Hey guys, thank you for all the replies! I really appreciate it. You guys have some really good insights on the matter.
One of these to help your 280x, it's bottlenecked by the i3.
Yeah, this might be true. I kinda noticed this when I was playing Far Cry 3. Whatever I did, I couldn't get my fps to match the results of other people on the internet.
InvalidError :
If your motherboard supports Ivy Bridge CPUs, my pick would be the i5-3550. For the GPU, I would stretch the 280X at least until the 16nm models next year.
I'm inclined to the i5-3550 as well, but I couldn't find any reviews of the chip out there. I guess tech sites just don't like mid-range products.
And I'm hoping that my 280X will still give a solid performance in 1080p for the next 3 years. I'm willing go down to High or even Medium for 2018 games.
spentshells :
I have to agree with the posts above but warning not all h67 support ivy bridge. What model motherboard do you have? If it supports Ivy 3550 and keep the 280x
Thank you. I never thought about CPU compatibility before reading your post. So it got me worried for a bit. But I did some checking on the official website, and my board does support Ivy Bridge.
My motherboard is J&W MINIX H67M-USB3 (link: http://www.jwele.com/motherboard_detail.php?1052#_cpu).
I know, it's a third-tier boardmaker. But it was the first Sandy Bridge Mini-ITX board available in my country back in 2011. I figured, rather than waiting for ASRock or Gigabyte to be released, I just went for it. It was a good decision, since it was not for another 6 months that other boards became available. It's been running 24/7 for almost 4 years, and still going strong.
(yeah, I never turn off my PC. Ever.)
TechNeeeQ :
First of all, let me commend you on how well you lay out your question as well as how clear and explanatory you were.
I recommend you upgrade your processor first. The main reason is that if you should upgrade to the GTX 970 or any other similar ranged card, they will bottleneck with the i3-2100 processor you have there.
The 280x is actually a good card for gaming and considering the fact you don't seem to do extreme intense gaming, then you could stick with it until you have a decent budget to upgrade to probably the 960 or 70.. I would say, go with the i5-3570, it will allow you to get maximum performance out of your 280x...Trust me you will not believe you still have the same GPU in your system..... Now, when you get this processor, it doesn't mean you should spend or waste the remainder of your budget plus what you will sell the i3 for....It means that you should start saving for a future upgrade of the graphics card...
Thank you, kind sir! I like being thorough whenever I ask something, since I hate people who just ask "WHAT CPU I BUY, I WANT TO WIN BF4!!!" and expect an answer, let alone a discussion.
I'm hoping by upgrading to a quad, I could prolong my system's utility by several years. Although, as I won't be upgrading my monitor for the next 2-3 years, do you think I should go for another graphic card soon?
spentshells :
Upgrade to the 960? No that is a downgrade. Also the 3570 is not worth the extra 30 dollars on a limited budget if it's the non k processor.
100Mhz doesn't really seem worth 30 dollars.
Mind you I appreciate your formatting and bold font.
OP - While it will not improve gaming I recommend selling that (edit) i3 and picking up another 8GB of ram. 3 years is a long time in computing 16GB might come in handy if you were looking to do anything else with your system.
You make a very good point. 100Mhz for $30 seems kinda...you know, not a smart-buy.
Yeah, I agree. I think I should go for 16GB of RAM for the next upgrade. I noticed severe slowdowns when I was editing my short film in Premiere, whilst alt-tabbing to Photoshop, Chrome, a minimized FIFA 15, and a full-HD movie I have playing in the background.
But the thing is, I was poor when I bought this system, so I didn't get an 8GB RAM stick. I bought a 4GB RAM and added another one two years later. And I only have two slots. So I need to buy 2x 8GB stick for $150, and then sell my 4GB sticks afterwards. Which is a chore.
Hi, thanks for the suggestion. I live in Jakarta, Indonesia. Ebay is dead here and PC gaming doesn't have the same community like in the US (people here use laptops and play DoTA or Counter Strike. Sad, I know). Therefore, it's hard to find a used processor for sale.
I checked the second hand price of i7-3770 and it's being sold around $200, which is an okay price actually. But they usually don't come with the box and I don't know what kind of PSU they had before. Also, electricity is very unreliable here. Even in Jakarta, the capital city, I suffer from power outage probably once a month. I don't know what would outages do to CPUs, but I just don't want to take the risk.
InvalidError :
Some people, like me, have a strict "no second-hand parts" policy when messing around with their main work/play computer - I have no time nor patience to spare for messing with questionable second-hand parts.
His computer might be old but CPUs have not become much faster over the past four years and they are unlikely to become drastically faster in the foreseeable future either. The i5-3550 might not be the newest and greatest but at the rate software and CPUs are progressing, it will still be decent for gaming and most general-purpose computing even five years from now.
I actually was wondering about this. So I did some research.
From what I can see, the advent of performance from Sandy, to Ivy, to Haswell, to Broadwell, and to Skylake is kinda minimal. I did some calculations based on Eurogamer's review of i7-6700K (link: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-intel-skylake-core-i7-6700k-review)
For gaming, on average, the i7-3770 is only 4% better compared to i7-2600K. The i7-4790K is only 9% better. And even the latest Skylake i7-6700K "only" shows around 18% improvements over it's Sandy Bridge counterpart. This makes me confident that if I upgrade to i5-3550 today, it will still be decent enough in three years.
sna :
PayPal will pay you back your money if you recieved defekt parts . anyways he is selling his old cpu too right ? so it is the same thing
Edit : by the way , do you know how many PCs large companies ditch in the market each year and resellers pull out CPU from those desktops and sell them on ebay ?
MILLIONS. and they are 100% working. be sure you get from those.
spentshells :
I have purchased my last two gpu's second hand and do not regret it, Ebay has changed a lot since 200x. The highly rated sellers have been at it for a while now, selling 10's of thousands of computer parts and will continue doing so, A level of trust is built they are for the most part looking to continue as they have been as it turns them a prophet and as anyone who is making money will always try to make more and the only way to do that is to be a reliable seller.
Gosh, I wish I was living in the US! You guys got it so good! You can get cheap parts everywhere. I often go to Newegg and drool over a piece of tech, then go to my local online shop and cry.
Also, in my country, there are no online marketplace that accept PayPal. They use bank transfer and/or credit card.
So, I don't think I'm gonna buy used this time, unless I can find a good deal (which is rare) and it's still a couple of years within the warranty period.
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