Best upgrade option

M

MrSteel74

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 17, 2000
Messages
1,632
My current rig is running a Q6600 clocked at 3Ghz with 4 GB of DDR2 I can't think of what MB I'm using right now but my video card is a GTX 280. I'm looking to upgrade but my budget is limited so I can either upgrade my video card to say something like a GTX 660ti or a Radeon 7870 or I can upgrade the cpu, mb and ram to a i5 3570k and 16GB of DDR3. Which of these options would offer the best upgrade path for the time being? I'll supply my full hardware setup later today once I get off of work.
 
Last edited:
What case and PSU do you have?
What are you doing with this PC? gaming? Photoshop? etc
What's the max resolution of your monitor?
What's your max budget for these upgrades?
Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
 
I have a Cooler Master Cosmos case, 750 watt Silverstone PSU current monitor is 1600 x 1200 primary use is gaming and some video ripping/converting. My budget is around $400, I live in Chicago and the local Microcenter has some killer deals going on cpu, mb and ram combos.
 
Its a now discontinued model the Silverstone ST70F modular unit the ratings are

3.3v @ 24a
5v @ 30a
4 12v rails @ 18a each
 
Have you considered an SSD as part of an upgrade option?
 
Hmm, considering that you need a new platform anyway and the fact that you live near a Microcenter, I say wait until the release of Intel's new Haswell CPUs in June 2013 to do a CPU + mobo + RAM upgrade. Don't worry, Microcenter will more than likely offer similar CPU+mobo deals with those new Haswell CPUs. So if you can save another $400 for that CPU + mobo + RAM upgrade by June-July, then just upgrade your video card now and save up. I recommend the GTX 660 TI.
 
Well my upgrading capability for the forseeable will be done after I make this upgrade. Most likely this will be my last major toy I buy for myself for a while as I will be buying a house later this year so bye bye disposable income for a little while.
 
Hmm.... any chance you can push the overclock of that Q6600 further then?
 
My vote goes for either a 7870 and save money for microcenter haswell combo, or just wait until haswell and upgrade then. Your video card is old, but so is your platform and I feel that it'll be the most noticable upgrade. You can find used 580s and even 7870s/7850s for very cheap. If you find one, you can pick up a 2500k and a p67 board for very cheap, around 150/70 respectively. The options are open and depend on your wants, but don't discount 1-2 gen old hardware, we have some great deals in the for sale section!
 
The best I can do on the Q6600 is 3.2 on air, I just run it day to day at 3. I can always hold off my upgrade till the new Intel cpu's come out after seeing the deal at MC I thought now might be the time to upgrade.
 
If disposable income going to evaporate soon then get the CPU+mobo etc. upgrade. I'm running Q6600 & 3570K rigs and others for folding. With the easy and substantial (compared to Q6600) overclock on the 3570K it performs almost 3X as fast as the Q6600 which I have running the same speed as yours. The GTX280 might become a bit of a bottleneck depending what kind of games/rez you play, but the chances of a cheap lower power upgrade of a GPU in the future are great and you can do an incremental upgrade for less budget hit then. I don't think an IB CPU @ 4 - 4.5 GHz will be too limiting for quite awhile ...
 
MrSteel74 said:
The best I can do on the Q6600 is 3.2 on air, I just run it day to day at 3. I can always hold off my upgrade till the new Intel cpu's come out after seeing the deal at MC I thought now might be the time to upgrade.
Click to expand...
You'd still be in the same predicament in that you'd still be stuck with an older/slower GPU. With that said, I still say wait.
 
MrSteel74 said:
My current rig is running a Q6600 clocked at 3Ghz with 4 GB of DDR2 I can't think of what MB I'm using right now but my video card is a GTX 280. I'm looking to upgrade but my budget is limited so I can either upgrade my video card to say something like a GTX 660ti or a Radeon 7870 or I can upgrade the cpu, mb and ram to a i5 3570k and 16GB of DDR3. Which of these options would offer the best upgrade path for the time being? I'll supply my full hardware setup later today once I get off of work.
Click to expand...

you can do an i7 3770 k with a good 150 to 200 dollar asus or gigabyte motherboard and 8 gigs of ddr3 all within your budget or dam close.

the 660ti is a good upgrade so is the radeon for that matter although the 660ti would be cheaper and perform on par with the 7870

but if your budget is tightly constrained then just go with a video card, i recommend gigabyte video cards in either radeon or nvidia flavor, high quality components and far superior cooling with real fans , heatsinks and heatpipes which cool better and are quieter than the traditional axial fans on most graphics cards, gigabyte 660ti you are looking at 200 bucks give or take with very good performance, dont be swayed into video cards iwth more than 2 gigs of ram on them as they dont offer any performance benefit to justify the additional expense.

then save up and upgrade your motherboard, ram and processor. I wouldnt expect too much out of haswell, it will not be a revoutionary product by any means much like sandy bridge to ivy bridge, the greater benefit of haswell will be a reduction in price of sandybridge and ivybridge hardware.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top