So many options now.. what do?

Deehjay

Deehjay

Deehjay

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So I made a thread a while back about a potential upgrade to my current system but I honestly couldn't come to a final judgement and I'm at the point now where are are many decisions to be had. I have around £600 give or take to spend on an upgrade and I want one soon, so no waiting around for Broadwell or 3XX series unless it comes within the next couple of months.

Here is my current spec:

i5-2500 (locked) @4.0
MSI R9 280X
8GB 1600
250gb Samsung 840 Evo
BeQuiet 600w
AsRock Z68

So I had a few potential ideas in mind:

1. Buy a second hand 280X and run it in CF with my current 280X. Would require a purchase of a new motherboard, so I was thinking about getting a Z97 board with CF capabilities alongside an i5-4690k. Would require a new psu (I think?)

2. Replace the 280X with a 290X (they have some reference cards available atm mega cheap) and maybe buy something else alongside it?

3. Replace the 280X with a GTX 970 and buy a G-Sync monitor. I game at 1080p and it seems like a nice feature but I don't know if it's justifiable to spend £300 on a monitor with that capability and miss out on other upgrades. The 970 also has features such as the DX12 support, DSR etc etc..

There may be more options but this is all I could conjure up for now. I game at 1080p and mostly play WoW, although I'm looking to play some of the upcoming AAA titles which seem to be pretty demanding. WoW is majorly CPU dependent for now, but it's becoming more reliant on the GPU with the next expansion as far as I'm aware.
 
Option 3 out of those for me. The improvement will be immediate and quite pronounced, especially if you get a good monitor.

Why not get an unlocked 3570K and overclock, and a quicker GPU instead? Stay away from a reference 290X, horrible throttling when pushed and very loud fans. There's a reason they're cheap

The PSU is fine if staying with a single GPU
 
Going to be honest any of those upgrades are a tiny bit pointless.

2500 - 4690k - gain 10% + OC ability = £250

The 280x is still a great card but paying for a new motherboard to run SLI is a bit sideways.

I say wait til New CPU's as has well isn't a huge jump at all.
 
ExRayTed said:
Option 3 out of those for me. The improvement will be immediate and quite pronounced, especially if you get a good monitor.

Why not get an unlocked 3570K and overclock, and a quicker GPU instead? Stay away from a reference 290X, horrible throttling when pushed and very loud fans. There's a reason they're cheap

The PSU is fine if staying with a single GPU
Click to expand...

The possibility of getting a 3570k is definitely something that is possible, since Ivybridge is compatible with Z68, right? Would it require a BIOS update? Haven't touched it since I got it in '11

I definitely also think the third option would be the best, and it'd be nice to have a good monitor as my main screen as I've had these generic cheap Philips ones for far too long. Would also allow me to use Nvidia Surround in some games since I'll have 3 monitors.

I know it seems a little pointless but as I said I've got the itch for an upgrade and I really want a nice monitor for the upcoming AAA titles, and with the G-Sync module it'll make for an even better experience.
 
Most Z68 board's should take a Ivy Bridge cpu, do you know the actual model of your motherboard.
 
Sorry for the bump. Apologies if it's against the rules. Would a 980 be overkill for 1080p 144 hz, and would it bottleneck the i5-2500/3570k?
 
Agreed with above. The 970 will cope well with 144hz and is way better value. But the 980 isn't overkill, though I'll make light work of 1080p.

A bottleneck will only be tiny if anything, just ensure you have the biggest overclock you can on your CPU.
 
Deehjay said:
There may be more options but this is all I could conjure up for now. I game at 1080p and mostly play WoW, although I'm looking to play some of the upcoming AAA titles which seem to be pretty demanding. WoW is majorly CPU dependent for now, but it's becoming more reliant on the GPU with the next expansion as far as I'm aware.
Click to expand...

WoW is going to become more GPU reliant with the next expansion but an R9 280X still should be more than enough I suspect,especially since they are ditching MSAA and replacing it with less intensive AA methods.

With more demanding titles - what are they??
 
I know the 970 is definitely more efficient in terms of price:performance, I was just wondering if the performance increase from the 970 > 980 would be enough to warrant spending the extra £100 or so. It seems like I'll be going with the 970 alongside a nice G-Sync monitor although a couple of the ~£300 21:9 monitors have caught my eye, some of those look stunning.
 
update your bios, then go to the MM and get
1) a 2500k/3570k
2) a heatsink for overclocking
3) and a 290(x)...

...and profit. all for not much more than a new 970.
 
With a 280x you should surely be able to run most things max at 1080p? Especially things like WoW. Why not save up for another generation of cards/cpus?
 
cwgk91 said:
With a 280x you should surely be able to run most things max at 1080p? Especially things like WoW. Why not save up for another generation of cards/cpus?
Click to expand...

I could possibly wait a while and see what happens with the supposed 3XX series, but I really wanted a beastly monitor and found the AOC one with G-Sync for £320 odd. I suppose I could get another monitor instead, was thinking about the BenQ XL2720Z, and then wait to see what happens GPU-wise.

WoW is pretty CPU dependent right now but that's changing in WoD but we won't know for certain how it'll balance out until it's here.
 
G-sync is pretty awesome I have to say, running a swift at the moment with twin 980s. But the flip side is that it'll begin getting cheaper, and begin getting it with better panels pretty soon Id think. Colours definitely aren't as good as my 1440p IPS, but gameplay is epic.

If you're definitely going to get a new monitor then I would recommend one with G-sync. but if you don't need a new monitor then it may be worth holding off a bit to check what happens towards christmas with sales/new products.

Having said that, new stuff will always be just about to come out - just got to take the plunge sometimes :D
 
A new monitor is 100% something I want to purchase within the next couple of months, want something mean as I've been using generic 60hz 22 inch monitors for 3 years now. Do you have a vague idea of when the 3XX series of equivalent may be released? I think if it's any further than Q1 of 2015 then I may as well just go for a 970 along with a G-Sync enabled monitor.
 
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No idea I'm afraid, haven't heard any solid rumours. If you want to go for it now, definitely 970 with G-sync would be a great plan!
 
Thinking of potentially upgrading to Haswell for now with an i7-4790k maybe and then leaving GPU for later; it seems I'll have a bit more cash to splash out so I think I could wait til around February and then if nothing's released regarding the 3XX series go for a 970/980 alongside a nice ROG Swift.
 
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