Recommendations for Upgrades

ZeitgeistGlee

Hi all,

Finally got around to building my first PC two and a bit years ago with help from the good people in this forum, still works fine, runs most stuff on high in 1080 but and I'm thinking it's time to look at some upgrades.

Current Setup:
Case: Nanoxia Deep Silence 2
CPU: AMD FX-6300
Motherboard: Asrock 970 Extreme4
RAM: Kingston HyperX blu.XMP PC3-12800U CL9-9-9-27 2x4GB
Graphics: Sapphire Radeon 7950 Boost 3GB
Soundcard: Creative OEM PCI-E Sound Blaster Z
Storage: 250GB Samsung EVO 240, WD Caviar Blue 2TB, WD Caviar Green 3TB
PSU be quiet! Pure Power L8 500W
CPU Cooler: CM 212 EVO
DVD: SAMSUNG SH-224DB
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Monitor: Dell Ultrasharp U2312HM

I have no set budget in mind for the upgrades (though probably a €400 cap), current thoughts were to crossfire the 7950 with either another 7950 or a R9 280 which will cost me around €150 for the card plus the cost of a new 800W PSU (would I be better off with a new single card?). I was also thinking of adding another 8GB of the same RAM but I can't seem to find anywhere selling it.

Thoughts/Suggestions would be very welcome.

TerrorFirmer

I wouldn't bother with crossfire, your budget will easily afford a GTX970 or R9 390, both of which are massive upgrades and rule out crossfire issues and having to buy a new PSU.

Might be worth your while selling your FX processor and board as well and switching to Intel, the FX line is way, way behind Intel now.

ZeitgeistGlee

Cheers for the reply TerrorFirmer.

So you reckon I should try to sell my old parts to offset the cost of the upgrade? Would my 500W PSU still be sufficient if I changed the mobo and CPU (and probably RAM) as well as the GPU?

Digital Solitude

Yeah 500w is grand.

i5 4460 + a H81 board is about €230

Not sure what the 7950 is worth, I'm gonna guess €100, and about €70 for the chip and motherboard leaves you enough for a 390 or 970

ZeitgeistGlee

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Yeah 500w is grand.

i5 4460 + a H81 board is about €230

Not sure what the 7950 is worth, I'm gonna guess €100, and about €70 for the chip and motherboard leaves you enough for a 390 or 970

Cheers DS.

Yeah 7950s seem to go for around €100-120 plus postage on eBay. Slightly less than half my money back on the mobo and CPU after two years seems alright I suppose. Would you recommend the nVidia over the AMD?

Where are people buying stuff from now that HWVS went under? (I know they're still trading but once bitten and all that)

Digital Solitude

I'd prefer AMD as nVidia are a bag of dicks, but I won't use that to sway you. 390 is a little more powerful, 970 uses less power so makes less heat.

Computer universe, mind factory and Amazon are the main ones

TerrorFirmer

You should get 100 for the 7950 and another 100 for the FX and board.

Which if you make it a total of 600 overall, is plenty for what's Digital has outlined.

Personally I would probably lean towards the R9 390 as well. More vram and a little faster.

Also, the 7950 for example has retained excellent performance considering its age. Have a look at what's happening Nvidia Kepler cards....once excellent cards like the GTX670, GTX680, GTX780 etc are all performing terribly in a lot of new games, far worse than they should.

Whether by accident or design, it would make you wonder about Nvidia. Look at these figures for kepler GPU's!!

ZeitgeistGlee

Cheers lads.

Sounds like the AMD is the way to go then, I've found my Sapphire 7950 a very decent card but I know there are quite a few variations on Radeon standard, should I stick with Sapphire or is there a more recommended brand?

Using Mindfactory I've come up with:

Item|Price
8192MB Sapphire Radeon R9 390 Nitro|€338.80
Intel Core i5 4460 4x 3.20GHz So.1150 BOX|€180.64
MSI H81M-P33 Intel H81 So.1150 Dual Channel DDR3 mATX Retail|€43.55
CPU+Mobo| -€100
Graphics Card| -€100
Total| 362.99

There seem to be an absolute heap of H81 motherboards so I just picked the one that had the highest reviews, feel free to recommend a different one though. [Edit] Seems like this CPU is compatible with several different chipsets of motherboard, why specifically did you recommend the H81 over others SD?

On the RAM front, should I just stay as I am, get more compatible RAM or get new, better RAM?

Cheers again.

TerrorFirmer

H81 is the cheapest chipset. The better the chipset the more features, ports, overclock options, expansion options, etc.

But for a basic build H81 is perfectly fine. If you want native USB3 you may have to go for a more expensive H81 model.

Your current ram is fine.

ZeitgeistGlee

Just OOC guys is it likely the r9 390 will come down in price when the next generation of AMD cards are released? (Which AFAICT is soon)

Eoinmc97

I doubt it man, as it seems they'll end production, and therefore go up in price for a while. After that hike, 2nd hand cards will pop up more often.
If you could save up for it, Polaris will see a high end GPU launching soon, so maybe wait and see?