Is it finally time for an upgrade

J

jabjab90301

n00b
Joined
Aug 11, 2013
Messages
9
I have been trying to figure out if it is time to upgrade. The question is upgrade what. I have a budget of roughly 600 dollars.

Should I finally put my 950 out to pasture and get a new mobo and cpu?

or

Should I again upgrade my GPU to either a 290X or 980?

The primary purpose of this rig. is to run the latest games at or near 60 fps at max settings. I do turn shadows down in most games.
 
I just added a new GTX 980 to my i7 930 rig and it's been great :) Hopefully it will get me through a couple more years until my next CPU upgrade, if I feel the need then.
 
If you are asking if you should upgrade, the answer is probably no.
 
Last edited:
Grab a used 7970 off of Ebay to run Crossfire and upgrade to 12GB of RAM... and overclock that processor. That should tide you over for a couple more years at least.

Running that processor at stock speed is almost criminal.
 
I still have my i7 920 @ 3.37 Ghz, paired with 6gb of RAM, and a factory OC'd GTX 780. The resolution that I game at is 2560x1440.

The only game I notice even the slightest bit of Choppiness is Crysis 3. However I have all settings maxed out with FXAA turned on, and Anistropic filtering at 16x.


Of course I'm not into gaming as much as I used to be either, so my recommendation would be to wait. My plan is to wait for a processor refresh on the LGA 2011 socket for the x99 chipset, and see what I can get then.

I'll bet you can OC a little bit more out of your i7 as well to hold you for another year or so.
 
I can't imagine an OC'd 950 being that much of a bottleneck in a single-GPU configuration. I am inclined to agree with Showbiz.

The benefits of a platform upgrade would include a decent CPU performance boost, SATA III, and DDR4 (assuming you go X99), but I don't foresee any of those making a night-and-day kind of difference for gaming in particular.
 
I would upgrade to an Intel x5660 hexcore CPU, used of e-bay 80$ or so. OC it to 4ghz eazy.
They are server pulls, I would buy from a server /computer/computer recycler
Pick up a GTX 970 GPU and be happy for the next couple years.

Upgrade to 12gb ram is a good idea and a SSD if you haven't done so yet.
Sell of the parts you replace and maybe even have enough $$ for a 2nd GTX970 for sli
Depending on what resolution you game at I suppose.
 
Bill1024 said:
I would upgrade to an Intel x5660 hexcore CPU, used of e-bay 80$ or so. OC it to 4ghz eazy.
They are server pulls, I would buy from a server /computer/computer recycler
Pick up a GTX 970 GPU and be happy for the next couple years.

Upgrade to 12gb ram is a good idea and a SSD if you haven't done so yet.
Sell of the parts you replace and maybe even have enough $$ for a 2nd GTX970 for sli
Depending on what resolution you game at I suppose.
Click to expand...

Pretty much this. All the more so if you don't need to do a BIOS update to use recycled x5660 and have a 120mm+ AiO cooler. 12GB at 1600 to 1866z on decent timings is the sweet spot (I learned the hard way with an office computer built from spare parts that Win 7 home caps ram to 16GB).

My only disagreement with the quoted post is to get another 7970 for crossfire instead of a GTX 970. It's a rare 7970 that won't clock to at least 1100-1125 along with similar scaling on the memory.
 
If you're running 1080p and aren't [H]ard enough to need things to be running on ultra, then you can probably stick with what you have and get an SSD for your boot drive.
 
You can always sell your current set up and add to your budget allowing for more wiggle room.
 
Another idea I have entertained is going back to AMD for my processors. My second rig is still running strong with a phenom 1090t.
 
AMD kinds of lost the CPU wars. For the money, Intel powns them. (Of course, I'm sure you can have an OK AMD rig)
 
jabjab90301 said:
Another idea I have entertained is going back to AMD for my processors. My second rig is still running strong with a phenom 1090t.
Click to expand...

I just finished my new build, and I had for a moment considered AMD, however for the money I'd rather stick with Intel. Just my 0.02
 
Get the GTX980 with a hex X5660 CPU

Trust me, I got two SR-2's. ;) Chipset X58 is still king!

I just built a rig to see what the new CPU's offer, i7 4790k, MSI Z87-GD65, 16GB RAM, GTX 980, it's meh.... just collects dust now.

Didn't offer me anything mind blowing, maybe like a few FPS increase here and there in games but not worth throwing all the money I just did. I do a lot of transcoding and video work so I went back to my SR-2's, all titles I can still play using 2x DELL U2410 1920x1200.

Oh and if you're worried about SATAIII, don't be I bought PCI-E SSD cards.

