Invest in a GPU or CPU

[Guest]

Hello,
Right now I am running an AMD fx-4170 and the Radeon HD 7850. I was wondering if I should invest in a CPU or GPU for my next upgrade.

 

[amirp]

Definitely invest in a CPU. The reason being that any GPU beyond the 7850 wouldn't see too heavy of a benefit due to bottlenecking and the fact that the 7850 is fairly powerful to be able to run everything now at 1080p.

Upgrade your CPU / platform now and in the future when GPU's are significantly faster and more power is required to run games upgrade GPU

 

[clutchc]

I too would probably go for the CPU upgrade. But even moving to one of the Visheras won't make enough of a difference to justify the cost in my opinion. Still, they are a better processor than the Zambezi.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007671%2050001028%20600373078&IsNodeId=1&name=Vishera

 

[BeastLeeX]

I would say CPU, and wait for Steamroller, and grab an FX-8x20.

 

[Blahman11]

Tried overclocking the FX? They can reach 5.0ghz if you're lucky, and it'll save you a fair bit of cash, it's gonna be £200 ($300) at least for an i5 setup, and that is for a multiplier locked low-end i5 with a cheap motherboard.

 

[13thmonkey]

i'd go for an SSD, if you can OC your CPU it will help, your GPU is good enough for normalish resolutions if you are willing to drop away from ultra settings.

 

[lostgamer_03]

I agree with a lot of the guys in here. You should upgrade your CPU when steamroller launches, it could take a while, but it would prove to give you more performance for your money. When it launches you have probably also saved enough money for a new GPU, so you could upgrade both. Either upgrading CPU now or GPU wouldn't prove to give you a huge noticeable increase of framerates in games. Only if you were to upgrade both.

You could maybe do a slight upgrade on the CPU if you're eager to upgrade right away. FX 6300 is priced around 130$ and you might get lucky and sell your current CPU for 60-70$, by doing so you could get a cheap upgrade, that would let you squeeze some more GPU power out of the system. So you could move a little up the GPU hierarchy.

 

[Guest]

Best answer selected by BananaCreamPie7.