Where should I upgrade - if at all?

EddScott

EddScott

EddScott

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Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
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Location
Pembrokeshire
It's been a while since I upgraded my gaming PC.


Currently:-

i5 2500K 3.30Ghz (2011)
Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Intel Z68 Motherboard (2011)
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB 1600MHz (2011)
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 4096MB GDDR5 (2014)

Keyboard is a ducky shine, case is a coolermaster (the cool military green one) razor mouse and a Hazro 27" monitor. OS is on a 128GD SDD and everything else on a 1.5TB HDD. All these are fine TBH. The CPU is cooled with an off the shelf corsair water cooling unit.

For all it's sins, I really like the look of No Mans Land and I've found more modern games are requiring me to back the settings off. It's taken a while considering the "brains" are 5 years old. Helped by the GPU I guess.

So, being lazy and rather looking myself, can I get some idea as to what upgrade paths I could take? Prefer to stick with Intel and Nvidia. Budget max £750 - CPU, GPU, RAM and Mobo. Not sure whether the drives need upgrading but wouldn't have thought so and monitor is fine to me. I guess I could get a 4K monitor at some point in the future although I'm stuck with 27".
 
Graphics card. I've had an i5 2500k since June 2011 and have gone 460-670-780-980 and have seen a performance increase every time. And OC the 2500k. Pick up a cheap 980 and you'll be laughing for another 18 months imo.

Or a 980ti and carry it over in that 18 months. Or SLI it when you do.
 
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Yup as Tess said, GPU, and OC the CPU. More RAM wouldn't hurt either but it might limit the overclock you can achieve.

I wouldn't personally go down the SLI route on that board though, Gen2 PCIe x8 might slow SLI down a little, while a single card will be fine with x16 lanes.

If you go for a 9 series or 10 series Nvidia card make sur eyou update the BIOS and stablise your overclock first.
 
Overclock your cpu, get another 8gb of ram and a 1070. Job done :)

Don't even really need the ram to be honest. Might as well as its so cheap though.
 
Bigger SSD and a GTX1070 would be my choice if I was in that position. More RAM is useful to have but not essential.
 
That isn't entirely true - there are some games like GTA V where a 980ti even overclocked won't catch a 1070 and a lot where the 1070 will still edge it even OC'd 980ti v stock 1070 like Frostbite 3 based games (depending a bit on settings).

EDIT: That said I'd only go for the 1070 at like £360 they simply are taking the mick above that price.
 
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You don't even need more ram.

I have the same motherboard and CPU and recently purchased a 1070. That will be good enough for another year or so until there is a completely new generation of CPU's out.

So if you have a good enough power supply, upgrade your graphics card and you are fine.

Are you overclocking your CPU?
 
Rroff said:
That isn't entirely true - there are some games like GTA V where a 980ti even overclocked won't catch a 1070 and a lot where the 1070 will still edge it even OC'd 980ti v stock 1070 like Frostbite 3 based games (depending a bit on settings).

EDIT: That said I'd only go for the 1070 at like £360 they simply are taking the mick above that price.
Click to expand...

True its not equal so my wording was bad, but at that price difference even as a 1070 owner I'd pick the 980Ti :D
 
Another one for GPU. The 2500k is still a cracking cpu, if you've got / can get a decent cpu cooler you can overclock the processor for an extra performance boost.
 
I have a Gelid Tranquillo but really as long as you're using something decent and not the stock Intel cooler you'll be good. What cooler do you have now?

Also my i5 does 4.2GHz with just a multiplier change. I dind't even need to increase the voltage or anything.

Also, to the OP, Lemin above makes a good point. What PSU do you have?
 
I have something very similar to this but a cheaper version that ocuk does not stock,

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £81.89
(includes shipping: £9.90)
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Sitting on a 2600K ( i think slightly hotter than a 2500k IIRC ) and have it overclocked to 4.5 ghz in the most cpu intensive games (worse case scenario for me) it gets to about 85c with the fans on 1100rpm.

But like above as long as you are using something " decent " that someone here will know the best cooling for the money you will be fine :)
 
Thanks everyone for the replies.

Although my system is setup for easy OC'ing I've never really bothered. I did push the CPU up to 4.5Ghz and it seems fine. Temps at full chat went into the low 80s but I had the fans turned way down.

The 760GTX on the other hand was fairly reluctant to OC using Afterburner. I fiddled with it for a bit and Heaven either ran or it crashed. Tried a little FO4 and it crashed even with just a mild OC so I've taken it back to stock.

I see the 980Ti is like £320 but with the 1070s starting at £360, I'm happy to go the extra £40.

I'll do this first then look at changing the ram to 16GB although I think the Mobo only takes up to 2400 DDR3 so I don't have to go for the more expensive memory at the moment.
 
My PSU is an OCZ 600W. Will that be enough?

Showing my ignorance but why isn't RAM so important for gaming?

Is RAM useful for pictures? I use Lightroom for processing pics but not on a grand scale.
 
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