Logical first upgrade steps for gaming?

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MX-5 Dave

Gawd
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Jan 14, 2007
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So here is my rig

Core2duo E8500
4GB DDR3
ATI 4890 1GB
Vista Home 32bit
26" monitor 1920X1200


I am beginning the upgrade process, and will eventually be going to a Sandy Core chip, once they are more readily available, so for now I am going to do 8gb ram, Windows 7, and a video card.


I am going to start doing more current games (been just playing wow so my current rig was fine) and I like to have the eye candy cranked up. I am in the Rift beta, and I cant get the settings where I would like, to really enjoy it.


So, video card first? Or Windows 7 and 8gm ram first? (Win7 is part of that so that I can actually use the 8gb)

And what card? I have been looking at the HD6870, and would like to stay with an ATI card. Do I need to spend the extra to go to the 6970 or will the 6870 do the job?
I guess I am curious how much faster the 6870 is than my 4890, and how much faster is the 6970 than the 6870?




I know that is a big list of questions, but I am in the final steps of getting the funds together for round 1 of this upgrade.
 
Don't get the 6970, get the 6950 and "mod" it to a 6970. Dual-boot BIOS FTW!

You'll need Win7 64-bit first before you plop in 8GB of RAM like you stated.

Are you overclocking that CPU?
 
8GB RAM has very little benefit for gaming. Its good for working with big files like raw audio/video editing and large photoshop images.

GPU is the #1 thing to upgrade for gaming. At some point your CPU will bottleneck your new GPU so you should overclock the CPU to minimize the bottleneck.

When your new Sandybridge system is ready you can just bring over your GPU and leave the bottleneck on your old board with your old CPU.

I'd recommend a GTX 560. If you want to stay with ATI get a 6950 2GB and unlock it to a 6970.
 
Cant overclock. No idea what the problem is, even 1mhz and it crashes or just plain wont get past post. I have tried everything too :(




What is the sucess rate with unlocking the 6950 to a 6970? Is there a specific one I need to buy?
 
You could probably "get by" without a CPU upgrade for now, but I would really recommend that. GPU upgrade before the CPU upgrade though, I always go the other way around for the reason that I like changing my PC, but the GPU is more important. You would notice a benefit if you get a HD 6950 more than getting an i5 2500k(if you went sandy bridge). But both together would be fantastic.

HD 6950 2gb is probably the best card for the price right now $250 after MIR http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161355&cm_re=HD_6950-_-14-161-355-_-Product
 
GPU upgrade will leave him bottlenecked on the CPU. A CPU upgrade will leave him bottlenecked on the GPU...but not as badly.

If anything, first figure out why you can't OC. If you can figure out how to OC the CPU, then get a GPU upgrade.

Also, you've got 4GB of RAM...on a 32bit OS. Windows CANNOT see all 4GB, likely around 3.5GB unless you're using...oh, there's a mode that allows you to address it. Can't remember the name, but it's slow. I mean, SLOW.
 
rampantandroid said:
GPU upgrade will leave him bottlenecked on the CPU. A CPU upgrade will leave him bottlenecked on the GPU...but not as badly.

If anything, first figure out why you can't OC. If you can figure out how to OC the CPU, then get a GPU upgrade.

Also, you've got 4GB of RAM...on a 32bit OS. Windows CANNOT see all 4GB, likely around 3.5GB unless you're using...oh, there's a mode that allows you to address it. Can't remember the name, but it's slow. I mean, SLOW.
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And the CPU upgrade will not give him much performance compared to the GPU upgrade. I do agree with you in a way though, I would also go the CPU upgrade route just because I am kind of unimpressed with the latest generation of GPUs(They are good, but really its worth to wait until the next).

IMO OP, CPU upgrade(Socket overhaul, sandy bridge or 1336) and get windows 7 64-bit. Then when the next gen GPU's come out get one of those, since even though it will probably take a while for them to come out, its probably worth the wait.
 
rampantandroid said:
GPU upgrade will leave him bottlenecked on the CPU. A CPU upgrade will leave him bottlenecked on the GPU...but not as badly.

If anything, first figure out why you can't OC. If you can figure out how to OC the CPU, then get a GPU upgrade.

