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what would you upgrade first ?

O

oxtis

n00b
Joined
Sep 5, 2012
Messages
6
Christmas is around and there are lots of discounts.
Maybe its time to upgrade some parts for my almost 3 years old PC (Birthday Dec. 26)

Budget around $500.
Would prefer a intel CPU for upgrade

CPU : AMD Athlon x4 640
MB : ASRock 880GXH
GPU : GIGABYTE 5770
RAM : G.SKILL 4GB (2x2)
HD : WD Blue 500GB
PSU : OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W
CASE : COOLER MASTER HAF 912

Recently got a second 23 inch monitor for $30 to dual 2 23 inch monitor.
would I need to upgrade my GPU for this ?
I feel a few lags here and there when opening stuff on the second monitor.
 
The power supply needs to be upgraded first. OCZ's ModXStream line has several clunkers, so I wouldn't use that with a new build.

Speaking of which, how much money do you have to spend on these upgrades? Looking at your build, you may need to consider a new system to handle both monitors, especially while gaming.
 
Radeon R series graphics would be a good thing to have on the list, from the R7-250 to the R9-290x(custom of course)

no matter the inches of the monitor you have, what resolution is it running that's what matters. But I agree, a power supply upgrade would be warranted.

A good brand name 550-650watt as in Seasonic, Corsair, XFX, Evga, NZXT, some rosewill and so forth, research the psu a lot before you decide which to go for, wattage only matters with quality units.

To each their own I continue to support AMD for my cpu and Radeon for my gpu upgrades, without them we wouldn't be having the choices we have.

5770 is not a bad gpu again depends on the monitor, the lag you have very well could be the cpu or not enough system ram, what OS are you using, xp 32, windows 7 64 etc?
 
Seems like both of you agree that PSU needs to be changed.
It served me pretty well for the past 3 years that I had it.
We went through numbers of thunder storms and power outage etc etc and had no problem.

Running both monitor at 1920 x 1080

If $500 is my budget what upgrade would you guys recommend ?
Would be better if you can Include one build for AMD and one for Intel.
GPU brand I'm fine with which ever Nvidia or Radeon
 
I would get a video card, as that is what most games benefit most from. But a high end card will be bottle necked so I would keep it at $220 or so.
 
Please answered the following questions so that we can help you better:
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
6) Will you be overclocking?
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
 
Dangman said:
Please answered the following questions so that we can help you better:
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
6) Will you be overclocking?
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Click to expand...

1) Mostly Gaming + Browsing + Music. Might do Minimal Video/Audio Editing in the future.
3) Maryland
6) Maybe a little OC. nothing extreme stable 4.2 ish would do it.
9) All these I don't use currently. Not sure if i will need them in the future.
10) already have OS (my univ provides them free to student) WIN7 64bit
 
All right then:
$200 - Intel Core i3-4340 CPU + AsRock H87M Pro4 mATX Motherboard Microcenter Combo
$60 - Corsair CMX8GX3M1A1333C9 8GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$184 - Gigabyte GV-R927OC-2GD Radeon R9 270 2GB PCI-E Video Card with Battlefield 4
$61 - XFX Core Edition PRO550W 550W PSU
---
Total: $505 plus tax and shipping.
 
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you might have gotten one of the lucky ones before OCZ did their usual and screwed with BOM to save coin :)

Personally I recommend supporting Radeon and AMD in general as best you can, Mantle will be huge its already starting to show that it will be.

Anyways
Radeon 7850-7870 R9-270 R9-270x
AMD CPU FX6300-FX6350-FX8320-FX8350 with a decent aftermarket cooler like Coolermaster Hyper 212 plus or 212 EVO, or A10-5800k,A10-6800k,A10-7800k(which should be available very soon)
motherboard well this depends on tastes as well as what you are willing to spend to be able to do things like overclock and such.
that psu that Dangman linked is a good low cost choice, I believe Corsair might also have a good low cost choice, and I know rosewill does.
Ram wise 8gb 1600 1.5v 9,9,9,24 speed memory, this does make a gaming performance difference, I personally use Gskill RipjawX.

anyways I do highly highly recommend going for a non reference video card (generally meaning they have fancy coolers already attached) my choices for makers at least for Radeon, MSI-Asus-Sapphire-Gigabyte-Club3d every other maker, as well as the 270x instead of the 270 as it is a higher clocked, higher binned, and more in the core available to push those pixels out. 270 equals 7870 with slightly less power, 270x is a chunk further.

I do not live in usa so do not know all the places to check parts. anywho he is a review to show and you can decide http://www.anandtech.com/show/7503/the-amd-radeon-r9-270x-270-review-feat-asus-his/17
 
Dangman said:
All right then:
$200 - Intel Core i3-4340 CPU + AsRock H87M Pro4 mATX Motherboard Microcenter Combo
$60 - Corsair CMX8GX3M1A1333C9 8GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$184 - Gigabyte GV-R927OC-2GD Radeon R9 270 2GB PCI-E Video Card with Battlefield 4
$61 - XFX Core Edition PRO550W 550W PSU
---
Total: $505 plus tax and shipping.
Click to expand...

or the fx4350 and board combo for 140.

