What to do?

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bAcKpAiN

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 30, 2004
Messages
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Hello folks, long time member that basically dropped off the computer/gaming scene for a long time due to RL stuff like having kids and generally being broke LOL. I have pretty much just existed on hand me downs and such. Now I am getting back into gaming and find myself wanting to get my machine up to snuff. Don't get me wrong what I have is decent IMHO, but am not sure where to go from here.

I have an i5 2500K that I have overclocked to 4.5Ghz with 8Gigs of DDR3 1600mhz and a 1060 GTX. I currently am mostly playing CS:GO, and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds but I am looking hard at Destiny2 coming out as well as a few other titles. My dream is to get 144fps even if I have to turn settings down. I would rather smooth game play than eye candy. My question is, where would I see any significant difference in gaming? My question is, where would I see any significant difference in gaming?

Should I keep the 1060 and get a newer CPU/Mobo/DDR4?
Should I keep the aging platform and get a 1080?
Should I hold out until spring when I can build an entire new system?

At this point I am honestly content with what I have, but wouldn't mind squeezing a few more FPS out of PubG. My real concern is the newer titles coming out like Destiny2 and beyond. Any ideas???
 
important question, what screen resolution are you playing at?.. as I high FPS player I understand you exactly, but also I want to make you sure that this kind of high FPS gaming it's kind of expensive, it kept me at 1080P for that very reason for a very long time until I found hardware powerful enough to drive 90+FPS at 2560x1440.. both on the CPU and GPU department, so with that in mind and being straight to the point your CPU *Can't* provide a solid 144hz gaming experience, it just doesn't have the power yo keep a GPU fed constantly over 100fps, and even at 1080P with your GPU you will be forced to keep settings down in order to allow that GTX 1060 able to produce those high FPS..

With that in Mind I would say keep what you have and save for a complete system overhaul because even a GTX 1070 is not able to offer 144hz gaming.. so, better wait until you can upgrade the whole platform and have a CPU able to sustain minimums FPS high enough to deliver a sustained 100hz+ gaming experience and a GPU with enough power to avoid force you to turn down a lot of settings in order to achieve the same task, that's why I vote to wait until you have the enough money for a complete system overhaul.

my last 1080P gaming card was a highly overclocked GTX 980Ti paired with a 6700K at 4.8ghz which would still struggle with some games but I was able to play most of the games at 100+FPS and both the CPU and GPU are way stronger than a 1060+ 2500k
 
I play @ 1920x1080 resolution. My eyes can't handle lowering resolution on LCD monitors, I get a wicked headache after a little bit. Maybe I will look around the Overclocking forum for some tips of squeezing more out of my 2500K in the meantime. I got 4.6 without even trying and backed down to 4.5 for everyday use because it is a nice round number and I am not overly familiar with even those chips. Last PC I overclocked was over a decade ago.
 
bAcKpAiN said:
I play @ 1920x1080 resolution. My eyes can't handle lowering resolution on LCD monitors, I get a wicked headache after a little bit. Maybe I will look around the Overclocking forum for some tips of squeezing more out of my 2500K in the meantime. I got 4.6 without even trying and backed down to 4.5 for everyday use because it is a nice round number and I am not overly familiar with even those chips. Last PC I overclocked was over a decade ago.
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If you've already got this overclocked this much, any gains you'll be able to get will be very marginal. You'll gain maybe a couple more percent.

I recently ran into all this when it came to the i2300 system in my signature, like you I recently got back into gaming. I'm just settling for 60fps gaming at 1080p. At some point if I want to improve, I don't see any other way than to build a completely new system based on a CPU socket that's present day.

Our Sandy Bridge systems are 5-6 years old, I am frankly beyond impressed that I can still game at 60fps on one.
 
Doubt even if you got another 100-200Mhz out of it you would notice anything.

So your 1080p at 60Hz? But eventually want to go to a 144Hz monitor? Or you just want 144fps and fine with 60Hz monitor?

I would do some general benchs like Cinebench, Passmark, Aida64, Valley, etc. so you can get a general idea how your system is running for its age and get some comparison numbers to newer systems.

Windows 10? How long since fresh install? SSD?

Would consider getting another 8GB of ram, used DDR3 should be pretty cheap to find.
 
I have an Acer 144Hz monitor now. For its age, I am very happy with it, and have kicked around the more memory idea, but don't want to flush any money if it won't show an improvement. Next system will be DDR4 so I don't want to buy any DDR3.

Believe it or not, I am really happy with the performance of this old girl. I have ran some benchmarks that put its numbers fairly close to a stock i5 7500. The only game that really gives me any issues at this point is PubG which from what I am reading is giving people with 7700k's and 1080's issues because it is an optimization issue.
 
The X390 platform should be out and there will be a new mainstream\enthusiast i7 8C\16T chip out if you do wait till next spring.

I wouldn't get a 1080 at this point either. Unless you found a great deal on one, like under $475. Your also looking at next spring before Volta is readily available most likely also so your kind of in limbo right now. Its not a terrible time to build a Coffee Lake setup, most games aren't going to make anymore use of 8 cores vs 6. For gaming the 8700K really shows little improvement over 7700K. For multi-threaded apps though its a nice jump.
 
Well PubG is early access so it's hard to buy hardware for it now when the future of the game is unknown.

A 1060 should be pretty stout at 1080P, but getting it to 144 FPS might be challenging.

IMHO, I think you should hold out until Spring and get a whole new system. The 2500K overclocked is a beast of a CPU and I'm somewhat confident that you'd be able to see closer to 144 FPS with a 1080Ti, but if waiting till Spring is an option then do that. PubG should be a lot closer to being a finalized game. Newer hardware will be out by then. Just all around a better option.
 
Thanks for the help all who gave suggestions. I am going to wait until I "need" to upgrade. This system is performing very well for its age and for now does what I want it to.
 
bAcKpAiN said:
Thanks for the help all who gave suggestions. I am going to wait until I "need" to upgrade. This system is performing very well for its age and for now does what I want it to.
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Maybe consider an SSD, it'll make your system feel a lot faster and PUBG ran pretty well on my 1050ti system below when it still had 8gb ram. An SSD will also swap into a new system easily, unlike a DDR3 upgrade.
 
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