Upgrade to GTX 1060 or buy new machine

[baquintraz]

I'm planning to get a new graphics card, in part for gaming but also to do some machine learning. I've set my eyes on a GTX 1060 with 6GB. I also want to upgrade my RAM to at least 16GB. My questions are:

■ Should I upgrade or should I buy a new machine altogether? I guess I can keep my PSU and hard drive, so my wallet might not need to take such a big hit. My specs are at the bottom of the post.
■ Should I consider a GTX 1070? For the machine learning part, the more powerful the better, of course, but I have to set the limit somewhere, and I think I'll be fine with a 1060. For gaming, will I actually notice the difference between a 1070 and a 1060 if I stick to my 1080p monitor?
■ This EVGA1060 is significantly cheaper than the rest. http:// Why should I consider buying any other? Another option my be this MSI, slightly more expensive, but cheaper than most. http://
You can see the rest of the 6GB 1060's offered by this retailer here, in case you want to compare prices. http://

Considering the card and the memory, I was planning to spend about €400. Anything around that figure should be OK. If I have to buy a new machine I might wait a little longer.

Regarding the room in my case, the MSI I linked to above seems to be roughly the same size as the 6870 I'm sporting right now, so I should be OK. I even have room for a card a tad longer.

My specs, as per Speccy, plus some additions of my own:

CPU
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T 48 °C
Thuban 45nm Technology
RAM
6.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 465MHz (6-6-6-18)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK Computer INC. M4A89GTD-PRO/USB3 (AM3)
Graphics
Philips 226VL (1920x1080@60Hz)
1024MB ATI AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series (Sapphire/PCPartner) (a 6870, actually)
PSU
Corsair TX650
Storage
1863GB Seagate ST2000DL003-9VT166 ATA Device (SATA)

Thanks in advance!

 

[envy14tpe]

1. Upgrade the system. The Phenom was great but it'll bottleneck the 1070 some. The Phenom is at least 5 years old and behind the FX series which is still considered behind newer CPUs.

It'll cost you around $1000, but you can sell the old parts for some small cash.

 

[gondo]

First thing I'd upgrade is the video card. At 60Hz and 1080p a 1060 is fine, but a 1070 will give you 60fps consistently, and will give you the option of a 144Hz GSync monitor and you will be able to surpass 60Hz in the future at 1080p. A new video card will also run cooler and be more efficient.

Next thing I'd do is get an SSD. It'll speed up windows and your overall experience a lot.

Next would be a CPU, motherboard, RAM upgrade. Your current setup will work for now, but an upgrade is overdue if you want to keep up with the new video card. AMD has ZEN coming out and Intel has some new stuff in the works, so I'd wait a bit for now and see what the future has in store.

If you don't feel like installing windows twice, once for the SSD and again with a new motherboard, then just save up and buy the hard drive and CPU at the same time.

 

[baquintraz]

1. Upgrade the system. The Phenom was great but it'll bottleneck the 1070 some. The Phenom is at least 5 years old and behind the FX series which is still considered behind newer CPUs.

It'll cost you around $1000, but you can sell the old parts for some small cash.

Will the bottleneck be too bad if I just upgrade the card for now? For machine learning I don't think it should be too much of a problem, but for gaming perhaps it will be.

 

[baquintraz]

First thing I'd upgrade is the video card. At 60Hz and 1080p a 1060 is fine, but a 1070 will give you 60fps consistently, and will give you the option of a 144Hz GSync monitor and you will be able to surpass 60Hz in the future at 1080p. A new video card will also run cooler and be more efficient.

Next thing I'd do is get an SSD. It'll speed up windows and your overall experience a lot.

Next would be a CPU, motherboard, RAM upgrade. Your current setup will work for now, but an upgrade is overdue if you want to keep up with the new video card. AMD has ZEN coming out and Intel has some new stuff in the works, so I'd wait a bit for now and see what the future has in store.

If you don't feel like installing windows twice, once for the SSD and again with a new motherboard, then just save up and buy the hard drive and CPU at the same time.

Thanks for the advice. If the CPU bottleneck is not too bad I might get a new card right away and a whole new system further down the line.

I only ever boot up Windows for gaming. Do SSDs make a noticeable difference in games, other than faster loading times?

 

[gondo]

SSD is mostly loading times for gaming. It's not necessary. SSD is mostly your overall windows/explorer exploring hard drive times.

Loading times for MMOs and dungeons is a big bonus of an SSD.

 

[envy14tpe]

There will be a bottleneck with a 1060. GO ahead and get it but plan for major system update in the next year.

 

[baquintraz]

There will be a bottleneck with a 1060. GO ahead and get it but plan for major system update in the next year.

I guess I'll get the 1060 and monitor the activity to try to figure out how bad the bottleneck is. When I save up I'll get a new system, which should be a reasonable investment excluding the GPU and PSU.

Thanks!