Upgrading - Need advice please.

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
M

Midgetised

Reputable
Aug 12, 2014
46
0
4,530
Hello, I'm looking to improve performance, I use this system for mostly gaming purposes. My maximum amount to spend is £400 but am looking around the £200-300 area however this is flexible. I was thinking of swapping to Intel for the performance of their CPUs but was wondering what would be a good motherboard to swap too and would I have to swap my graphics card as well? Or is it worth upgrading and staying on the AMD side?

One of my friends mentioned that maybe I should swap to an SSD and put my operating system (windows 7) on it so that it would all be quieter and faster. I know nothing about SSDs other than the fact that they're expensive. Is this a good idea and if not any suggestions would greatly help.

Also, I have been having crash issues for a while now and it has taken its toll on my CS:GO life (3 total week bans). I am looking to fix these issues and/or upgrade. I have tried a program called CCleaner and that helped a bit but isn't quite sufficiant. I am open to suggestions.

This is my existing build:
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon 7870 HD 1050MHz 2GB PCI-E 3.0 HDMI Twin Frozr OC$
PSU: 650W ZS 80+ PSU $
Motherboard: 990FX Extreme3 AM3+ AMD 990FX DDR3 ATX
Processor: FX6-6300 AM3+ 3.5GHz 14MB 95W
Hard Drive (not sure if this is useful or not) : 1TB Black 3.5" SATA6GB/S 7200rpm 64MB $
Case (could this be useful for the fan count?) : Carbide Series 200R Compact ATX Case
RAM: 8GB
 
Solution
S
It's a great GPU, yes unfortunately it can only use 3.5 GB VRAM, the other 0.5 gb is invisible to games, won't even attempt to use it. It can be a down side but it's a very powerful card. Your processor won't be overwhelmed. You'll get playable framerates which is what matters the most.


If you still want to go Intel, I don't want to be the bottle neck in this thread. 😛

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (£150.81 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI H97 PC MATE ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£61.16 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 280X 3GB TWIN FROZR Video Card (£169.55 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £381.52...
Sort by date Sort by votes
For gaming a SSD isn't going to make that much of a direct impact. Right now it looks like your weakest link is your video card. So, I would start there and then if you aren't happy you can start looking at the processor. Moving to a better (than you have) Intel chip might strain your budget a bit, so I'd look at perhaps sticking with AMD depending on what that board will support.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


What upgraded card would you suggest? I want it to be powerful.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Any way about upgrade path:

From CPU side you can go for FX 8350 and even OC up to 4.2Ghz.
Or stick with FX6300 and OC more :)

Any way for OC you will nee good cooler
This can work with FX 6300 http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/cooler-master-cpu-cooler-rr212e20pkr2
But for FX8350 and OC you need look for this http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/noctua-cpu-cooler-nhd14
You can always buy noctua first and OC FX 6300 on it and whenn you will need more performance buy later FX 8350.

GPU: go for this http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-video-card-gvn970g1gaming4gd


Can you tell anything more about crashes you game crash or entire PC reboot ?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


When it crashes the screen will turn black and sound will jitter, to fix it I have to hold the power button on my PC for a few seconds then turn it on and play until it does it again. Also in CS:GO, when I look at smoke grenades in the fog, my fans go turbo mode.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote


So what do you recommend? Upgrade to GTX970 and my PSU or what?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


The temperature is 37 C but this temp and the other one I gave you earlier are when im not in a game but on my desktop and with chrome open.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Your current PSU with a 970 is fine, it's just that the comparable AMD cards, like the R9 290, suggest a 750w minimum PSU, so I only suggest that to people with less wattage with the understanding that they *may* have upgrade their PSU too. You can research the cards a bit, but you can likely get a R9 290 with a good 750w+ PSU for the price of the 970, and then you've upgraded your PSU as well.

So, either a slightly better video card with the 970 on one hand (better than the 290, both are far better than your current), or a R9 290 and a PSU on the other. Just a matter of personal tastes really.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
The manufacturers always leave too much head room. 650W is plenty for even a R9 290. Assuming a single R9 290 draws ~300 (higher if peak but a ms or two won't make a difference) depending on model, and CPU + rest of system around 200W, it's obvious that they recommend something much higher than what is really needed. I do agree with the GTX 970 though, solid card.

A lot of the times the benchmarks out there show the power draw from the wall, which is a lot higher and definitely not accurate.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


They all seen fine, if I go into a game then tab out the fans are at like 30 - 40 C but then return to near 45 - 50, I think its my fans to be honest, they keep it cool during a game but on idle they go slow, what should I do?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


I miss understand you tell about 50C during idle and this is to high but during gaming is ok:)

 
Upvote 0 Downvote


I was looking at reveiws for the GTX970 and they were saying that it only has 3.5gb of ram when it says it has 4. Is this a problem and if I upgrade to this will my processor not be overwhelmed? http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/Gigabyte+NVIDIA+GTX+970+G1+GAMING+WindForce+3x+OC+4096MB+Graphics+Card+%2B+FREE+Batman+Arkham+Knight+%26+Witcher+3+Games%21+?productId=61859&source=pcpartpicker#rqc
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It's a great GPU, yes unfortunately it can only use 3.5 GB VRAM, the other 0.5 gb is invisible to games, won't even attempt to use it. It can be a down side but it's a very powerful card. Your processor won't be overwhelmed. You'll get playable framerates which is what matters the most.


If you still want to go Intel, I don't want to be the bottle neck in this thread. 😛

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (£150.81 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI H97 PC MATE ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£61.16 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 280X 3GB TWIN FROZR Video Card (£169.55 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £381.52
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-05-16 00:00 BST+0100
 
Upvote 1 Downvote
Solution


Thankyou very much but does this ram issue affect me much do you tthink? What would it stop me doing and what frames would I be looking at on games like CS:GO and BF4?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom