Build Upgrade ?

[Pecax]

Hello everyone! i have a pc build (dunno if i can even call it decent lol) i asked a friend to help me build and pick the parts as i had no experience, but surprise lol he just checked bang for buck sites to pick the parts and now im stucked with no upgrade paths , heres the specs:

Gpu saphire radeon r9 270x 4gb oc its a good card almost always get to set ultra high video setup but i get some fps drops

PSU:corsair cx500- ive read some bad reviews of it and i have the feeling it is the reason i am getting some random freezes, they become more frequent in high performance mode and if i have more stuff plugged in like a wacom or gaming keypad.

Ram: PNY XLR8 ddr3 1600 mhz x2 1.5 v

MOBO: F2a78m-d3h THIS it has a fm2 socket XD at 1st i didnt quite understand what it meant but god lol i am stucked with apu cpus.

CPU:at 1st i had a a6 7400k and it sucked lol got it replaced for an athlon x4 860k which wont bottleneck my gpu which is nice but enough?.

and thats it, i am considering buying a second gpu and xfire it ive read pairing 2 270x is awesome performance but this would mean buying another psu and another cpu which means another motherboard XD maybe i have to buy them anyways, i was thinking on an intel i5 4690k ive read it is more than enough for gaming, video and photo editing and 3d modeling and overclocking, i am not sure on the motherboard mATX,(i see people oposing to xfire more errors, noise, higher temps, but it is cheaper just getting a second one and have awesome performance anyways).

or leave the gpu and Psu as it is for now upgrade mobo plus CPU (will this make a notable increase in fps in games?)

Thanks guys any reply is apreciated

 

[Chubpanda37]

FPS drops are probably because of the AMD drivers. That 500w psu doesn't give much breathing room for upgrades. If you want a new motherboard so you can use Intel processors, I would recommend getting the ASrock anniversary motherboard. It's a good motherboard for I think around $70. It all depends on what you need the upgrades for. Whether it's gaming or video editing or whatever you'd like, let me know and I can help you out.

 

[Barty1884]

The 860K is a great little chip, and you can really push some extra out of it by overclocking. You'll need to invest in an aftermarket cooler, as stock won't cut it, but a Hyper 212 EVO will set you back $20-$25 rather than going for a new set up CPU/Mobo/OS etc.

As far as FPS drops, assuming you're on Windows 10, disable the automatic hardware driver updates (see http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2763685/stop-windows-automatically-updating-device-drivers.html).
Then make sure you fully uninstall all the AMD display drivers & install the new Crimson software update and that should bring all your drivers up to speed (just make sure you've removed older versions).

If you're not happy with performance after than, you have a couple of options.

1. You can Crossfire on that board, so if you can find a cheap 270x then go for it - the PSU will hold you back there though. You'd likely need a 600+W good quality PSU (XFX, SeaSonic).

2. If you want to go the intel route, the i5-4690k would be dramatically better than the 860k, but it's all budget depending. If you consider the 4690k, you'd best look at Skylake for future upgrade paths. The 6600k is similar in price.......but then you'd need DDR4.

Either way you'll be spending some extra money, it's just a matter of how much. If it was me, I'd try the cheapest option & grab the Hyper 212 EVO, fix your driver issue and see how you are then. The 860k + R9 270x pairing should be serving you pretty well (maybe not ultra settings on a lot of things, but I'd imagine you'd average 'Medium-High' on almost anything you can think of.

The 212 EVO can move with you to a new rig if that's ultimately what you decide to do, so it wouldn't be 'wasted' money.

 

[Pecax]

The 860K is a great little chip, and you can really push some extra out of it by overclocking. You'll need to invest in an aftermarket cooler, as stock won't cut it, but a Hyper 212 EVO will set you back $20-$25 rather than going for a new set up CPU/Mobo/OS etc.

As far as FPS drops, assuming you're on Windows 10, disable the automatic hardware driver updates (see http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2763685/stop-windows-automatically-updating-device-drivers.html).
Then make sure you fully uninstall all the AMD display drivers & install the new Crimson software update and that should bring all your drivers up to speed (just make sure you've removed older versions).

If you're not happy with performance after than, you have a couple of options.

1. You can Crossfire on that board, so if you can find a cheap 270x then go for it - the PSU will hold you back there though. You'd likely need a 600+W good quality PSU (XFX, SeaSonic).

2. If you want to go the intel route, the i5-4690k would be dramatically better than the 860k, but it's all budget depending. If you consider the 4690k, you'd best look at Skylake for future upgrade paths. The 6600k is similar in price.......but then you'd need DDR4.

Either way you'll be spending some extra money, it's just a matter of how much. If it was me, I'd try the cheapest option & grab the Hyper 212 EVO, fix your driver issue and see how you are then. The 860k + R9 270x pairing should be serving you pretty well (maybe not ultra settings on a lot of things, but I'd imagine you'd average 'Medium-High' on almost anything you can think of.

