What would you upgrade?

Varwen

Varwen

Varwen

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312
First post - woo!

Hello to everyone :D.

I've recently helped my younger brother choose parts for a budget gaming build, in which we chose an AMD FX-6350, a 2gb 7850, and 8gb of RAM.

While choosing the parts, it made me think a little about my own system - and while I'm not going to be able to upgrade until around christmas, I was wondering what you guys thought would need upgrading next (if anything).

I currently have:

Asus Crosshair V Formula 990FX
AMD Phenom II 955BE (3.6GHz)
Antec Kuhler h2o 620
8GB OCZ Platinum (4x2GB @ 1333MHz)
Powercolor 1GB 6870
500GB HD (Segate Barracuda IIRC, ~7200rpm)
Corsair TX750w

Playing on a 22" 1680x1050 monitor.

I do some basic programming (mostly for Websites, so nothing too intensive), but I'm looking to improve my performance in games. I understand that the majority of games are far more reliant on your graphics card than your CPU, but Is this still the case for someone like me who plays mostly MMO games? I play a fair bit of WoW, and get a little frustrated when my FPS plummets every time I enter a crowded city or raid, and I'm led to believe that this is more likely because of an insufficient CPU than the graphics settings being too high? I'd rather have to lower the graphics settings in a game because I've spent most of the budget on a decent CPU than not be able to play because my processor can't keep track of all the other players fast enough.

I'm hoping to play PlanetSide 2 a bit, but I've heard some bad things about the optimisation of the game and a fair few people have been saying that even their i7 3930k & 2x Titan machine rarely gets above 30fps.

Other games I like are Battlefield 3, L4D2, CS:GO, Day-Z, and classics like Portal. I'd like to be able to play Titanfall when it comes out, and I'd rather not have to upgrade again for another couple of years!

Would I be better off switching to an i5 or i7 system, or stick with AMD and go 6350 or 8350? Is 8 core worth it if I'm only playing games? Wait till Steamroller? Stick in an SSD? get a 7970, 770 or 680? Budget will (eventually) be about £450 plus whatever I get on ebay for the parts I upgrade.

What would you do?

Many thanks for taking the time to read this post xD.

Varwen
 
Welcome,

This will surely start an AMD vs intel debate, so what im going to say is what I WOULD DO...

I would grab a:

4670K
Z87X (gigabyte) motherboard
7950/7970/GTX 670/GTX 770 (depending on budget) - i'd probably get a 670 (£200 pre-order).
120/128GB SSD.

Like i said though depends on your budget.

Games like WOW are quite CPU heavy (though HT doesn't seem to work properly) so you want the most power from the least number of cores ideally, in my eyes. That's why i'd go for the 4670k over the 4770k or the 8350.

Though the 8350 may be a lot more cost efficent for you.

Whats your budget sir?
 
Budget would be up to £450, plus whatever I could get from ebay for my upgraded components.

I have no intention on starting an Intel vs AMD debate, and in my eyes Intel (currently) is the better gaming processor, provided you have money to throw at it. AMD was better value when I bought (and probably still is), hence the 955BE.

I was tempted to go for an i5 due to the lack of current support for hyperthreading, but was wondering if it really offered enough of a performance boost to warrant the £150-ish extra to upgrade the mobo, or weather this would be better spent on a faster graphics card? It does have the "ooh, shiny and new" appeal though - and I like shiny things.

Why the 4670k over the 3570k? also, I hope you mean the D3H and not the Z87X-OC Force, that made me cringe.

SSD would be lovely if I can afford it - although my steam library might not fit on a 120gb drive! I could always reserve that space for my favourite couple of games though...

Many thanks for the reply though, much appreciated!
 
An SSD is fine if you use a second HDD for storing your games on, I doubt many store games on the primary SSD these days. So you could use your 500gb drive for storage.

As for graphics, the GTX 660 has been shown as the cheapest GPU to provide playable minimum frame rates on high settings with a single 1080p monitor in some recent articles. Surpassing the HD 7850, and though cheaper,on an even keel with the HD 7870. As you only have a single monitor, you have to ask what gains would you realistically obtain with an uber GPU.

Most of your parts could be re-used, you could probably just upgrade the CPU/Mobo/memory 1st? Using what funds you regain from selling towards what you may need next.

Reason for suggesting faster memory is due to reading a CPC article where it was showed to improve speed with multitasking with Haswell by up to 20% over 1600Mhz. I bought 2400Mhz myself, quite simply due to it only costing a little more than a lower speed kit.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £197.99
1 x KFA2 GeForce GTX 660 EX OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with a free copy of 3DMark advanced edition £143.99
1 x MSI Z87-G45 Gaming Series Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £116.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £86.99
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual CHannel Kit (PV38G213C1K) £59.99
Total : £617.34 (includes shipping : £9.50).



