Upgrading my components

[iimSwiftyy]

Hello,

I made a thread before asking for new components to upgrade my PC so that I can begin to run games at a higher resolution and with better settings.
I was linked to three components which would apparently improve my gaming experience.

The three components which were linked are :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-GTX-970-Graphics-Express/dp/B00NOP536Y/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1455917001&sr=1-1&keywords=gtx+970

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Cache-Graphics-Technology-Socket/dp/B00K5J22GG/ref=pd_sim_147_3?ie=UTF8&dpID=51rpamRDzwL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=1GS3M3XRT551BNTQ080J

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-Z97P-D3-LGA1150-Motherboard-USB3-0/dp/B00K9R1OCW/ref=pd_bxgy_147_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1M4Z7CK10WDQBMP4GS58

Those were the three that were linked, but looking at the first link, there is a "Frequently Bought Together" link below which has two different CPU's and Mobo's...

So my question is... Would it be better getting these three that were given to me, or the Frequently Bought Together?

Thanks.

 

[geofelt]

Depends on how much you value the expertise of those "frequently bought together" people.

What do you have now, and what is your budget?

My thought is that if you are going to change the motherboard and cpu on a high end system, you should go with latest technology, namely skylake.

With Skylake now available, there is absolutely no question in my mind that a new build should be Skylake.
a. Prices for cpu, z170 motherboard and ddr4 ram are almost precisely the same.
b. 6600K has an estimated 5-10% performance improvement per clock over haswell.
c. 14nm runs cooler, you get a decent overclock without the need for exotic cooling.
d. The Z170 chipset permits the use of much faster ssd devices on the horizon. Samsung 950 pro for example:
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/ssd950pro/overview.html
e. skylake can be upgraded in the future to kaby lake.

 

[iimSwiftyy]

Depends on how much you value the expertise of those "frequently bought together" people.

What do you have now, and what is your budget?

My thought is that if you are going to change the motherboard and cpu on a high end system, you should go with latest technology, namely skylake.

With Skylake now available, there is absolutely no question in my mind that a new build should be Skylake.
a. Prices for cpu, z170 motherboard and ddr4 ram are almost precisely the same.
b. 6600K has an estimated 5-10% performance improvement per clock over haswell.
c. 14nm runs cooler, you get a decent overclock without the need for exotic cooling.
d. The Z170 chipset permits the use of much faster ssd devices on the horizon. Samsung 950 pro for example:
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/ssd950pro/overview.html
e. skylake can be upgraded in the future to kaby lake.

Hello,

So my current components consist of small(ish) price tags.

I have :

16GB HyperX FURY (RAM)
Sapphire R9 270x 4GB (GPU)
AMD FX6300 Black Edition 6 Core (CPU)
750W PSU
Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 Motherboard.

I would say my budget is of around £500-£600.

All I'm asking is for a few people to link me some components and to help me choose which ones are better so I'm able to play games on higher resolutions without all the lag I'm encountering at the moment due to low FPS.

Thanks.

 

[geofelt]

To help clarify your CPU/GPU options, run these two tests:

a) Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

b) Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 70%.
Go to control panel/power options/change plan settings/change advanced power settings/processor power management/maximum processor state/
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.
Conversely what a 30% improvement in core speed might do.

You should also experiment with removing one core. You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option. set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many cores.

If your FPS drops significantly, it is an indicator that your cpu is the limiting factor, and a cpu upgrade is in order.

It is possible that both tests are positive, indicating that you have a well balanced system, and both cpu and gpu need to be upgraded to get better gaming FPS.

My guess is that you will find that the single thread rating of your FX-6300 is one reason hurting performance.

If that is the primary reason, a I3-6100 will be more like £105.
Do buy a Z170 motherboard to allow for a future "K" or kaby lake upgrade.
There was early hype about non "K" BCLK overclocking, but Intel is in the process of shutting that down.

If you want the arguably best cpu for gaming, that would be the i6-6600K with an overclock to the 4.6 range.
But, that cpu is closer to £200.

If graphics is holding you back the GTX970 would be a sufficiently strong upgrade to do the job.

 

[JeppeSchultz]

If your budget is as high as 500-600 pounds, you might aswell (imo) sell your entire old system (if you can get around 300 pounds for it). With a budget of around 800-900 pounds, you could build a very decent brand new system with a i5-6600k processor and a GTX 970.

 

[iimSwiftyy]

To help clarify your CPU/GPU options, run these two tests:

a) Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

b) Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 70%.
Go to control panel/power options/change plan settings/change advanced power settings/processor power management/maximum processor state/
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.
Conversely what a 30% improvement in core speed might do.