If your psu has been good. I say keep it. Don't waste the cash, just know the upgrade is coming. Spend it on a CPU, RAM and GPU upgrade. I'd go intel i5 or better if in your budget otherwise the fx series is plenty for gaming. I'd thing even an SSD would be a better choice than PSU if yours has been a trooper thus far.

I game with an fx 4130 and a used 680 and at 1080p I play everything at max and that combo isn't worth more than $500. Hit the F/S threads for your gpu, and go nvidia as the newer amd's are over valued due to non gaming reasons in my observations.
 
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don't go FX4350 had a buddy that had one, and it ran like crap for him in many games. Borderlands 2, BF3, Skyrim, World of tanks, Crysis 2-3 and a few others, I spent many hours with him trying to tweak it and he just could not get acceptable performance with a 660Ti at the time. If you are going this route, then go Athlon II x4 or Phenom II x4 at least it will be a 100% true quad core not a fancy dual core.
FX6 are quite decent for what they are.

Mantle will be huge considering the tech demos they have done showing off its capabilities even in an alpha state, BF4 is ONLY 1 game that will use it, star citizen is another, if this kind of game is anything to go by with as much as it has constantly happening for example. Being able to shut down the cpu cause it is not needed(hence reducing power consumption by a very large margin) using all modules/cores fully in the way the maker would best like to use it, being able to crunch all the physics, collisions, tracking of numerous near field and far field effects real-time and so forth.

At least they actually have real proof of what mantle will be able to do. I wouldn't use BF4 as an example of anything, it is a POS example, mantle will help it by a large margin for sure IF Dice/EA can work through all the crap that is still frostbite 2.0 being used in BF4. Mantle is about efficiency and efficacy, not about making things oh so pretty, it isn't DX :)

Anyways. We of course all have our own opinions, Nvidia is over valued for what they are, the only reason they bother doing anything new is because AMD is. They do have great cards in the 600 and 700 series no doubt, but saying AMD does not with their radeon line in the 7000-Rx-200 series is just BS. R9-240 up to the R9-280 are all very well priced for what they do in return, and free games if you go that route is just icing.

doesn't matter I suppose, the end result is when you ask someone for an opinion on a build 99% of time it is a flat out response of INTEL-NVIDIA, AMD games perfectly fine, and in many cases can save $ without effecting the experience.
 
dragonstongue said:
Mantle will be huge considering the tech demos they have done showing off its capabilities even in an alpha state, BF4 is ONLY 1 game that will use it, star citizen is another, if this kind of game is anything to go by with as much as it has constantly happening for example. Being able to shut down the cpu cause it is not needed(hence reducing power consumption by a very large margin) using all modules/cores fully in the way the maker would best like to use it, being able to crunch all the physics, collisions, tracking of numerous near field and far field effects real-time and so forth.

At least they actually have real proof of what mantle will be able to do. I wouldn't use BF4 as an example of anything, it is a POS example, mantle will help it by a large margin for sure IF Dice/EA can work through all the crap that is still frostbite 2.0 being used in BF4. Mantle is about efficiency and efficacy, not about making things oh so pretty, it isn't DX :)
Click to expand...
Key word is "tech demo". That's not a real source since nobody plays tech demos all the time. In addition, Mantle has to be implemented in the game. So not all games will be able to reap the benefits from Mantle for the time being. Nor, AFAIK, has LoL has mentioned support for Mantle and Star Citizen is the only MMO that I'm aware of that supports Mantle. Now while I'm hopeful about Mantle as well, let's be realistic here: There's still a good chance that it could be a big flop (i.e Lucid Hydra) or of relatively minor importance (i.e Nvidia's PhysX)
dragonstongue said:
doesn't matter I suppose, the end result is when you ask someone for an opinion on a build 99% of time it is a flat out response of INTEL-NVIDIA, AMD games perfectly fine, and in many cases can save $ without effecting the experience.
Click to expand...
*points to previous build list that's an Intel-AMD setup*
 
SticKx911 said:
If your psu has been good. I say keep it. Don't waste the cash, just know the upgrade is coming. Spend it on a CPU, RAM and GPU upgrade. I'd go intel i5 or better if in your budget otherwise the fx series is plenty for gaming. I'd thing even an SSD would be a better choice than PSU if yours has been a trooper thus far.
Click to expand...

I disagree. I recommend adding in a new, better quality PSU now, even at the expense of an SSD or a better processor.

The majority of OCZ's non-PCP&C power supplies have historically been crap. Plus, the company just went bankrupt, so there's no guarantee of future support. (Toshiba is buying the remains primarily for the SSD portfolio. No one knows what's going to happen to the PSU business.)

Just because the OP's is working fine with his current system doesn't mean that it will remain stable with his new system. That's a risk I don't believe the OP should take.
 
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