Upgrade i5 1st gen to 6th gen, and keep GFX card?

dabozuk

dabozuk

dabozuk

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Hi, I currently a have an old 1st gen i5 desktop/gaming PC:
  • i5-650
  • Radeon 7870 Tahiti LE.
  • 8Gb RAM (not sure of spec, basic/cheap)
  • 128Gb Samsung 840 SSD + a 500GB HDD
  • The case, Foxconn mobo, PSU etc are are all pretty basic
I want to upgrade the system mainly for gaming (open world FPS/FPRPG), but am not sure which route to go - GPU vs CPU/mobo/RAM.

The 7870LE is a pretty decent performer, and I've already tried a GTX970 in my system which didn't make a significant difference in games like Witcher 3. A "TomsHardware 3 tier" upgrade would take me to a GTX980 or R9 Fury at least and that's around £400, the same price as a barebones 6th gen i5 in a Z170 with 16Gb of fast RAM.

My feeling is to go for a barebones upgrade, then a year or so later upgrade the GFX card. But I'd like to know what sort of gaming performance improvement going from 1st gen to 6th gen i5 (on Z170 with fast RAM) could make?

Is this a sensible approach or should I just keep upgrading the GFX card in an old system until the interface format changes?

Are there any sites that do comparisons of the same GFX card in different systems going as far back as 1st gen i5 up to 6th gen?

Cheers
 
Stock to stock upgrade I think you will see about twice the CPU performance max (what googled synthetic benchmarks say but im sceptical) In terms of FPS though, this will likely be little considering your current GPU grunt. Your minimum FPS would definitely go up and it is worth the upgrade imo as the minimums is what kills it for me in games. Then grab a GPU upgrade.

What is the budget? could do the whole upgrade probably but you might need to look at changing the PSU.

Do you know the PSU model? Take a picture of the table on the side of the PSU and post it here if you cant find the model number.
 
Cheers for reply. Sorry, I should have made it clear, I would get a new case and PSU with the CPU upgrade.
Keep: GFX card, DVD, SDD, HDD, some cables
Replace: CPU, Mobo, RAM, PSU, Case, some cables

Budget wise, I guess £400 to £500

I have a feeling the staggered upgrade approach is the right thing to do, but I think I may be disappointed with the 2 modest increases in FPS instead of a single PC replacement.

If I were to replace the entire PC, I'd be budgeting £900, but I can't afford that in one go.
 
The first upgrade will be modest because the 'un-upgraded' part would essentially be holding the new one back. When the GPU goes in after the CPU, things will be great.

I think for that money i would be looking at a 5820k combo and a new case. Then do the PSU and GPU upgrade together afterwards.
 
Thanks for the advice. The 5820K is an i7 right? Is that worth going for over an i5 6th gen?

Also, do you know of a site that compares systems around the GFX card?
 
dabozuk said:
Thanks for the advice. The 5820K is an i7 right? Is that worth going for over an i5 6th gen?

Also, do you know of a site that compares systems around the GFX card?
Click to expand...

Rather than use any site in particular, find benchmarks specific to relevant games. Dont expect the same FPS difference as your GPU is a fair bit slower than any used in modern CPU comparison but benchmarks will give you a good idea of what sort of fps you can expect once both the CPU and GPU upgrade is done.
 
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