fps-12fps more depending on the game your playing or even add 4gb instead to get 10fps-22fps. I'd say opinion 1 is good if you decide not to go with my idea"

and the other called me "one of thos freaks that want to play crysis at 60fps on MAX". when i clearly put in the message i was aiming at 'high' on all games and wasted intrested in very high -_-.. So plzz help me

... P.s merry christmas.

Quixote · 20 Dec 2010 at 23:30

Well, the guy talking about more ram is obviously talking nonsense, 4Gig is plenty for gaming & in any case, don;t know where he has plucked those random fps figures from apart from thin air.
Really, I don't think you need an upgrade, you need to outlay a lot of cash in any area to see a fairly small performance boost. Is your 5870 really not up to high settings in games ?

adamknox · 20 Dec 2010 at 23:38

Quixote said:
Well, the guy talking about more ram is obviously talking nonsense, 4Gig is plenty for gaming & in any case, don;t know where he has plucked those random fps figures from apart from thin air.
Really, I don't think you need an upgrade, you need to outlay a lot of cash in any area to see a fairly small performance boost. Is your 5870 really not up to high settings in games ?

Lmao i know >< i dont want to sound like an arrogant nerd..but i did laugh to my self when he upped the Fps even from 6Gb to 8Gb lmao.

Hmm...Yeah its doing okay but on Wow (since last patch) fps dropped from 80 to around a constant 40-60 -_- (i know thats more about the engine) and AoC runs horribley with constant fps drops same with most of the otehr new MMO's (aion, LOTRO, etc). Seeing as DC universe and Star wars online is coming out very soon. I wanted a machine that could handle them with no problem. I seriously HATE running games on high settings with fps around 30-40fps... If i wnated that id play my ps3 lol.

danewesley · 21 Dec 2010 at 01:30

i dont see the problem with your spec? the drop with the new
patch cant be that bad because i have a 955 at stock and a
5850 at stock and max wow out with alomost constant 60fps
(except for in busy areas), like others say, 5870's are such a
good price now id be inclined to get one of those. otherwise
save a bit and wait for jan.

adamknox · 21 Dec 2010 at 02:07

danewesley said:
i dont see the problem with your spec? the drop with the new
patch cant be that bad because i have a 955 at stock and a
5850 at stock and max wow out with alomost constant 60fps
(except for in busy areas), like others say, 5870's are such a
good price now id be inclined to get one of those. otherwise
save a bit and wait for jan.

I cant even have it on ultra -_- omg.. its juddering every few seconds etc i have to just be happy with High lol What res are u running at out of intrest

Maybe theres something wrong with my pc? >< lol

danewesley · 21 Dec 2010 at 02:17

1920 x 1080, i sometimes game in a window, not only in wow but in all the games i play, i seem to be able to aim better in fps games etc and i like to see my itunes too. but yeh nothing wrong with my set up.

adamknox · 21 Dec 2010 at 15:41

reported

lethiX · 21 Dec 2010 at 16:09

Wow (since last patch) fps dropped from 80 to around a constant 40-60

Well maybe a cpu upgrade is an idea. I defo wouldnt bother upgrading the 5870 as cards with slightly better performance are much more expensive - and im unsure if wow supports crossfirereerereddd cards :/

I play wow on ultra with around 120fps mostly unless in busy places with the 5870.

adamknox · 21 Dec 2010 at 17:02

lethiX said:
Well maybe a cpu upgrade is an idea. I defo wouldnt bother upgrading the 5870 as cards with slightly better performance are much more expensive - and im unsure if wow supports crossfirereerereddd cards :/

I play wow on ultra with around 120fps mostly unless in busy places with the 5870.

Well 5870 was a damn good card last year (not the best out there) but it should be still able to run games for a year or two

..i think ill deff go for the i7 upgrade.

ty everyone

[WU-TANG]GZA · 21 Dec 2010 at 17:11

adamknox said:
Well 5870 was a damn good card last year (not the best out there) but it should be still able to run games for a year or two ..i think ill deff go for the i7 upgrade. ty everyone

I don't think you should go for the i7 upgrade tbh

1.) Doubt you would notice THAt much performance boost
2.) Sandy Bridge out next year

Also, I know you had a bad experience with an SSD before but I've never been happier since I got mine 9 months ago or so - maybe it wasn't setup properly or maybe you chose the wrong SSD

For me the OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB at £176 is brilliant and it should improve your system....like I said, don't know what happened with yours but mine was certainly not worst spent £200.

adamknox · 21 Dec 2010 at 18:03

[WU-TANG]GZA;18048922 said:
I don't think you should go for the i7 upgrade tbh

1.) Doubt you would notice THAt much performance boost
2.) Sandy Bridge out next year

Also, I know you had a bad experience with an SSD before but I've never been happier since I got mine 9 months ago or so - maybe it wasn't setup properly or maybe you chose the wrong SSD

For me the OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB at £176 is brilliant and it should improve your system....like I said, don't know what happened with yours but mine was certainly not worst spent £200.

Did it improve the fps of your games tho? or just the loading time? My pc starts up in about 30-45 seconds. Im happy with that tbh

maybe when u start getting 500Gb ssd's. My one was a corsair..something i also borrowed an intell...vx? from work. I noticed hardly any diff from the corsair. I had it set up fine. The start ups were fast .. but no way worth £200.

(this isnt aimed at you, as you were just said it in passing) but it does anger me people on here who /pm you (which ive just been) or spam message boards with "SSD's are the way to go!!" When ever any one posts an upgrade question that isnt even related to something a SSD would improve. I can think of a few games SSD would improve (FO3, oblivion, lord of the rings online etc). in ost though fps wise it wont prive your game

Faztastic · 21 Dec 2010 at 18:37

How about your case?

corsair 600D...

Rewire it nice and neatly, drop the temps in your pc allowing for a little bit more of an overclock, this occupies your time gives you something to do and slightly cheaper and you are all set for future expansions.

because to be honest.. all games i play with my 5850 at 1920x1080 run flawlessly bar metro, i dont see the need to upgrade my card unless i have dual monitors.. and a 5870 should be even better.

All this new hardware is good but wheres the games to take advantage of it... there wont be many untill next generation consoles

iBSOD · 21 Dec 2010 at 18:44

Weakest part of your system is CPU. And instead of getting a 920 and changing mobo, get a 1100T?

adamknox · 21 Dec 2010 at 18:49

Faztastic said:
How about your case?

I have an antec 1200

my cpu cooler is a corsair h50 all in one water lol

i had it overclocked to 3.8 for well over 6 months but temps were allways around 50c. While it was 10c in the safe zone, I wasnt keen on the temps when it was a VERY hot day. they reached 58c-59c

After dropping voltatge and dropping it to 3.7Ghz i noticed no diff to performance and temps dropped to around 42-45

Randomface74 · 21 Dec 2010 at 18:51

Your system is fine, take the cash you have an start a savings account for your next clean build.