Pc upgrade time

[madwullie]

Had my PC for 18 months now and it's time to upgrade some parts. Any P&Bers able to advise what would be the most cost effective way of doing this, given that I am packing an i5 4460 and a GTX 970. Don't want to break the bank obviously and I'm going to double my ram to 16GB anyway but would consider selling my Ps4 for funds. 

Cheers in advance

[FlyerTon]

Do you have a Solid State Drive?  They make a big difference from conventional hard drives.  Really quick boot up times and program loadings.

The Samsung ones come with excellent cloning software (which you can update online)   £135 for a 500GB Evo.  The 1TB version is about £209 (Amazon)

You need a USB to SATA cable and a SSD to 3.5" hard  drive adapter if cloning existing hard drive to fit in a PC.

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/search-keywords/xx_xx_xx_xx_xx/samsung%2Bssd/xx-criteria.html

[madwullie]

I don't and I'm considering it, but as a gaming pc I'm starting to fall behind the curve so was thinking this time round upgrading processor or/and gfx card might be the best bet? 

[Homer Thompson]

55 minutes ago, madwullie said:

I don't and I'm considering it, but as a gaming pc I'm starting to fall behind the curve so was thinking this time round upgrading processor or/and gfx card might be the best bet? 

You're really not that far behind the curve! Obviously you can upgrade to an i7 but thats not going to make much difference.

It really depends on your budget. If you dont have much you can upgrade the GFX card to a 1060, but again thats not going to be a noticeable upgrade.

Youre really looking at a 1070 or 1080 to get any kind of decent upgrade, but even then unless you're intending to play at high res, like above 1080p

This is a handy page for comparing GFX cards - clicky

[madwullie]

Hmmm maybe I will go for the ssd then and just double my ram. Thanks for the advice guys. 

[hellbhoy]

1 hour ago, madwullie said:

Had my PC for 18 months now and it's time to upgrade some parts. Any P&Bers able to advise what would be the most cost effective way of doing this, given that I am packing an i5 4460 and a GTX 970. Don't want to break the bank obviously and I'm going to double my ram to 16GB anyway but would consider selling my Ps4 for funds. 

Cheers in advance

18 months? My last PC lasted nearly 9 years with XP installed, but that's another story.

Do you have multiple PCIe slots for GFX cards? if you do then buy another GTX 970 and sync them up for an extra boost on the graphics front.

I don't know if doubling your memory is going to give you any more performance than you might already have. 8GB really should be enough for gaming and everyday use, 16GB is probably more suited to labour intensive multi-threaded applications like music programs with plenty of plug ins and also video editing programs. If you aren't doing either of those two, I really don't see the need to double your memory capacity. If you haven't used up all the memory slots ie you have two sticks installed and have two slots empty then buy another two sticks of identical memory and fill up all the memory slots and that will deffo give a performance boost across all channels. If you have to upgrade the memory, what's the fastest speed your MOBO can handle and do you have it installed.

Upgrading you processor as Mr X has explained really won't give you a boost at all unless your MOBO can handle an i7-4790K? That'll give you a boost for sure.

Maybe possibly post what MOBO you are wanting to upgrade parts for? Might help narrow down the best parts and where to source them, cheaply.

[hellbhoy]

2 minutes ago, madwullie said:

Hmmm maybe I will go for the ssd then and just double my ram. Thanks for the advice guys. 

An SSD will improve loading times, it won't make your CPU run any faster if that's what's holding you back.

[madwullie]

Only have two ram ports so would have to buy two 8GB sticks. 

Will dig out the boxes from when I built and and check out the mobo. Tbh I just have a spare bit if cash and noticed my machine was under the recommended for bf1 so was looking to see if there was a processor or gfx card within my range that would give me a noticeable boost. 

 

And yeah I understand that about the ssd

[BFTD]

I'd be inclined to go along Hellbhoy's 2nd GPU route, although I'm out of the loop these days. The video card always used to be a much bigger bottleneck to performance than the processor. I'd take a look to see if you can pick up a second-hand GTX 970 and see if buying one works out noticeably cheaper than buying a new card that matches the performance of two GTX 970s in SLI, bearing in mind that you can still sell your old card if you go down that route.

