Can't decide the best avenue for upgrade.

Syribo

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 9, 2008
Messages
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4690K
16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 RAM
MSI Gaming 5 Motherboard
EVGA SuperNOVA G2 750W PSU

My PC has been serving me well for just about four years now. Everything was decent until my 980 ti bit the dust. Sent it in to MSI back in April, and finally 10 days ago they get back to me and say they have no replacement, but can send me a check for $570. I took it, the GPU cost me ~$690 after tax three years ago.. so it seemed very fair.

I've been suffering with a 730 GT since then (So bad)... I was planning on maybe holding off until the next gen Nvidia cards come out, or getting a 1080 ti with the check money and some extra. But now I'm wondering if a 1080 ti, or even a 1080, would be severely bottlenecked by my system?

I have my 4690K OC'ed to 4.2GHz... and it's still great, but obviously showing its age. I've debated maybe holding off on buying anything, and saving up enough to maybe afford an 8600K, mobo and RAM, along with maybe a 1070 (Or it's newer equivalent when they come out).

For some reason, this is such a hard decision for me lol. I do a lot of gaming, MMO's, FPS, Mobas, etc on a 1080p 144hz monitor (But also have a 1440p monitor and 4K TV I use sometimes).

It's hard to hold off on just buying a 1080 or something right now. But I'm spending half my time with my boyfriend in Canada, and we have a decent gaming laptop there that I use. I'm about to go back for about a month, so it gives me more time to think about what to do.

Any advice?
 
If you were satisfied with the performance with the rig with the 980ti, just get a 1070 and trudge on. If you felt needed more frames, that's a reason to look into a new platform. People need to realize when the upgrade bug is biting, and when they really need an upgrade.
 
If you were satisfied with the performance with the rig with the 980ti, just get a 1070 and trudge on. If you felt needed more frames, that's a reason to look into a new platform. People need to realize when the upgrade bug is biting, and when they really need an upgrade.
Yeah the update bug really does suck. I've been lucky in that it hasn't gotten me bad over the years. I mean, I had my Q6600 build from 2008 until 2014 when I built the 4690K system. I just felt almost "bad" going from a 980ti to a 1070, which is why I was thinking about the 1080.. but really not sure if my system will bottleneck it or not. Although with a 1070, that would give me some extra money to save up for an actual CPU upgrade this year... I mean, my system is definitely showing its age with certain things but I've been happy with it for sure.

I'm just grateful my 980ti died literally 2 months before my 3 year warranty was up. And that MSI offered me a pretty good RMA option, regardless of them taking 2.5 months to tell me they had no replacement lol.
 
I wouldn't invest in the 10xx series at this point. It's two years old, and the 11xx series will be out in a few months. Maybe there will be a model at the $400 price point that will perform equal to or better than the 1080.
 
You deserve an upgrade :D go coffee lake!!! I still building and upgrading my PC even though I dont have the physical ability and time to play too many games anymore... enjoy your PC and upgrades while you still can make the most out of it...
 
Personally, I would hold off on upgrading anything until you can save up enough to afford a new CPU, a new motherboard, new RAM and a new GPU all at once. The GTX 10## series will be obsolesced by the GTX 11## series in a few months, and it makes absolutely no sense at all whatsoever to carry over that awful GT 730 (which for all I know about your particular version uses lousy DDR3 RAM on the card and likely based on an old low-end Fermi-generation GPU from 2010) to a new platform.
 
You are on [H] and you have questions about upgrading? Shame on you! You MUST UPGRADE NOW!

Get a Ryzen system you won't be disappointed.
 
I would usually take an opportunity like this to replace what's irking you (the gpu) with something that will do for the time being that you can still offload later if you want to recoup some cash.

So I'd either invest in another 980 (or similar) knowing that it would be outside of warranty and could fail. Or get something newer that isn't the full $500 and isn't as bad as the 730. I think that would at least get you through this for a while.

The big question to ask yourself is if your 980 wouldn't have died, would you have upgraded anything? If the answer is no, then just repair what broke and let the upgrades come in their due time like they would have if the 980 didn't die.
 
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