To upgrade, or buy new?

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ChRoNo16

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Feb 3, 2011
Messages
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So its been a while since ive done anything to upgrade my gaming rig, and this year I have a pretty sizeable tax refund coming, hence the question: Do i upgrade this machine a little or do I just buy a new one? (Yes for once I want someone else to do the work)

Current system specs:

Intel i5-2670k
16gb ram
R9-270x
250gb samsung evo ssd
corsair H100i liquid cooler
mountain mods u2-ufo case


What do I do?
 
I'd go with a new rig. You'd be better off in the long term vs. sinking even more money into a dead platform.

How much money are we talking and what games do you play / plan on playing?
 
Battlefield 4, diablo series, starcraft series. Nothing super heavy but my video card is dying.

Money wise Id like to be around 2-2500
 
Buying a new GPU now would cost you that much. Running at stock speeds?
Right now not a great time to build. Costs are high, lack of stock to get what you really want, and new stuff from everyone in the next 3-5 months.
Maybe start buying parts like psu, case, cooler, storage, etc as you find good deals.
 
I'm in the same boat, and I'm going to wait. I play the same games generally, and I'm not having any issues so I'm going to wait. This is mainly due to the cost of current video cards and their stock status. If my video card was dying today, I would probably buy a pre-built Dell or something with a 1080 in it, pull the card, sell the rest, and build from there....
 
I lucked out and built my system with 8700k and a 1070 ti right at the beginning of the year before things got really crazy with GPU prices, but if I were buying today, it would be a pre built system.

You won't be able to find a fair (msrp) deal on GPUs unless it's a part of a pre built PC or if you're lucky enough to snag one off of Nvidia's website.
 
It's funny I remember seeing a member here selling 1080TIs (multiples) for 650-670 just a little bit ago. In hindsight I fucked up and didn't pull the trigger and when I went to actually upgrade, all the cards pricing had gone crazy. The only remotely sane buy was the TitanXp direct from Nvidia (1100-1200 for a XP vs 1000+ for a 1080TI).

I don't see any time in the near future where mining isn't going to be screwing gamers over graphic cards - at least until ASICS or some other gadget can outpace a video card by a large margin or make the time to ROI too long to be profitable.
 
Whats killing me most right now is GPU, its about 5 years old and dying. Also I have a great CPU, 4 cores is plenty, but even with an H100i on it I cant keep it as cool as I'd like. My case isnt bad. idk. Im definitely not happy with prices. I wanted to build a threadripper, but I have to cut too many corners to keep in budget and get what I want.
 
Just go on slickdeals and find a good deal on a premade pc. Back in the day the premade PCs were horrible but in the last couple of years there's really no need to build your own unless you are into that kind of thing.
 
What do you intend to upgrade?

This is a bad time to do upgrades. RAM is quite expensive and GPUs have skyrocketed.

About the only thing that's cheaper now are AMD Ryzen CPUs and SSDs.

If you just want to upgrade the GPU, I'd hunt for one at the nvidia store. Its pretty much the only way you can get a card at MSRP.
 
ChRoNo16 said:
Whats killing me most right now is GPU, its about 5 years old and dying. Also I have a great CPU, 4 cores is plenty, but even with an H100i on it I cant keep it as cool as I'd like. My case isnt bad. idk. Im definitely not happy with prices. I wanted to build a threadripper, but I have to cut too many corners to keep in budget and get what I want.
Click to expand...
Is your current GPU really dying (display artifacts), or is it just becoming sluggish with newer games and programs? At this time only get a new GPU if you are currently running a program that absolutely requires a discrete GPU of such a newer generation, and the integrated Intel HD Graphics that's in your current Sandy Bridge CPU lacks hardware support for the version of DirectX / Direct3D that the particular game or program requires. Otherwise, if you do not currently have such a program, then you might be able to just go with the integrated graphics until the discrete GPU prices come down.
 
Its been artifacting for a while now, I am not sure if Im going to upgrade this year, I may be done with custom computers. Maybe just get a nice business class and slap a nice card in and use that
 
ChRoNo16 said:
Its been artifacting for a while now, I am not sure if Im going to upgrade this year, I may be done with custom computers. Maybe just get a nice business class and slap a nice card in and use that
Click to expand...
Be careful there: Many business class PCs cannot accommodate double-slot cards or full-height cards or long-length cards. And there are currently no decent single-slot cards of current GPU generations on the market right now. All of the single-slot cards, especially in the half-height form, that are currently available are either slower or older than your current GPU.
 
I have a similar build to yours, I slapped in a 1080ti.
I can wait for whatever comes out after Coffee Lake.

Dell is pushing out gaming PCs at whatever the inflated price of a gpu is going for right now.
Maybe mining will be even hotter after Voltage launches and you can sell whatever GPU you got for a pretty penny and have a free PC.
 
ChRoNo16 said:
Its been artifacting for a while now, I am not sure if Im going to upgrade this year, I may be done with custom computers. Maybe just get a nice business class and slap a nice card in and use that
Click to expand...
If you are going pre-built, include the video card. Otherwise you'll pay a premium.
 
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