Graphics card upgrade

OmegaRed

Hey folks,

Looking to get a new card for my current rig:

RAM : 8GB-Kit Corsair DDR3 PC1600 C9 Classic
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155
MoBo: MSI P67A-GD55 (B3), Intel P67, ATX, DDR3
GPU: Royal King 7950

Everything is several years old but has held out really well.

I'm looking for something mid rage that is going to give me decent performance at 1080p, aiming for averaging 45 FPS for games like FarCry 5 / FarCry new dawn.

Will I be ok to upgrade the card only or will I face bottleneck issues with the older board and CPU?

Thanks,

OR

darego

i recently upgraded my lga1155 system with an i7 3770 (for the hyper-threading) and an rx 570 and got really nice boost in games. only cost around 250 quid as well. the hyper-threading in the i7 vs my old i5 2500 added a few fps

OmegaRed

darego wrote: »

i recently upgraded my lga1155 system with an i7 3770 (for the hyper-threading) and an rx 570 and got really nice boost in games. only cost 250 quid as well. the hyper-threading in the i7 vs my old i5 2500 added a few fps

250 for both or just the card?

darego

i got this 570 with 2 free games for 180 delivered. i was going to be buying resident evil anyway so saved me some money!
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/gigabyte-radeon-rx-570-gaming-4096mb-gddr5-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-196-gi.html

i got the i7 of ebay for 80 euro or CEX have 2nd hand ones with a 3 year warranty for 110 (unfortunately the K version is out of stock). the gpu upgrade on its own will give you a nice boost either way

edit: it's a really nice card btw, quiet too

TerrorFirmer

Agree with the above, best option is to get a 3770 and whatever card then you can afford, a 2500K just doesn't cut it in most of the latest games.

If you can stretch, get a 2nd hand 3770 for €100 odd, and then an RX580 8GB, around €200 with 2 free AAA games.

Your 2500K and 7950 will get half of that back, factor in the free games and it's not much of an outlay.

Is your ram 2x4GB or 1x8GB?

OmegaRed

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Agree with the above, best option is to get a 3770 and whatever card then you can afford, a 2500K just doesn't cut it in most of the latest games.

If you can stretch, get a 2nd hand 3770 for €100 odd, and then an RX580 8GB, around €200 with 2 free AAA games.

Your 2500K and 7950 will get half of that back, factor in the free games and it's not much of an outlay.

Is your ram 2x4GB or 1x8GB?

Its been so long, I'm not 100% sure. I think its 2x4GB, so I could look at adding more. Can you mix Ram? I doubt i'd be able to get the exact same make its been so long.

Thanks

wotzgoingon

You can mix but it is good practice/recommended to have the same exact model RAM but as long as it is the same speed then it is fine but you should also set both old and new sticks of ram to the same timings as that is where the problems with mixing RAM comes from, speed also but I mentioned that already.

darego

wotzgoingon wrote: »

You can mix but it is good practice/recommended to have the same exact model RAM but as long as it is the same speed then it is fine but you should also set both old and new sticks of ram to the same timings as that is where the problems with mixing RAM comes from, speed also but I mentioned that already.

Could you use 2x 4gb DDR3-1333 sticks with 2x 4gb DDR3-1600 sticks? Then just fix the timings?

wotzgoingon

darego wrote: »

Could you use 2x 4gb DDR3-1333 sticks with 2x 4gb DDR3-1600 sticks? Then just fix the timings?

You could but the 1600MHz RAM will run at 1333MHz. Tbh it is better to try to sell your old 2x4 and buy 2x8.

Also to shift them fairly quickly it is better to sell at a loss and move on and just buy the 2x8GB saves hassle in case of RAM issues also.

OmegaRed

wotzgoingon wrote: »

You could but the 1600MHz RAM will run at 1333MHz. Tbh it is better to try to sell your old 2x4 and buy 2x8.

Also to shift them fairly quickly it is better to sell at a loss and move on and just buy the 2x8GB saves hassle in case of RAM issues also.

might just buy 4 x 4GB then and upgrade RAM too.

How do i know what RAM is compatiable with my board - MSI P67A-GD55 (B3), Intel P67, ATX, DDR3?

wotzgoingon

OmegaRed wrote: »

might just buy 4 x 4GB then and upgrade RAM too.

How do i know what RAM is compatiable with my board - MSI P67A-GD55 (B3), Intel P67, ATX, DDR3?

Don't buy 4x4 as it is better to only populate 2 slots so 2x8GB's would be better.

All 1600MHz kits will work. Don't know enough about your setup if it supports faster speeds.

wotzgoingon

I just read through this thread again. You do not need to buy RAM. 8GB's is plenty. Just don't have browsers open and other unnecessary things as well, like HWinfo and what not.

BloodBath

I don't know, 8 is pushing it really tight these days. Plenty of games are pushing 8gb of system memory. It's bad enough if your gpu has to go to system memory for data requests, never mind having to go to a hard drive or ssd.

8gb is definitely at the stage where this will happen right now, nm a couple of years down the line. It will affect your minimum frame rates quite a bit in some games.

Here's an example from techspot.

https://www.techspot.com/article/1535-how-much-ram-do-you-need-for-gaming/page2.html