PC Upgrade

Calvin

Looking at getting an upgrade for my gaming PC now, which i got in 2012. Specs are as follows:

CPU: intel i5 3470
GPU: EVGA Gtx 650ti
Motherboard: ASUS P8H61
RAM: 8Gb Corsair Vengeance
PSU: Thermaltake 430W
HDD: Seagate Barracude 1Tb
SSD: Samsung Evo 125Gb

Wanting to upgrade to play upcoming games, and also ARK/GTA V. Budget of around 400-500, no more. Any help would be appreciated

Digital Solitude

CPU is fine I would think, a GPU jump to a GTX 960 or an R9 390/290 would be a big upgrade, as well as adding an SSD.

Xenoronin

Already has the SSD Digital

Only the Graphics card sticks out to me. Popping in a 960 or 970 GTX (most likely need a PSU update to about 550W for the 970) would boost gaming performance dramatically.

Gumbi

Xenoronin wrote: »

Already has the SSD Digital

Only the Graphics card sticks out to me. Popping in a 960 or 970 GTX (most likely need a PSU update to about 550W for the 970) would boost gaming performance dramatically.

If using an Intel CPU, 430W PSU is enough for a 970, they sip juice.

Xenoronin

Still 70W below the recommended 500W. Might run a bit close if pushed to the limit. Still, I'm no expert on the power demand vs supply of computers... yet.

Calvin

960 be good for another few years then? Only real thing I was worried about with an upgrade is the PSU :P so should I swap it out for a 550W? Should be grand with replacing it myself. Nothing too complicated.

Redfox25

A 960 is not worth going to, go to the 970 and enjoy it.
Should be ok for power as long as your psu is good quality, which it seems to be.

challengemaster

Xenoronin wrote: »

Still 70W below the recommended 500W. Might run a bit close if pushed to the limit. Still, I'm no expert on the power demand vs supply of computers... yet.

What nvidia recommends and what the card actually needs are two entirely different things.





Thats TOTAL system power with a Intel Core i7-4960X @ 4.2GHz in the test bed. So the GPU is drawing significantly less than that total figure.

The only reason I'd be concerned about coming near the max power draw would be due to it being a thermaltake PSU.

SterlingArcher

Redfox25 wrote: »

A 960 is not worth going to, go to the 970 and enjoy it.
Should be ok for power as long as your psu is good quality, which it seems to be.

970

Calvin

alright, so I'll go for the 970. Should I just get a 550W PSU anyways? Just to be safe or..?

Redfox25

Calvin Leong wrote: »

alright, so I'll go for the 970. Should I just get a 550W PSU anyways? Just to be safe or..?

You will be fine. The 970 uses very little juice. If your planning to oc the life out of it it might need more power but i think you will be fine

Calvin

Redfox25 wrote: »

You will be fine. The 970 uses very little juice. If your planning to oc the life out of it it might need more power but i think you will be fine

don't think I'll go near ocing yet :P thanks!

Eoinmc97

Gigabyte and EVGA are the best 970 versions out there right now. MSI was on top, but then the Samsung equipped Gigabytes overclocked to match some 980s.

Calvin

Eoinmc97 wrote: »

Gigabyte and EVGA are the best 970 versions out there right now. MSI was on top, but then the Samsung equipped Gigabytes overclocked to match some 980s.

Thank you. I usually go EVGA anyways :P