I have £250 what should i upgrade

cryax

Ok i have a gaming rig with these specs

Intel I7-3770
Nvidia geforce gtx 660
8Gb DDR3-1600 ram
samsung 128gb PM830 solid state drive
1TB segate baracuda
OCZ ZS 750 watt psu
windows 8 still haven't done the 8.1 update as the added features seem pointless to me.

I have a £250 limit to upgrade this as a christmas present from the wife i was thinking the graphics card but not sure if thats the best bet so looking for advice.

BloodBath

If it's for gaming then yes a graphics card would be your best bet. A 280x or 770 gtx would be a good upgrade from a 660. You could also go for a second 660 if your board supports sli.

What board is it?

marco_polo

cryax wrote: »

Ok i have a gaming rig with these specs

Intel I7-3770
Nvidia geforce gtx 660
8Gb DDR3-1600 ram
samsung 128gb PM830 solid state drive
1TB segate baracuda
OCZ ZS 750 watt psu
windows 8 still haven't done the 8.1 update as the added features seem pointless to me.

I have a £250 limit to upgrade this as a christmas present from the wife i was thinking the graphics card but not sure if thats the best bet so looking for advice.

Yeah the GPU is about the only thing that would even be worth upgrading there, but it still a pretty decent card so if you if are still happy with performance in the games you are playing then maybe not even that needs updating urgently.

The only other thing might be a improving peripherals maybe a new monitor or keyboards/headset/speakers if you don't have nice ones already .

cryax

The mainboard is a Gigabyte GA-Z77P-D3 which i am pretty sure is sli capable. Do you guys think another 660gtx card would provide a bigger boost than a newer single card in the £250 range? or even close to it?

I am pretty happy with my peripharals to be honest and because i play in the living room where the family is sound isn't high on my priority list because i simply don't get to enjoy it so the onboard sound is more than adequate for my needs :P.

I used to keep up with this stuff but recently i have fallen behind on graphics card tech and the seemingly massive range of cards is really confusing me :P both from nvidia and amd so wish they would come up with a clearer naming convention especially AMD lol.

BloodBath

A new gen of cards just came out, most of which were rebrands of the last gen. Just higher binned, higher clocked versions. Amd changed their naming convention this gen as well just to confuse things even more.

Adding a second 660 would almost double your performance and put it slightly ahead of a 280x. The only issue is the possibility of no sli profile support for new games for a few days if you buy them at release forcing you to use a single card until the profiles are updated. There are a few games where it won't work at all.

The 660's are very low power consuming cards as well so the power difference wouldn't be much either. You could overclock to get some extra performance as well if you haven't already.

cryax

i think i will save some money then and go for a second 660gtx one thing does the branding of the card matter should i go for the exact same card or can i get one from a different manufacturer and still get the same performance?

Also the motherboard specs here http://www.game-debate.com/motherboard/index.php?mot_id=709&motherboard=Gigabyte%20GA-Z77P-D3 do they indicate i can't run two nvidia cards or am i reading that wrong :P. Under sli it says 1 nvidia gpu but under crosfire it says 2 amd gpu's.

BloodBath

It doesn't support sli then. Not officially anyway. Amd give crossfire ratings for an x8 x4 pcie lane speed configuration. Nvidia requires x8 x8. Ideally you want at least x8 x8 for crossfire or sli as x4 will bottleneck the second card a bit.

It might be best to get a 280x and sell your 660.

cryax

Ah well thanks for that it's my fault for being a bit lazy when i built this I found a well priced barbones kit with Motherboard,cpu,psu memory and case and just went with it i remember at the time thinking the mainboard was a bit limited but the price was really good i couldn't find the components separately for anywhere near the cost of the barebones system :P.

I will take a look at that 280x then thanks again for the help.