The 212 EVO can move with you to a new rig if that's ultimately what you decide to do, so it wouldn't be 'wasted' money.

Thank you Barty, i forgot to mention it but i do have that the Hyper 212 Evo i have overclocked the cpu to 4200 Mhz, i read that it is also recomended to tweak your ram memory voltages if you OC the cpu but i just used AMD catalyst auto tune the overclock , i did see some improvements but overclocking comes with more random pc freezes which i think is the PSU, what are some good PSUs? i no longer trust corsair at least the CX series, i thought running 2 cards would need at least a 750w but then again i am just a noob trying to learn everyday, do you think the athlon 860k could hold and not bottleneck the two r9 270x 4gb? the fps is low on Multiplayer games and get worse the more people are in the game or in massive maps single player games but i am satisfied with my modest gpu performance but still want at least 60 fps in high end games i get ultra high setting most of the time but the fps is another story, i thought in both situations would benefit from a new processor more than crossfiring another GPU .

anyways thanks for your reply again Barty

 

[Barty1884]

Ok, some of those issues are tied together.

You should be able to OC the chip higher (subject to the silicone lottery, of course), but not via AMD's auto-tune, you'd need to take control of it manually - you could hope to see 4.5GHz, maybe even 4.6GHz on a sane vcore.
Autoclock increases the voltage significantly more than required (it's very much 'quick and dirty'). This won't help on power or temp controls & AMDs auto-indication of 'stable' isn't anywhere near as accurate as using Prime95 for an extended period of time.

Corsair has good, meh & poor PSU lines. The CX would be 'meh' at best, more like poor.
Anything from Tier 1 or 2 (with sufficient wattage of course), are solid, quality PSUs
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html

Which PSU meets your needs, depends on the setup & price. If you CrossFire (or want to consider it in future) with 2x R9 270x would need an absolute minimum of 650W i would suggest. Considering max load for those 2 cards, plus the CPU would be 455W (at stock). Allow 100W for the balance of your rig, and 20% for OCing (20% of the total W is likely overestimate, but that's 666W).
A 750W PSU would be your best bet. Right now the EVGA SuperNOVA B2 750W Semi-Modular (Tier 2, Bronze) can be had for $60 or so: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-power-supply-110b20750vr

As to whether the 860k would bottleneck CF R9 270x's - simply, yes.
Every system has a bottleneck, it just depends whether you ever see if (or how rarely etc).
Although, pushing more of an OC out of the chip manually (if you can) should help your multi-player dip to a point - multiplayer (as a general rule) is CPU dependent moreso than GPU (although that depends on a lot of factors). The fact the more players in the game, the more you're struggling leads to the CPU - GPU demands are similar regardless of number of players.

It's all going to boil down to budget, which I'm guessing isn't huge? Just considering it's CPU+Mobo (leaving GPU/PSU etc) or GPU/PSU (leaving CPU+Mobo).

In an ideal world, you'd pick up an i5, a new PSU, a new mobo (and likely a new Windows license as a result) - leave your GPU for now. It sounds more like your CPU is limiting what you can do, and you can CF in future.

As an example:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (Purchased For $0.00)
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($92.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: PNY XLR8 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (Purchased For $0.00)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 270X 4GB Video Card (Purchased For $0.00)
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($63.98 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM (64-bit) ($89.88 @ OutletPC)
Total: $466.83
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-09 10:59 EST-0500

There's $450 (less if you don't need Windows) that will set you up with a quality PSU and a mobo to CF in future (note no SLI support on that board, so if you're on the fence about whether you'd look for CF or SLI in future, there's other boards).

 

[Pecax]

Thanks a lot Barty you are a real life saver, thats literaly everything i was looking for ! hey just to clarify Crossfire and SLI arent the same but SLI is for nvidia? i am still considering (when the future is bright lol) the posibility of going for a higher end single card like a gtx 970 instead of the 270x crossfire,you did mention the ASRock board didt support SLI, can you put me in the right track?

 

[Barty1884]

CF & SLI are essentially AMD & nVidia's options of the same thing - some boards support both, some support one or another & some support neither.

Ideally you'd upgrade to a single card (it's not always true that 2x lower card = 1x larger card), as some games/programs etc are not designed to utilize either CF or SLI - a single card is generally preferred.

Not quite understanding what you want me to put you on track with, but I'll try.
The board listed will support your 270x and CF'ing that card if you choose.
It'll also support if you switch to nVidia for a single card.
The only thing it won't support is 2x nVidia cards (which, assuming you go from 1x 270x to 2x 270x and finally to a single higher-performing card, will mean quite a ways down the line before it becomes an issue.

Either of these boards will support CF & SLI if you want to be 100% sure for future upgrades:
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-motherboard-z97g45gaming
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-motherboard-z97sslikraitedition

They're a little bit more money., but not a huge additional outlay if you want piece of mind.