Also, you've got 4GB of RAM...on a 32bit OS. Windows CANNOT see all 4GB, likely around 3.5GB unless you're using...oh, there's a mode that allows you to address it. Can't remember the name, but it's slow. I mean, SLOW.
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He'll be bottlenecked either way as you say, but since most games are GPU limited its preferable to take the CPU bottleneck and upgrade the GPU for the biggest performance improvement.

8GB RAM over 4GB RAM for gaming is probably the last thing I'd upgrade, if at all. PAE is what lets 32bit Windows use more than 4GB but everyone should really run 64bit Windows, there's no reason not to.
 
jdof said:
He'll be bottlenecked either way as you say, but since most games are GPU limited its preferable to take the CPU bottleneck and upgrade the GPU for the biggest performance improvement.

8GB RAM over 4GB RAM for gaming is probably the last thing I'd upgrade, if at all. PAE is what lets 32bit Windows use more than 4GB but everyone should really run 64bit Windows, there's no reason not to.
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There's a great reason not to: if you're under 4GB of RAM. 64bit means memory addresses will take up twice as much memory to store, so a 64bit OS on a 2GB system means you'll actually use MORE memory than you would if you were to use a 32bit OS.

My point is that even if he pushes the GPU up, he'll likely see very little improvement. I personally go CPU first, then GPU...unless he can figure out how to OC that CPU. Which may even be possible...he might not have everything locked down quite right, who knows. But wrong forum for that discussion.

And yeah, PAE...but it's effing slow. Don't use it.
 
I had it overclocked for like a month, then it started crashing, since then, wont overclock AT ALL. Tried a new PS and different ram. I think the chip just decided it didnt like it. Doesnt matter what voltage, nothing, it just wont take an overclock.

Its weird, because if it was a chip issue, I would think it would be unstable at least somewhat, at default speeds, but its ROCK solid.







SO, I know a new GPU will leave me with a CPU bottlenck, same with a CPU leaving a GPU bottleneck,

BUT, the CPU I want isnt in the picture yet, so I am left with GPU, OS, RAM and so on.

One of the reasons I want to go to 8GB is that when not gaming, I tend to have like 10 things running at once on this machine, so I figure it could use the headroom.
 
MX-5 Dave said:
I had it overclocked for like a month, then it started crashing, since then, wont overclock AT ALL. Tried a new PS and different ram. I think the chip just decided it didnt like it. Doesnt matter what voltage, nothing, it just wont take an overclock.

Its weird, because if it was a chip issue, I would think it would be unstable at least somewhat, at default speeds, but its ROCK solid.







SO, I know a new GPU will leave me with a CPU bottlenck, same with a CPU leaving a GPU bottleneck,

BUT, the CPU I want isnt in the picture yet, so I am left with GPU, OS, RAM and so on.

One of the reasons I want to go to 8GB is that when not gaming, I tend to have like 10 things running at once on this machine, so I figure it could use the headroom.
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I have 12GB of RAM just so I can kill my pagefile. Works great, until firefox decides to nom on 2 GB of RAM per process open.

If that's all that's in the picture then, get the GPU, but don't expect to see any major improvement.
 
I am going to try to swing a 6950 and an OEM copy of WIN 7 when I get paid tomorrow. Depends if Frys has a decent deal on either.

If not, Ill have the weekend to think about it since I wont be able to get it into my acct till monday at that point.
 
MX-5 Dave said:
I am going to try to swing a 6950 and an OEM copy of WIN 7 when I get paid tomorrow. Depends if Frys has a decent deal on either.

If not, Ill have the weekend to think about it since I wont be able to get it into my acct till monday at that point.
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An OEM copy of windows 7 will tie your license to your current system. I'm not sure you will be able to use it again on your new system in the coming future.
 
Haiku214 said:
An OEM copy of windows 7 will tie your license to your current system. I'm not sure you will be able to use it again on your new system in the coming future.
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I have OEM copies of Vista on this machine and my spare box, both have gone though multiple motherboards just fine. On one of them I had to call microsoft to activate on the phone, but that took all of 10 min, I just had to explain that I rebuilt my comp a lot, they gave me a new key and I was good to go. All they care about is that you arent using it on multiple machines. As in more than one machine at a time basically.
You can replace everything about your machine, as long as that copy is used on YOUR machine.
 
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sushicide said:
SSD
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Somehow I doubt that will help with framerates.



