Next upgrade

[sakai4eva]

Well, I'll be coming into some money soon, and I finally have dealt with sufficient issues to be able to budget an upgrade for my aging PC! That and 30-40 FPS on Witcher 3 is bugging me.

So, taking a look at my rig, any suggestions?

By the way, I have access to another PC with another 6950, so crossfire is just a matter of cannibalizing parts. However, as I understand it my motherboard only supports a 16x PCIe and the second one will only be 4x PCIe.

I can also swap out my mobo and proc for an i5-750 and ASUS P7P55D LE combo (from same cannibalized PC), so if the Intel upgrade path is less painful/cost effective, I'd consider that instead.

Many thanks in advance for any and all advice!

 

[st2000]

dunno if it helps

 

[Toothless]

A normal Haswell i5, maybe those 6950's and a new board with maybe updated ram?

 

[peche]

By the way, I have access to another PC with another 6950, so crossfire is just a matter of cannibalizing parts. However, as I understand it my motherboard only supports a 16x PCIe and the second one will only be 4x PCIe.

I can also swap out my mobo and proc for an i5-750 and ASUS P7P55D LE combo (from same cannibalized PC), so if the Intel upgrade path is less painful/cost effective, I'd consider that instead.

Many thanks in advance for any and all advice!

ill swap … get the i5… that motherboard is not crossfire compatible igues… but i750750 is faster than your other processor, do you have 16GB of lowend ram too?


Regards,

 

[krusha03]

Well, I'll be coming into some money soon, and I finally have dealt with sufficient issues to be able to budget an upgrade for my aging PC! That and 30-40 FPS on Witcher 3 is bugging me.

So, taking a look at my rig, any suggestions?

By the way, I have access to another PC with another 6950, so crossfire is just a matter of cannibalizing parts. However, as I understand it my motherboard only supports a 16x PCIe and the second one will only be 4x PCIe.

I can also swap out my mobo and proc for an i5-750 and ASUS P7P55D LE combo (from same cannibalized PC), so if the Intel upgrade path is less painful/cost effective, I'd consider that instead.

Many thanks in advance for any and all advice!

What is your budget and where are you located?

 

[sakai4eva]

What is your budget and where are you located?

Malaysia. I'm looking to invest up to USD1k (converted, of course) for a slightly more future-proof rig. Looking for 60FPS on 1080p or so since I'm reluctant to change all my displays without some REALLY compelling reasons.

I mostly play Dota 2, hence I haven't been feeling the urge to upgrade until Witcher 3 brought my rig to its knees.

I guess I mainly want to play future games (1.5 to 2 years) at a high-ish setting @ 1080p (output to TVs mostly).

ill swap … get the i5… that motherboard is not crossfire compatible igues… but i750750 is faster than your other processor, do you have 16GB of lowend ram too?


Regards,

Already swapped out the i5 by now and crossfired the 6950s. All of 3 FPS I think. I'm still tanking it around 30.

A normal Haswell i5, maybe those 6950's and a new board with maybe updated ram?

Already got the ancient i5-750 into it. Not much improvements in terms of FPS.

 

[st2000]

Already got the ancient i5-750 into it. Not much improvements in terms of FPS.

there is not a big difference between generations starting only from i5 SB(i5-2xxx), i5 1st generation from 2nd difference is between 35-50%
if you want some futureproof go to haswell as said before(skylake will have ddr4 which is not cheap and not as good as ddr3 with same frequence)
also to see some difference in fps in witcher 3 you should(as i think) move to another system built from zero(may be you can stay with psu and case)
get at least i5-2xxx + gtx960/970 or r9 270x/280/285/280x + 8gb ram

 

[sakai4eva]

there is not a big difference between generations starting only from i5 SB(i5-2xxx), i5 1st generation from 2nd difference is between 35-50%
if you want some futureproof go to haswell as said before(skylake will have ddr4 which is not cheap and not as good as ddr3 with same frequence)
also to see some difference in fps in witcher 3 you should(as i think) move to another system built from zero(may be you can stay with psu and case)
get at least i5-2xxx + gtx960/970 or r9 270x/280/285/280x + 8gb ram

The PSU was bought with the intention of running it for 5 years plus, so I understand if it'll last.

As for the CPU+mobo combo, I am planning to get a lower end mobo with an i5-4960. Would this be bad in the long run (2 years)? I can opt for the 4960k and get a better mobo if spending circa USD200 would future proof my rig a little more.

