Upgrading CPU or GPU first.

[skooga]

My current build is a G3258 PSU / 7770 GPU.
I'm trying to decide between buying I5-4590 PSU or R9 390 GPU first?
There will be a couple months between each purchase. Which would get me by better? Thanks

 

[basroil]

Definitely CPU first in your case, that CPU is absolute garbage and likely holding your GPU back! If you put a 390 in there, the 390 would be held back considerably

Before you upgrade the GPU down the line, you might need to consider the PSU... what do you have now?

 

[rhysiam]

You could almost do both with a 4460 and 380/960. That's only a little more than a 390 on its own (which as basroil says, is going to be held back by your Pentium).

We're looking at some (hopefully) pretty significant GPU upgrades over the next twelve months. So you could go i5 + 380 as a stop-gap and save up for a new GPU. That way at least you'll have a capable and balanced system.

 

[skooga]

I have a corsair cx 600 PSU at the moment. r9 390 is around $270 after rebate on newegg with a copy of Hitman. That seems like a good deal. but I might take your advice and do the i5/380. Are you referring to polaris and such over the next year to come out and be worth saving for?

 

[Proofy]

Yes polaris is coming out for amd and pascal gpus for nvidia. They announce huge leap in performance and computing power so it will be worth it

 

[skooga]

Is their a specific 380 that I should be shooting for? Can't decide between the Asus Strix, MSI, or the Sapphire

 

[Proofy]

for red team always sapphire (nitro model if avaliable)
Get 380x if the price difference is not too big

 

[NerdyComputerGuy]

G3258 is a pretty decent processor, it it overclocked to at least 4ghz and it works wonders, in my opinion i would upgrade my GPU first then get a better CPU later.

 

[rhysiam]

+1 for the Sapphire.

RE the G3258 as a capable gaming processor... I think it's a really mixed bag. Some games are pretty CPU agnostic, but Toms have been cautioning against Pentiums for gaming for years now and it's not at all unusual to see games that need a processor capable of handling 4 threads to run decently. It can be misleading too because often average frame rates are okay, but minimum rates suffer hugely which can result is some frustrating fps drops. As an example, just see how badly the G3258 suffers in Fallout 4: http://www.techspot.com/review/1089-fallout-4-benchmarks/page5.html
Even an overclock is not going to get things anywhere close to an i3.

For sure though there are a number of light CPU games where a 390 with your pentium will net you higher fps at higher settings. But there will also be games that you really can't run well at all on the pentium. Which is why I'd suggest the i5 with a mid-range card as a better balanced build. It will run everything (often with details turned down), and the i5 should last you a number of years and support a GPU upgrade down the track.

 

[basroil]

Is their a specific 380 that I should be shooting for? Can't decide between the Asus Strix, MSI, or the Sapphire

All are good, and Asus + MSI have dual mode versions that turn off fans during idle for lower noise and power consumption