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Is it finally time for an upgrade

345 views 10 replies 8 participants last post by  Depauville Kid 
#1 ·
I have been trying to figure out if it is time to upgrade. The question is upgrade what. I have a budget of roughly 600 dollars.

Should I finally put my 950 out to pasture and get a new mobo, cpu, and ram?

or

Should I again upgrade my GPU to either a 290X or 980?

The primary purpose of this rig. is to run the latest games at or near 60 fps at max settings. I do turn shadows down in most games.
 
#2 ·
Assuming you have the i7-950 and the 7970 now, i would upgrade to a new CPU first. Purely because a new high end CPU will let you unleash the full potential of games for years and years to come, and the 7970 is still a pretty decent GPU.

But thats my 2 cents, if you feel like your CPU will hold out for another year or two so you can save to upgrade it then by all means get an upgraded GPU.
 
#6 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by jabjab90301 View Post

I have been trying to figure out if it is time to upgrade. The question is upgrade what. I have a budget of roughly 600 dollars.

Should I finally put my 950 out to pasture and get a new mobo, cpu, and ram?

or

Should I again upgrade my GPU to either a 290X or 980?

The primary purpose of this rig. is to run the latest games at or near 60 fps at max settings. I do turn shadows down in most games.
With my response I'm thinking of what I would do for a system with games 100% in mind for somebody who is on a tight budget - with longevity in mind.

Is this an upgrade just for the sake of upgrading (I call it the itch
biggrin.gif
). If not, is there any game / program that is suffering that needs some more horsepower? Are you playing at 1080P or higher?

Understand that your current GPU is by all means a 280x, which a top of the line card. I also doubt your CPU is causing you much heartache in games, only some CPU intensive games would see a worthy boost for somebody on a budget that isn't looking to spend a few hundred for a frame rate increase you can count on 1 hand. (I'm not a huge current gen gamer, so I can't say which), I do have a phenom II build I've personally tested my 280x in and I saw no significant bottleneck in comparison to my 4790k, though it was there. Your CPU is quite beyond my 955 BE

When I launch a full screen bench or game, I put my hardware monitors on another screen. If you're having trouble with a game, you can narrow down the culprit. If X game is putting your GPU to 100% activity / maxing out its ram, then you need a GPU upgrade. Likewise to an extent for CPU (I doubt any game will be optimized enough to stress each core and thread to max, single core performance is probably most important). If you're playing at 1080P and turning shadows, a memory bandwidth hog down, I really don't see any worthwhile upgrades right now.

My thoughts: I would not upgrade from a 7970 yet, if I needed higher frame rates, I would buy a used second 7970 to crossfire - they can be had used for very reasonable prices used, and you can always sell the pair later in the year. If video memory is the issue, then I wouldn't crossfire, but this should only be in question above 1080P IMO. I just got an XFX DD 7950 for $90. I would then hold the cash until we see what the 300 series AMD cards look like. Any way you look at it, AMD will beat its own 290x in the near future and likely have a flagship that beats the 980.

Intel will be dropping down to 14nm and releasing a new architecture late this year. If your CPU is posing no significant issues, might as well wait, otherwise I would go to a 4690/4790k - Those should be good for gamers for quite a few years. That being said when you do upgrade your CPU, it will mean a new board and faster ram for a price, so I wouldn't skimp on that, a second GPU is your #1 for a fps boost right now.
 
#7 ·
Can I crossfire a r280x and a HD7970?
 
#8 ·
You sure can, 280x is just a mildly tweaked 7970. I've tested my 280x with a 7950 as well and had no problems; here's a video of a guy showing off BF4 on a 280x/7950 CF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcC7zDWAeGY if you check his videos he did a single gpu test for each. Adding the 280x boosted his frame rate from ~60 to 110 in that particular game.

Though again, I would do a second 7970 IF you can find one for a deep discount. http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/63551-will-crossfire-r9-280x-hd-7970-scaling-tested.html , not much of a performance difference. It's up to you, just remember frequencies will be tied to the slowest card - so if you buy a 280x with a higher clock (asus DC2T, Gigabyte 3GD) try to see if you can OC your 7970 to match it then go from there. (If you OC your 280x to 1000/1100 and leave the 7970 at 950/1000 - both cards will run at 950/1000, the slower of the two). They both have the same exact memory and shader count.
 
#11 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by PontiacGTX View Post

if you are on 1080 think about buying a 1440 monitor and save money for the new amd/nvidia cards
This recommendation. Your system is still pretty current. Unless you strive to be on the edge... GTX 980, X99, etc. I would wait on the upgrade. But, as Pontiac said, if your monitor is dated, moving up to a nice 1440p IPS would greatly improve your gaming experience.
 
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