What to upgrade next

[AlbanHampton]

I was just wondering what piece of hardware I should upgrade next, I would like a high end gaming rig that can run all current games with decent FPS, but without breaking the bank.

So current set-up is;

Gigabyte H61M-DS2 Motherboard
Intel i5 3570k CPU with stock cooler
Radeon R9 270x GPU
8GB DDR3 1333MHz unbranded RAM
500GB HDD
XFX pro 550w PSU

Thanks in advance!

 

[ykki]

Whats your budget?

 

[AlbanHampton]

No real budget as things will be upgraded one at a time

 

[Justin Millard]

I would argue that you already have that haha. Well your CPU is great. Your GPU is good. Your RAM is good enough, and solid state drives only affect loading times so.... The only part you will benefit from upgrading is the GPU.

If you want to do that at a good budget grab the R9 370X when it comes out. At the moment your system is fine for playing all games at decent FPS.

EDIT: And later on after you have upgraded the GPU you might like to invest in a better cooler (costs $40-$90) for the i5 so you can overclock it up to 4.2GHZ. That should cover you brilliantly for all games over the next two years.

 

[USAFRet]

An SSD.

 

[Justin Millard]

If load times bother you an SSD is good, but as I said they don't improve frame rates. However they can load textures faster so you might get a bit less of textures suddenly popping into existance.

 

[AlbanHampton]

I don't think I'll bother with an ssd, considering alls I'd use it for is to load the os faster

 

[ykki]

If you get a gtx970 then it would feel like an upgrade.
You can also get an ssd and hold off the 970 for a later time.

 

[USAFRet]

If load times bother you an SSD is good, but as I said they don't improve frame rates. However they can load textures faster so you might get a bit less of textures suddenly popping into existance.

No, they don't improve FPS.
But the whole rest of the system feels better. I've never seen a PC that does games, only games, and nothing but games.
Antivirus, various utilities, etc, etc.

 

[Justin Millard]

If you want a massive increase in graphics performance the R9 380X is expected to run at a minimum of 60FPS on high settings in all games that are currently out.

 

[ykki]

Not with that mobo he cant.(overclocking)

 

[Justin Millard]

That is certainly true.

If load times bother you an SSD is good, but as I said they don't improve frame rates. However they can load textures faster so you might get a bit less of textures suddenly popping into existance.

No, they don't improve FPS.
But the whole rest of the system feels better. I've never seen a PC that does games, only games, and nothing but games.
Antivirus, various utilities, etc, etc.

 

[Justin Millard]

Well spotted. Yeah after you get a new graphics card get a Z77 motherboard if you plan to overclock the CPU.

Not with that mobo he cant.

 

[AlbanHampton]

So is there no point in going for an i7?

Also, how much are we expecting the 380x to be?

 

[Justin Millard]

An i7 might give you an extra couple of FPS in games (and I literally mean 2 FPS), but thats $400 that would be way better spent on a graphics card if your main purpose is gaming. If later on you want to improve your CPU you are better off getting a Z77 motherboard and a decent cooler.

 

[Justin Millard]

I'd expect the 380X to be around $320 and the 370X to be around $250. Thats in Australian dollars by the way.

 

[Karadjgne]

Upgrade the motherboard. The i5-3570k is being held back by that h61 board. Get a decent z77 and let it loose.

SSD. Some will argue that an SSD is no help in games, but I have found this to be untrue. In many games that have repetitive loads (same cell, same actor, same map etc) after the initial load is cached to the SSD temp files, they load from the SSD, not from Hdd, making uploads much faster. 30 seconds to load a 4k texture map, or 5 seconds, its your game time.

HDD. That 500 is more than likely getting close to full working ability, or about 450-460Mb tops. Any large games, further added to with upgrades, mods, texture packs etc, are really gonna eat away at that space, 500 is not that much, considering Windows fresh install will eat 35-45 by itself. A move upto a seagate/wd/Toshiba 1Tb wouldn't be a bad idea, especially considering the performance you get for the $50 price tag.

Gpu is fine, for 1080p it'll do the job, albeit not at the highest detail settings in some games.

Psu. Cheers, its an excellent unit, and it'll handle the most powerful single gpu made, the gtx980. So hold onto it.

Ram. Your choice, but most games won't come close to filling out 8Gb, more like 5-6, so size is good. Intel cpu's are certified for 1333/1600MHz. Anything higher and you start to loose that nice 1:1 ratio which really starts to work the memory controller. This results in elevated temps on the cpu. Also, more than a few 2133 MHz and everything 2400MHz and up require 1.65v, not the normal 1.5v, and this is not good for Haswell or later cpus as the VRM's are on die, not separate as in sandy/Ivy Bridge. Difference in 1333 and 1600 is a few frames, like 1-3, you'd never notice the difference.

 

[nimonster]

SSD maybe even crossfire GPUs

 

[Justin Millard]

Don't buy another R9 270 and try to crossfire it. Crossfire honestly does not work with a lot of games. If you look up crossfire problems on the internet you will immediately find hundreds of people who did not get the performance they wanted from sli or crossfire.

If you can afford to buy a single card that gives you the performance you want always do that instead.