Possible upgrade time.

I'm thinking of an upgrade. My PC is getting older and with BF4 coming I am thinking about an upgrade.

Here is what I have now.


Vertex 3 SSD
Seagate HDD
Gigabyte UD4-P
i7920 - with corsair water cooler
6 Gig of some G Series Ram, forget brand name.
MSI GTX 460


Can I keep anything to save money other than my power supply and case?

Ideas?

I've not kept up on developements for a couple of years since my last upgrade. I have no idea where to get the most bang for buck. I'd like something like myt current build that lasted me a couple years.


Thanks!

That set up is great! Keep the I7 920, the sandy bridge or ivy bridge isnt much faster, grab your self some 1866 or 2133 speed ram 6gigs is fine, bump the cpu speed to just 3.0ghz to keep it from bottlenecking the gpu and add a GTX 670, 680 or an Amd 7970 ghz edition the rest seems fine to me you have a great set up already the ram and GPU upgrade is probably all you need it may set you back about $400 depending on which graphics card you decide but I would definately start with the graphics card and go from there your ram may be ok still too really anything above 1600mhz speed is for overclockers or those looking to get every ounce of speed from their system no matter how small of a difference, the biggest jump in speeds I have seen with my Amd 8120 FX 8 core was from DDR3 1333 to DDR3 1600, and a slightly smaller step up to DDR3 2133. If you already have DDR3 1600 and more than 4 gigs focus on Graphics card and go from there.

night-walkr

My RAM is 1600 however, it doesn't run at that setting. It runs lower at 1200?


I forget. Can my mobo cause any system instability? My PC never runs perfect even after a fresh format.

could be a mobo problem, luckily there are a lot of mobo selections for that socket still.

Thanks I'll have a look.

What decent price graphics card do you suggest? In the $250 to $400 range I think.

I would stick with 1600. The cost-to-performance is perfect and you will see almost no benefit from 1866+.

I would say most noticable difference would be the jump from 1600mhz to 2133 over that not much difference. Graphics wise a Nvidia 670 or 680 or an amd 7950 or 7970 all are great cards and run the same speed in games some gain where others lose and vise versa but all are good, the 7970 and 680 are almost too close to call 2-5% difference in most games and it varies upon the game so its your call of how much you want to spend, I have the Amd 7970 its about $400 and it runs fantastic maxes most games out, which the 680 will as well and they are about the same price. Same goes for the 7950 and 670.

So after this advice looks like I can get away with a new mobo and gpu.


Thanks guys!

I am looking to upgrade my Mobo to either the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX or the ASUS M5A99FX Pro 2.0. The Sabertooth is about $30 more but is it really that much better? They both seem to be very good Mobo's.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3184372&sku=A455-8426

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3947170&CatId=7246

I am also curious to know if there is noticeable difference between 1600mhz and 2133mhz DDR3 memory? And, CAS Latency 9 or 10. which is better?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3683258&CatId=4534

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7447444&csid=_61

In my experience, one's motherboard is the heart of the system and your money will be much better spent on a better MB than faster RAM. I would look towards these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128549

That is my current MB. Gigabyte puts out a great product... on par with ASUS maybe. This might be good too:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128559

In terms of RAM. I find 6GB to be enough and the difference in mhz to be negligible. Check out these benchmarks, as an example:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-bandwidth-latency-gaming,3409-6.html

Most of the time we're talking only a .1-.3 fps increase. This is not worth the price difference, IMO.

Put the extra $35-40 into an upgraded MB, instead of upgraded RAM. I think you'll be more satisfied L2.

Travis

Go with this one instead.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157358

This board is an Asrock board and its pretty decently priced and it also is one of the only mobos with 12+2 phase power rails (to cpu and ram) which means exceptional stability and power even when overclocking (if thats your thing). This board is actually one of the top most rated AMD board and has won multiple awards to prove it. I like the simplicity of it personally, and the bios on these boards are really easy to navigate.

As far as ram speed, it does make a difference especially with the new AMD FX cpus, and the price difference between 1600mhz and 2133 for 8 gigs really isn't that much but for the price ($10 difference why would you not by the 2133?) They are noticably faster my speeds in games like BF3 the time between maps is shortened from 8 secs. with 1600 ram to 5 secs. with 2133. That is a real world difference. There is nothing wrong with 1600 ram I used it for a long time, I got the 8 gigs of 2133 on sale for $54.00 so it was a no brainer, and it was definately worth the money.

Cas latency= The lower the number the better.(Cas 9 is better than Cas 11) reference time is faster.

Here is some nice ram for AMD if thats what you are upgrading, I use Gskill mainly now, I have tried many other brands and these are the most reliable and stable I have ever used and always clock to specified speeds with out messing with them.

DDR3 1600: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314

DDR3 2133: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231518

just some thoughts

mmm... in terms of what you have to say about RAM, i agree, there are a great many instances when faster RAM is worth the extra $, I just don't think gaming is one of them. The money would be better spent, in that case, on a better GPU or CPU or whatever.

I have experienced different instances where ram (depending on speed/type) can make a difference, but it depends highly upon the other components Travis is right the ram is inessential really once you get past the 1600mhz mark the difference is not going to blow you out of your chair. But if you already have a good base system (mobo, cpu) you could use the money for a better GPU or an SSD drive to really boost performance. But if you upgrade regularly and you have like 1333mhz or something why not upgrade to 2133 the price difference over 1600mhz is $8-10 for 8 gigs which is really more than enough for gamming. The other thing i have noticed is the new AMD FX cpus' function better with higher power lower latency ram where as an Intel counterpart will not see as significant gains in speed or performance based on ram distinction, meaning the intels' don't need it because the have stronger gains in other areas.

Yes, that's probably true. I like Intel, so I'm looking at the question from that prospective.

As Battlefield 4 release is soon and I'm up for new internals I wanted to revive the thread.


What's the way to go at the moment? I'm thinking an AMD system this time due to the BF4 optimisation. I've had an AMD system before and it did quite well.

The industry is a pendulum, I think AMD is ahead at the moment at a glance.

I've not been keeping up with it for the past couple years.


Thanks!

Yeah I'm going to be upgrading soon as well. Ill probably wait until BF4 is out and get some good deals on Black Friday.

OK Nimmer......update us to the latest and greatest!