Link here: http://www.amazon.com/Sonnet-Techno...8&qid=1423936010&sr=1-1&keywords=sonnet+tempo

I'm set for the next 5 years, maybe even more.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Well I just upgraded from x58 to z97. Just got an itch to see the newer technologies. Also wanted to get current before my x58 platform was worthless. There is some value to redeem from my old RAM, etc that will make the upgrade cost pretty small.

No benchmarks here, I just know that everything does feel snappier and I have 2 free DIMMs to upgrade RAM later. My SSD actually runs at rated 500 MB/s read speeds now, I have more expansion ports, M.2, etc.

For ~$250 differential after selling my x58 components I think it is worthwhile.
 
Here:

This combo and this memory for a total of $628 shipped. Plus a giveaway code from Intel.



[EDIT]
nm...the 960 is going to be about on par with your 7970, so not worth the cost.
Given that, I would strongly follow the advice of others and either:
1. Upgrade your MoBo, CPU, and RAM and reuse your 7970 (maybe get a 2nd one and go Xfire).
2. Upgrade to a X58 hexacore processor, get a 970/980, and possible add more RAM.
 
Last edited:
I would just double your RAM and get an AMD R9 290....

And an SSD if you don't already have one!
 
jabjab90301 said:
So if where to purchase a X5660, can I OC it to 4.0 with just are cooling?
Click to expand...

Yes a fairly good one.
I have 3 x5660 x5660 @ 4ghz with refurb H80, H100 type AIO water coolers and I am in the low 50cat 100% load. With Air I was a bit higher in the mid 60s and even that is ok.
 
Sometimes the CPU is the obvious bottleneck (see my sig for an example :eek: ).

In your case, I would look elsewhere first. The 950 with even a modest OC will be more than capable of handling your gaming tasks when paired with a solid GPU, especially on a great mobo like you've got. The choice you made picking those out to go with high quality stuff means they're going to last longer before becoming a bottleneck.

A second 7970 on the cheap will give a big performance boost. That is not an old card by any stretch, and still quite capable.

As others have said, I'd keep an eye on your RAM usage. Doubling that to 6x2 for 12GB in tri-channel may be worthwhile. Might as well populate those empty DIMM slots. Otherwise, I'd save your cash and let it build up, so when something really big happens you're ready to move.

This is a terrible time to upgrade in general too, it should be noted. Broadwell-K may or may not be coming out, Skylake is coming out this summer, things are priced very high right now.. holding off if you can is the smart move.
 
lazz said:
This is a terrible time to upgrade in general too, it should be noted. Broadwell-K may or may not be coming out, Skylake is coming out this summer, things are priced very high right now.. holding off if you can is the smart move.
Click to expand...

As you can see from the system in my sig, I've held off upgrading for a rather long time. I have a couple of quick questions for those of you more in the know bout what's out there and what's coming than I (and I don't mean to hijack the thread, I can start a new one of OP would prefer):

Xeon vs i5 and i7 Processors: Since we go by the more traditional model and use a dedicated graphics card and many of the new intel chips come with an integrated graphics processing component, am I just better off, bang for the buck, looking for a xeon chip?

DDR4: Part of the reason I had been holding off was for adoption and price drop in DDR4. While I haven't researched how it compares to the fastest DDR3, I would assume that, as with past generation of RAM, the early DDR4 will be really expensive and not provide that much of a boost over the fastest DDR3. DDR4 is still quite expensive. Does anyone have an idea of a time frame within which the boost you get from DDR4 will make it worth choosing over DDR3 and, is there a projected time at which prices will fall to $150 o so for 16gigs of DDR4?

In my position, what would you do? I'm likely at least three months out from building. As old as my system is, would I just be better off spending $80 on a X5660 and picking up a decent motherboard and cooler for it, and finding a good price on DDR3? I'm assuming that it would knock the socks off my current system.

Tax time is coming so, if I could replace my processor, motherboard, and RAM with something much faster for around $300.00 (the x5660 and associated hardware), would that be worth it in your view?
 
Deciding on whether or not to upgrade is just as difficult as picking what to upgrade to. I have been pricing ddr3 triple channel dimm kits and there are priced rather high. I think ultimately I will be doing a CPU, Mobo, ram upgrade. I know there new things on the way, but that is always the with this hobby. I do not like a being an early abopter of anything, I rather stick to what has is has been proven to be good and reliable. That is the reason I went with I7 950 x58 instead of of the then new Sandy Bridge. I will go with the 4790K, 8 GB of ram and the good mobo. The 7970 still has some life left in it so I will reuse it. I will see if can pick up a second one to maybe do some xfire with.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top