Staggered upgrade vs all in one upgrade?

BeardedBadger

Current Specs
5770
Phenom ii 965 BE
4gb ram
650W psu

Upgrading for a friend so not 100% on all the specs but I think that's about right as I used to have a similar machine.

Basically, he wants to go Intel and I've given him two options :

1. Upgrade Ram and gpu now to maybe a 970/390 and upgrade the cpu to a xeon or i5 4690k and motherboard later (and maybe throw in an ssd)

2. Upgrade everything now but get a 960/280x and i5 4460 due to budget constraints.

What do you guys think would be the best plan? Upgrade to the top spec he can and wait a few months to upgrade again or upgrade everything in one go?

Personally I'm trying to upgrade the CPU and GPU every second year.

Digital Solitude

4460 with a 280x is a grand machine, wouldn't be far off 970 with a Phenom to be honest.

Upgrading to Skylake and DDR4 with the 5770 and then putting everything into say a 750Ti would be a huge upgrade, and then a new card asap is another option

BeardedBadger

Cheers Digital, to be honest with the price of the skylake mobos, cpus and ddr4 I don't know how willing he'd be to spend that kind of money. Will the 1150 stuff still be decent for a few years or is it worth the punch to go skylake?

Also I see you're going into electronic engineering, congrats. If you need any advice on that feel free to drop me a pm. I'm going into final year in September

Lu Tze

BeardedBadger wrote: »

Cheers Digital, to be honest with the price of the skylake mobos, cpus and ddr4 I don't know how willing he'd be to spend that kind of money. Will the 1150 stuff still be decent for a few years or is it worth the punch to go skylake?

Also I see you're going into electronic engineering, congrats. If you need any advice on that feel free to drop me a pm. I'm going into final year in September

Digital solitude has Boolean algebra and digital logic gates to look forward to /shudders/

BeardedBadger

Lu Tze wrote: »

Digital solitude has Boolean algebra and digital logic gates to look forward to /shudders/

Depends on the college, if it's NUIG he has endless civil and mechanical engineering experiments to look forward to (stupid common first year)

I'm dragging my own thread off topic, back to matter at hand?

TerrorFirmer

Intel are so on top of the CPU game these days that the i5-4460 will last years, look at a comparable 2nd gen CPU like the i5-2400 as a comparison - came out in 2011 and in 2015 can still keep excellent pace with a Titan X in the vast majority of games.

I'd just get it all at once, but get the i5-4460 + GTX970 combination. The GPU will need changing long before the CPU will. People are too quick to recommend the 4690K as a default option for certain budgets - but it's worth thinking about first. That extra money is much better off invested in the GPU in the medium term.

If you're the sort of person that wants to hang onto the CPU for as long as humanly possible without upgrading and squeeze every drop of life out of it, sure - but most people aren't, like yourself most people go through upgrade cycles a decent length before the actual parts become entirely obsolete.

Intel CPU's are just ridiculously good these days.

What games is your friend looking to play out of interest? I actually was using a 965 recently and I was surprised that at stock speeds I was able to play Battlefield Hardline and GTA V pretty well with a good card. Not bad considering its age.

BeardedBadger

TerrorFirmer wrote:

What games is your friend looking to play out of interest? I actually was using a 965 recently and I was surprised that at stock speeds I was able to play Battlefield Hardline and GTA V pretty well with a good card. Not bad considering its age.

Games like coh 2, bf4, gta V and he wants to be close to maxing out witcher 3 and fallout 4 when it's released.

Ya that's what I told him and why I suggested upgrading in two different chunks but he's adamant to go Intel asap.

I didn't realise the 4460 was such a beast until I started looking at it and the cheaper h97 board is a plus too

Digital Solitude

You could max out TW3 on an i3 with a 970/290. So an i5 will be grand there.

FO4 won't be too hard to run I'd say

Best job is probably save up the €500 or whatever, sell the old parts and upgrade all at once

BeardedBadger

Digital Solitude wrote:

Best job is probably save up the €500 or whatever, sell the old parts and upgrade all at once

I'm trying to convince him that the 970/290 and 8gb ram now and then nab the new ssd, cpu and mobo with his next paycheck. Currently at work but I'll put together a finished build once I'm home and see what you guys think.

Digital Solitude

Yeah maybe, GPU first anyways if he needs to go in two half's. 4gb RAM is grand in most cases, not anhuge priority

BeardedBadger

i5-4690
H97
GTX970
8GB ram
Samsung SSD 850 Pro - 256GB


This will be the inal machine when its all upgraded, opinions?

Digital Solitude

Very little difference between 4440, 4460 and 4590, depending on price.

BeardedBadger

All ordered. He decided to just shell out for it all in one. Picked up the 4460.

Thanks for the help Digital I'l be back when it comes time to upgrade my own build :P