You should also experiment with removing one core. You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option. set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many cores.

If your FPS drops significantly, it is an indicator that your cpu is the limiting factor, and a cpu upgrade is in order.

It is possible that both tests are positive, indicating that you have a well balanced system, and both cpu and gpu need to be upgraded to get better gaming FPS.

My guess is that you will find that the single thread rating of your FX-6300 is one reason hurting performance.

If that is the primary reason, a I3-6100 will be more like £105.
Do buy a Z170 motherboard to allow for a future "K" or kaby lake upgrade.
There was early hype about non "K" BCLK overclocking, but Intel is in the process of shutting that down.

If you want the arguably best cpu for gaming, that would be the i6-6600K with an overclock to the 4.6 range.
But, that cpu is closer to £200.

If graphics is holding you back the GTX970 would be a sufficiently strong upgrade to do the job.

Hi,

When I run my games at lower settings, my FPS increases but not by much. I am just about able to play games with a bit of lag every now and then which still ruins the excitement for games.

I just changed my maximum cpu% to 70.

When going to set the amount of processors to lower, It was already on one? My FPS still does not increase at all.

Does this mean I should buy a better CPU, Motherboard and Graphics card then? I understand if a new Motherboard is needed, I will need to reinstall my Windows and also do something to my HDD??

Thanks.

 

[geofelt]

If you lower settings, it makes it easier for the graphics card to perform at higher rates.
The fact that you do not see much improvement tells me that your cpu is your current limiting factor.
If you only replaced your R7-270X with a GTX970, you would see very little improvement.

The setting for the number of processors will initially show as one.
If you attempt to change it, you can select numbers from 1 to 6 in your case.
When you make the change, you will need to reboot for the change to take effect.
I would expect no degradation at all if you run with 4 threads.
And, I expect if you experimented with only 3 or 2 threads, the difference would not be really great.
What does this experimenting tell you?
It shows you how important the presence of many cores are to YOUR games.
If you play multiplayer games, many cores is a very good thing.
If you primarily are a single player, then the performance of a single fast master core is likely to be more important.

Reducing the performance of cores is sort of a backhanded way to see if core speed is important.
If you get hurt by reducing the speed of cores, then you can assume that you will be helped if the cores are faster.
In this case, any modern Intel core is perhaps 50 % faster than a FX core. That is not due to the frequency, but to the better architecture which gets more performance per clock.

OTOH, if there is little difference, it is an indicator that your limiting factor is the graphics card.

My conclusion is that you need a cpu change first.

 

[iimSwiftyy]

If you lower settings, it makes it easier for the graphics card to perform at higher rates.
The fact that you do not see much improvement tells me that your cpu is your current limiting factor.
If you only replaced your R7-270X with a GTX970, you would see very little improvement.

The setting for the number of processors will initially show as one.
If you attempt to change it, you can select numbers from 1 to 6 in your case.
When you make the change, you will need to reboot for the change to take effect.
I would expect no degradation at all if you run with 4 threads.
And, I expect if you experimented with only 3 or 2 threads, the difference would not be really great.
What does this experimenting tell you?
It shows you how important the presence of many cores are to YOUR games.
If you play multiplayer games, many cores is a very good thing.
If you primarily are a single player, then the performance of a single fast master core is likely to be more important.

Reducing the performance of cores is sort of a backhanded way to see if core speed is important.
If you get hurt by reducing the speed of cores, then you can assume that you will be helped if the cores are faster.
In this case, any modern Intel core is perhaps 50 % faster than a FX core. That is not due to the frequency, but to the better architecture which gets more performance per clock.

OTOH, if there is little difference, it is an indicator that your limiting factor is the graphics card.

My conclusion is that you need a cpu change first.

Okay, so what you're saying, is to experiment at the moment with different amount of processors to see which one gives me the biggest difference?

I play only multiplayer games on here, such as 7 Days to Die, League of Legends, Minecraft and H1Z1.

If I do not see much of an improvement I should get a better CPU? If so, which CPU would you recommend would fit nicely with my current components and motherboard? If there is not much of an improvement with a new CPU, would the GPU be the problem?

Thanks.

 

[iimSwiftyy]

If your budget is as high as 500-600 pounds, you might aswell (imo) sell your entire old system (if you can get around 300 pounds for it). With a budget of around 800-900 pounds, you could build a very decent brand new system with a i5-6600k processor and a GTX 970.

I can't really be bothered going through the whole selling the system part. I might as well just get the CPU and GPU and add it in with a new motherboard.