Its definitely in the plan at some point, but not until I can get something in the 500gb range for a reasonable price. I dont even think they make a 500gb SSD at the normal consumer level now do they?
 
MX-5 Dave said:
Somehow I doubt that will help with framerates.



Its definitely in the plan at some point, but not until I can get something in the 500gb range for a reasonable price. I dont even think they make a 500gb SSD at the normal consumer level now do they?
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I don't see how you're having framerate issues really, my 4870 is still eating games up pretty well @ 1920x1080.

An SSD would be a solid improvement, a 6950 is a good choice as well.

EDIT: SSD for overall performance, not framerate in games.
 
Part of how much he will be bottlenecked is dependent on the resolution he is running at. If he runs at 1280x1024 then the cpu will be more of an issue but if he is running at 2560x1600 then the video card will be the issue. Either way in the end both components need an upgrade.
 
Cmustang87 said:
I don't see how you're having framerate issues really, my 4870 is still eating games up pretty well @ 1920x1080.

An SSD would be a solid improvement, a 6950 is a good choice as well.

EDIT: SSD for overall performance, not framerate in games.
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I only noticed any need since installing the RIFT demo. I have to turn a good amount of the eye candy down, where as I have been having everything maxed on WoW and Source based games.
 
Cmustang87 said:
I don't see how you're having framerate issues really, my 4870 is still eating games up pretty well @ 1920x1080.

An SSD would be a solid improvement, a 6950 is a good choice as well.

EDIT: SSD for overall performance, not framerate in games.
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But you need to format them once a year pretty much.
 
Cmustang87 said:
I don't see how you're having framerate issues really, my 4870 is still eating games up pretty well @ 1920x1080.

An SSD would be a solid improvement, a 6950 is a good choice as well.

EDIT: SSD for overall performance, not framerate in games.
Click to expand...

SSD would be such a waste for him. It would do nothing at all if you compare it to the other options. SSD's are good if your system is already pretty good but you need something to upgrade.
 
Well I made my move. I know a lot of people will facepalm at me for this, but I went with a 6970.

Here is why, I have always had shitty luck when it comes to OC'ing. Almost everything I have had, doesnt like to overclock as well as everyone elses, even when I have someone who I KNOW knows how to do it right, my stuff just has a high rate of not being as solid. And after doing a LOT of reading on the 6950>6970 flash, I have seen a decent amount of reports of heat issues, and I figure the 6970 would likely not have the same problem.

Also, honestly, I just like the idea of it just running that speed without having to overclock it. I know, call me a wuss lol. It is what it is. Plus, the way I look at it, I can now take this card and probably push it higher than I would have been able to push a flashed 6950.


So yeah I know, some people are probably sitting there thinking to themselves that I made a dumb move, and should have just done the 6950, but I am happy with my choice.




Now I just need to get the funds together for the 8GB ram, Windows 7 and go back to patiently waiting for Sandy Bridge chips to be more readlily available. I know I am bottlenecked right now, and will be till I get the new mobo/proc, but in the end I know what I want for the entire setup, so I may as well pick up what I can when I can :)
 
the 6970 is a good card. but i'm confused as to why you want 8gb of ram since you basically want a gaming machine. I run a machine with 4gb ram and while gaming AND watching movies at the same time i barely hit 3gb. I only really use more than 4gb when messing around in Blender.

Before going for memory you dont really need i'd invest in W7. Its cheaper and will help you out a lot more
 
Skirrow said:
the 6970 is a good card. but i'm confused as to why you want 8gb of ram since you basically want a gaming machine. I run a machine with 4gb ram and while gaming AND watching movies at the same time i barely hit 3gb. I only really use more than 4gb when messing around in Blender.

Before going for memory you dont really need i'd invest in W7. Its cheaper and will help you out a lot more
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Remind me to screenshot taskmanager when I'm using 10GB of RAM without blender or any games running. No pagefile makes everything so much more responsive. Meh at not getting crash dumps.
 
Yeah I want to go to 8gb ram because like the guy above me said, I open the task manager and I see that I am using up HUGE amounts of memory even while just playing WoW. Hell wow alone is taking up over a gig of ram according to task manager (I assume this is because I run about 10 addons). Plus leaving a couple tabs of firefox open, and uTorrent in the background, well I would like to be able to leave all that going while gaming, and I almost always can, but still, I am not comfortable using up SO much of the capacity. Even if it just doesnt matter, I would rather have the "space" in the ram free.


