Upgrading - Need advice please.

[Midgetised]

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

 

[sora]

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

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?

This RAM issue should not effect you at all. The upgrade that Suzuki suggested should definitely yield you 60+ FPS on Ultra on a game like Battlefield 4, and obviously A LOT more on Counter Strike: Global Offensive!

+1 to Suzuki's build.

 

[Grimwinder]

Well, to be clear, the card has 4gb on it, it's just that .5gb of that has a throttled bandwidth, making that .5 somewhat less useful. Nvidia claims they did this for several technical reasons, but the consensus among the hardware and gaming community, is that it was done because the 970 with all 4gb fully utilized was *too* good and as a result would have caused too many not to buy the more expensive 980. Therefore they tuned the card down a little to keep a bigger gap between it and the 980.

Bottom line though, the 970 is the best card you can buy at it's price point and, especially at 1080 or 1440p, you'll never see the difference in the nerfed .5gb.

 

[profoundnoah]

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

SSD's are purely for booting programs, not increasing gaming speed, although there is a small relationship between the two. If you're looking to save money, keep your Hard Drive, and aim for something like a Radeon HD 7970. Its around 150 pounds or $180 USD and is very effective.

 

[Midgetised]

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

What would you say would give best performance results? the Intel build you have linked there or the AMD one with the 970?

 

[DeathRabit]

AMD + 970

 

[Midgetised]

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

I have bought this:
http://www.ebuyer.com/667937-gigabyte-gtx-970-windforce-3x-4gb-gddr5-dual-dvi-hdmi-3-displayport-gv-n970wf3oc-4gd
Thoughts? Also thanks for the help!