Also check your motherboard supports SLI to begin with, and try one of the PSU calculators to give yourself some idea if your power supply will supply enough juice to support a dual-card system.

[Homer Thompson]

1 hour ago, BigFatTabbyDave said:

I'd be inclined to go along Hellbhoy's 2nd GPU route, although I'm out of the loop these days. The video card always used to be a much bigger bottleneck to performance than the processor. I'd take a look to see if you can pick up a second-hand GTX 970 and see if buying one works out noticeably cheaper than buying a new card that matches the performance of two GTX 970s in SLI, bearing in mind that you can still sell your old card if you go down that route.

Also check your motherboard supports SLI to begin with, and try one of the PSU calculators to give yourself some idea if your power supply will supply enough juice to support a dual-card system.

A 970 would certainly be cheaper but the general consensus is that a 1070 outperforms two 970s sli'd. Buying a 10 series will also future proof the machine far more than 2 x 970s.

Theres a bunch of other issues with SLI, like needing two slots and, as you say, a beefy PSU

[BFTD]

43 minutes ago, Mr X said:

A 970 would certainly be cheaper but the general consensus is that a 1070 outperforms two 970s sli'd. Buying a 10 series will also future proof the machine far more than 2 x 970s.

Theres a bunch of other issues with SLI, like needing two slots and, as you say, a beefy PSU

There's that too. I've no idea what's going on with DirectX and suchlike these days, so there might be some super sexy effects that a new card is capable of. I remember having trouble running Bioshock 2 in DirectX 10, and it looked like absolute arse in DirectX 9 mode (for one example).

If they've perfected jiggle physics, I might buy a new card myself  

[Lofarl]

Screw sli.  2 970's ain't worth it.  Far better getting a 1070 or 1080.  Up the ram and plop for a ssd.  The days of upgrading your cpu are all but over.  Very little gaming boost from the newer ones.  Any cpu from the last 7 years will do... asumming they are core i5 or i7's.

[Homer Thompson]

There's that too. I've no idea what's going on with DirectX and suchlike these days, so there might be some super sexy effects that a new card is capable of. I remember having trouble running Bioshock 2 in DirectX 10, and it looked like absolute arse in DirectX 9 mode (for one example).

If they've perfected jiggle physics, I might buy a new card myself  [emoji14]

There is, seemingly, a big jump with the new cards and the new DX. Not many games out but that should change.

To be honest, given the massive leap in performance with the new technology there really isn't any reason to plump for an old 9 series card, other than price.

[madwullie]

Ok thanks again guys. Maybe no need to upgrade the gfx for now. 

[Homer Thompson]

47 minutes ago, madwullie said:

Ok thanks again guys. Maybe no need to upgrade the gfx for now. 

Your 970 will certainly be fine for a good while yet. However, if you've got the money then an upgrade to a 1070 or 1080 would definitely be worth it

[hellbhoy]

10 hours ago, madwullie said:

Ok thanks again guys. Maybe no need to upgrade the gfx for now. 

In your initial OP you stated it was under spec for BF1? An SSD is most certainly going to give you a performance boost loading up and to f**k with waiting any more time than you have too. But having looked at the recommended spec for BF1 on a gaming site it is for maximum settings you are after. Judging by your current spec?, it appears you can fiddle around with the games graphic settings to improve performance without losing too much detail.

I only ever myself use a 720p resolution for gaming, I really don't see much of a difference and uses a lot less power and all other settings at maximum. Plays like a charm stutter free and can get for better frame rates for faster action with plenty of other explosions and shit in the background. But that's my thing because I'm not one of these extreme gamers burning 2 kilowatts of power to achieve 10 more frames per second at 4K resolution.

Get an SSD and fiddle around with the games graphics settings to achieve better performance, might just save you some cash to put towards a brand new spanking PC in a few years time.

One other thing that is extremely important for a gaming rig?, the power supply, this is the number fault for bad gaming experiences when everything is cranked up because of voltage failures causing freezes, shut downs and blue screens from an average power supply. I have a Corsair HX500 gold certificate power supply and never fails even close to it's power consumption max and is damn quite too. Check your PSU to see if it's at least a Bronze certified PSU, should say at minimum on the PSU "80 plus". Just trying to give you a solid base to build on if your PSU isn't up to scratch and might even give you a boost on gaming performance with what you already have.