As for RAM, I'm not really sure about the cost:benefit ratio of getting expensive RAM, but feel free to slap me in the face. I've managed to snag another 8GB of DDR3 (not sure about the timings on this one) so amount of RAM shouldn't be an issue.

 

[krusha03]

Malaysia. I'm looking to invest up to USD1k (converted, of course) for a slightly more future-proof rig. Looking for 60FPS on 1080p or so since I'm reluctant to change all my displays without some REALLY compelling reasons.

I mostly play Dota 2, hence I haven't been feeling the urge to upgrade until Witcher 3 brought my rig to its knees.

I guess I mainly want to play future games (1.5 to 2 years) at a high-ish setting @ 1080p (output to TVs mostly).



Already swapped out the i5 by now and crossfired the 6950s. All of 3 FPS I think. I'm still tanking it around 30.



Already got the ancient i5-750 into it. Not much improvements in terms of FPS.

Looking at this:

Short of 980 / 980 Ti / Titan X / 390x nothing else will run Witcher 3 at 1080P and 60 FPS. Also crossfire doesn't seem to work for this title thus the lack of FPS increase.

The PSU was bought with the intention of running it for 5 years plus, so I understand if it'll last.

As for the CPU+mobo combo, I am planning to get a lower end mobo with an i5-4960. Would this be bad in the long run (2 years)? I can opt for the 4960k and get a better mobo if spending circa USD200 would future proof my rig a little more.

As for RAM, I'm not really sure about the cost:benefit ratio of getting expensive RAM, but feel free to slap me in the face. I've managed to snag another 8GB of DDR3 (not sure about the timings on this one) so amount of RAM shouldn't be an issue.

The gain from faster ram is minimal thus if the price difference is large go for the cheapest ram. At least in US and Europe there are also cheap Z97 boards but without knowing the prices in Malaysia I cannot recommend the best bang for buck

 

[sakai4eva]

Looking at this:

Short of 980 / 980 Ti / Titan X / 390x nothing else will run Witcher 3 at 1080P and 60 FPS. Also crossfire doesn't seem to work for this title thus the lack of FPS increase.



The gain from faster ram is minimal thus if the price difference is large go for the cheapest ram. At least in US and Europe there are also cheap Z97 boards but without knowing the prices in Malaysia I cannot recommend the best bang for buck

Thing is I'm trying very hard to justify if there is a need to go for Z97 mobos especially since I will only run single card setups. I don't really feel a compelling reason to splurge on the mobo especially since I don't overclock anyway...

I've got an offer on hand for a very cheap r9-290 pre-loved for a month at 66% of dealer price here, so I'm probably going to go with that. Maybe I'll sacrifice an effect or two but at this price point the value of which I'm getting is just too much.

 

[st2000]

I can opt for the 4960k and get a better mobo if spending circa USD200 would future proof my rig a little more

it's not worth extra 200$, take nonK version with some cheap mobo(b85 for example) - better add these 200$ for grafics card

 

[sakai4eva]

it's not worth extra 200$, take nonK version with some cheap mobo(b85 for example) - better add these 200$ for grafics card

Yeah, that's my train of thought from the first build I made.

So, in conclusion, I'd get myself a combination of the r9-290, i5-4960 and a B85 mobo.

Thanks guys

 

[Toothless]

Yeah, that's my train of thought from the first build I made.

So, in conclusion, I'd get myself a combination of the r9-290, i5-4960 and a B85 mobo.

Thanks guys

Let us know how it runs and everything!

 

[silkstone]

If you are primarly upgrading for TW3, you'd be better going with the green team. 970 would be ideal if you can swing it.

 

[sakai4eva]

If you are primarly upgrading for TW3, you'd be better going with the green team. 970 would be ideal if you can swing it.

970 costs a lot more here. No post-launch discount to consider.

I'm paying around RM1.5k for a 970 and 1.2k for a r9-290 pre-taxes

 

[sakai4eva]

Let us know how it runs and everything!

r9-290 is in and it runs at a smooth 42FPS @ high presets.

I'm a happy gamer.

I'm just gonna settle for the i5-4460 instead because they are running a massive promo for it. I suppose there won't be bottlenecks that I will notice?

 

[sakai4eva]

Let us know how it runs and everything!

Upgrades finalized. From [Phenom II 945 + 6950] to my current rig. Next step is a proper case for all these goodies.