Hopefully that makes some sense.

And yes, Win7 is the next purchase to be made. Im gonna pick up a 1tb hard drive (just a plain internal, to do a backup just because I havent done one in forever) and an OEM copy soon.
 
MX-5 Dave said:
Yeah I want to go to 8gb ram because like the guy above me said, I open the task manager and I see that I am using up HUGE amounts of memory even while just playing WoW. Hell wow alone is taking up over a gig of ram according to task manager (I assume this is because I run about 10 addons). Plus leaving a couple tabs of firefox open, and uTorrent in the background, well I would like to be able to leave all that going while gaming, and I almost always can, but still, I am not comfortable using up SO much of the capacity. Even if it just doesnt matter, I would rather have the "space" in the ram free.


Hopefully that makes some sense.

And yes, Win7 is the next purchase to be made. Im gonna pick up a 1tb hard drive (just a plain internal, to do a backup just because I havent done one in forever) and an OEM copy soon.
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Realize, you're doing this for a totally different reason. I keep my pagefile turned off, so EVERYTHING is in RAM. NOTHING can be paged out to my hard drive. So if I hit 80% memory usage, Windows freaks out and tells me to close things. If I were to hit 100%...I don't know what would happen. Out of memory state, but how Windows would deal with that I do not know.

I will say to you exactly what I said to everyone who bitched about Vista's memory usage: you have RAM to be used. If you NEVER hit 60% memory used, you bought too much RAM. You absolutely do not buy RAM so the usage number is nice and low. You buy more RAM because you see yourself hitting 70% memory used with data paged out.

There's nothing to be uncomfortable about, given that the pagefile has you covered.
 
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Alright, I guess it's time for me to upgrade as well, maybe, depending on how things go. Here is what I currently have:

Dell 2405 FPW (1920x1200). I plan to keep this and not move to dual monitors or eyefinity in the next 2-3 years. Not very [H], I know, but I just don't spend enough time on gaming to make eyefinity worth it.

E8400 @ 3 Ghz stock
Asus P5Q-EM mobo
4x GSkill F2-8500CL5S-2GBPK DDR2-1066 (PC2 8500)
Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16
Velociraptor WD3000GLFS
Velociraptor WD1500HLFS

I don't really have the need to see the latest and greatest at max detail etc, but I currently have a decent game backlog (Witcher, Mass Effect, STALKER, Mafia II, Far Cry 2, etc.) and will probably in the future buy games like that (Witcher 2, Mass Effect 3) and whatever else there is.

I finished Mass Effect 2 without any troubles. I do see significant image tearing in the original Mass Effect though, which is probably a function or crappy programming or crappy settings rather than my hardware.

Still, it may just be time to get some new and shiny stuff (or gently used stuff that gets me close to today's standard). Thoughts?
 
If you're in school or know someone who is, you can usually get a free copy of windows 7 through the school. My community college, like most other schools, gives free XP, vista, and win7 as well as many other programs like VB, visio, etc. basically free access to everything microsoft except for Office. The download from the school site is always free to all students, with a genuine license etc. You just have to dig around on your school's website because it's not something that usually gets advertised.
 
Thuleman, your rig is not too far off from being a carbon copy of mine. Aside from you have a dual core E8400, and the 1GB 4870, I have the 512MB version.

With that motherboard, it wouldn't be a problem getting that E8400 overclocked to the 3.6ghz mark and throw in a 6950, you would be golden.
 
Thuleman said:
Alright, I guess it's time for me to upgrade as well, maybe, depending on how things go...Thoughts?
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It really depends on what you want out of graphics. I just switched from a [email protected] with a 5770 (close to your setup) playing at 1920x1080, and from a gaming perspective it was fine. I mainly upgraded the CPU (2500k) due to interest in SB from a tech perspective and the 3-4x increase in speed (for productivity) during CPU tasks (not gaming). I was actually considering not even getting a new GPU, but a GTX 560 came on sale for $210 with 3 free games, so took that.

If you don't really mind, I'd wait until HD 7000/GTX 600, they will have the long overdue process shrink, giving a much bigger jump in comparison then the HD6000/GTX500 was to the HD5000/GTX400.