I would also hesitate to ask, but considering it is a single monitor with a single GPU set up, what sort of increased frame rates and game improvements would changing from AMD to Intel yeild?

From what I remember the motherboard you currently have was very well reviewed, would faster memory not improve matters? Is the Piledriver 8320 a better CPU?

Maybe you could upgrade the memory and GPU 1st, and if that does not provide what you want, then move from AMD to Intel if there is a significant FPS difference?

YOUR BASKET
1 x KFA2 GeForce GTX 660 EX OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with a free copy of 3DMark advanced edition £143.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £124.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £86.99
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual CHannel Kit (PV38G213C1K) £59.99
Total : £427.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).



Seems to me changing your memory and GPU would be the simpler option, as they can be transferred later.
 
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I'd stick with your current graphics card for now. The CPU upgrade (Intel 4670K or 4770K) mentioned above will give a significant fps increase in all of the source engine games listed. You can do a graphics card upgrade later if required - I'd wait to see how the next-gen AMD cards pan out.
 
sadbuttrue said:
I'd stick with your current graphics card for now. The CPU upgrade (Intel 4670K or 4770K) mentioned above will give a significant fps increase in all of the source engine games listed. You can do a graphics card upgrade later if required - I'd wait to see how the next-gen AMD cards pan out.
Click to expand...

The opposite really. Source games gain massively from a GPU upgrade and next to nothing from a CPU upgrade. Same with BF3. WoW is the game that wants CPU grunt.
 
sadbuttrue said:
I guess I'm biased in my desire for a stable 300fps in source games at low-medium detail.
Click to expand...

Why bother when there is no benefit above 120fps, correct me if I am wrong?

Personally I still have fun gaming even on an old E8500 (Including Crysis 3) so in many cases I think people should question what advice they get, and look at what benefits they will get in minimal fps by changing from an AMD to Intel set up, before ever realizing any current bottlenecks with a GPU suited to their monitor and resolution requirements.
 
Getting >120fps with 60Hz monitors is only useful for high benchmark results.

Switching out the CPU and board is quite a big thing and sometimes too readily recommended. A GPU upgrade would give a nice boost to Source, CryEngine and Frostbite games (and essentially all console-type games). For WoW a CPU upgrade would be needed - an overclocked 8320 would give a bit of a boost, but an Intel CPU is necessary for the best performance in that (this may change with Steamroller, but that's a bit of a wait).
 
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Thanks for the replies everyone!

I'm not too worried about my performance in steam games - the FPS and settings I'm getting atm are perfectly OK. I'm not much of a storymode kind of player xD.

I found this:


and was wondering what the general opinion of anyone who isn't a die hard fanboy as to weather the extra cost of an i5 3570k or 4670k is worth it. Given that the 8350 is cheaper, better at multitasking and in my case wouldn't require a mobo upgrade, would it be stupid to go for the 8350, grab an SSD and stick in a 7970?

Would getting more/faster RAM increase my performance significantly? (I've read that AMD is more dependant on fast memory than the Intel chips - would upgrading from 8GB @1333MHz to say 16GB @ 1800MHz make a huge difference?)

Thanks again!
 
If you're happy with the performance in games like WoW, then it'd be cheaper to stick in an 8320 (don't bother with the 8350). You'd be getting the same performance in games like BF3 and LFD2 between that and an i5.

Switching from 8GB 1333MHz RAM to 1600MHz or 1866MHz would improve things a little, nothing like a new graphics card though.
 
If you play good numbers of mmos, forget about the current AMD CPU, and move your platform to Intel and grab a i5 and overclock the nuts of it.

If you refer to stay AMD, then I would strongly recommend you to wait for Steamroller and see what it brings, as the current FX CPUs are just too underpowered in games that don't use more than 4 cores.

PlanetSide 2 is a extremely CPU demanding game would use mostly just 2 cores, which is why people with i7 3930k would barely be any faster than people who use i5 (and having 2 Titans or whatnot ain't gonna be much benefit, as the game is heavily CPU limited...a graphic card of overclocked GTX670/7950 level will be enough to hold 60fps- when CPU is not holding them back). At least a heavily overclocked i5 would be able to hold 25fps-30fps and borderline playable on busy server...2 cores of a AMD CPU you would most likely have frame rate dipping down to unplayable level of 10-20fps.

If all you play is BF, Crysis type games from EA then it would make sense since to go with the FX8 as they will benefit from using all the cores, but if you play decent numbers of games that use 4 cores or less (particularly CPU demanding games like mmos, strategy games etc), the i5 is simply a much better choice and well worth the investment.
 
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If you aren't going to be able to change before christmas, I'd hold on and ask the question again nearer the time. A lot can change in 4/5 months
 
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