To give an example of some real world differences after my upgrade -

DOW 2, no real change. Max in game settings (with AA) before and after. I guess I could force even higher AA in the control panel.

SC 2, 4xAA on Extreme vs. Ultra no AA. However AA is not really noticeable in actual gameplay, only the in game cutscene type sequences.

BC 2, 4xAA with HBAO. I guess the AA is nice really, but I wouldn't say they completely change the experience.

Mainly for a lot of titles I can use x8/x4 AA vs. x4x2(or none). Avg fps is more like 50-60 vs. 40-50. Some of the titles you listed will actual look noticeably different with an upgrade, others not really so. Even with a lot of games, medium and high do look different in say screen shots, but when you are actually focused on playing, you probably won't mind even. It really is the low settings that dramatically change things, for instance SC 2 on the minimum settings on my friends laptop was just a blurry textured mess.
 
CPU > Video Card > Windows > 8GB RAM

If you want to spend money before Sandy Bridge comes out, then do the video card first. RAM is your last priority...you're likely to see no performance upgrade from the move, it will just serve to future proof your rig.

For Rift, specifically, you need a fast quad-core CPU.

I compared both of my friend's systems:

System 1:
i7 920 @ 3.6GHz
GTX 275

System 2:
C2D E8400 @ 3.00GHz
GTX 460

System 1 ran it at 30-60 frames on High, while System 2 ran it at 20-30 frames on High. Huge difference in performance, even though both video cards are roughly equivalent. Now, moving up to a GTX 570 or 6950 will allow you to basically crank the graphics to Ultra instead of High, and maintain the same framerate. Unless you upgrade your CPU, the framerate won't go up beyond what it is running at High right now, most likely.

Cmustang87 said:
Thuleman, your rig is not too far off from being a carbon copy of mine. Aside from you have a dual core E8400, and the 1GB 4870, I have the 512MB version.

With that motherboard, it wouldn't be a problem getting that E8400 overclocked to the 3.6ghz mark and throw in a 6950, you would be golden.
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Rift really needs that CPU though. He'd be better off getting a new CPU, leaving his settings at High, and using the 4890. He'd be then running 30-60 frames at high, as opposed to 20-40 frames on Ultra with a 6950 (as it would be bottlenecked by the CPU).

Moving to a good quad core CPU should definitely be the first priority for anyone upgrading from a dual-core systems. A 20% overclock really isn't going to give you the performance you need in games like Civ 5, Dragon Age, Left 4 Dead, Rift, etc...Not to mention, moving to a 4.6GHz overcocked Sandy Bridge build will give you roughly double the speed in single-core games like Starcraft 2 over an E8400 @ 3.6GHz.
 
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Also in regards to the CPU vs. GPU debate and which to buy first, one thing to consider is that the GTX 600/HD 7000 series will be a much bigger jump over this gen, than Ivybridge will be over Sandybridge. I slightly touched upon this in my original post.

If you really want to, I can try to bench/test something you are specifically interested in. Since I have the [email protected] HD5770 still running as my secondary.
 
Very true. I mean, if you have the money to burn, then go ahead and upgrade the GPU...but the 4890 is still very capable. I upgraded from a GTX 275 to 2x GTX 570, but it's only because I had no qualms about dropping $2500 on a new system. If I was being more budget conscious, I would have probably upgraded to Sandy Bridge and just waited for a bigger graphical leap. A $300 GPU will give you roughly a 45-50% performance increase in graphical power. An upgrade to Sandy Bridge will give you a 100% increase in single/dual core games, and a 300% increase in quad core games...a far bigger and more enabling upgrade in the end. With the next GPU generation, you'll probably see 100% performance increase over your 4890, which is basically double the performance increase for the money (just guessing here).
 
I don't remember Thuleman saying he will be playing Rift, also, he has a 4870, not a 4890.
 
No problem, that's what I assumed. Must have gotten Thuleman mixed up with the OP. Yep, I agree with you if you were talking about the OP though! :D
 
I think the resounding message here is to wait for the new technology to get here in the next 3-6 months rather than blowing cash on the older generation of gfx cards. Yes, it is true that there will always be new technology just around the corner but especially on the gfx card front the 40nm cards do seem dated. Thanks for the info.
 
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