Upgrade GPU or entire Dell-based system?

NGTO1 · Sep 16, 2013

Hello everyone. About a year ago I bought a Dell XPS 8500 that came with an i5-3450 and an HD 7770. The mobo is a micro ATX (no sli support) but I'm not sure the brand. As this was my first entry into PC gaming, I soon realized I needed a better GPU for the gaming experiences I wanted. I upped the GPU to an MSI GTX 670 Power Edition and put the computer in a new, bigger case. I was happy with the results but still can't play at the highest settings a 1080p, locked 60fps on every game (Tomb Raider, Borderlands 2, Crysis 3, etc.). I use NVIDIA's adaptive v-sync.

Anyway, I'm considering adding either just another GPU (probably a GTX 780) or basically gutting the thing and replacing it with these components, ASRock MB-990EX4, MSI GTX 780 lightning or MSI GTX 770 lightning, and an AMD 8350 CPU (should I do an i5-4670k instead?), I want to also increase my RAM from 8gb to 16gb. I'd be adding a Corsair enthusiast TX 850w as well. I also have the intent on SLIing my GPU when I get some more money as I'm at about a $1,000 limit until February.

As I am still relatively new to the PC scene, and even after doing a lot of research on how to sli, I wanted to ask the experts if I should just throw in a new GPU or basically build a new PC. Suggestions?

Eximo · Sep 16, 2013

Your CPU performance is actually quite good considering. Not much room for improvement. You may actually lose some single threaded performance if you go with the FX8350.

I think you are expecting too much from a single GTX670. A very powerful card, but that doesn't mean you can run everything at max settings. Try turning down things like anti-aliasing to improve performance.

Your other Intel build plan would be the top performer with the i5-4670k, but it would be rather expensive.If you can find another GTX670 for a reasonable price SLI would be better then buying a single new card. Though nothing wrong with the GTX770 or GTX780 either.

I think laying them out in terms of overall performance would look something like this, in most games. The FX would start taking the lead in highly multithreaded games.

i5-4670k + GTX 670SLI
FX8350 + GTX 670SLI
i5-4670k + GTX 780
i5-4670k + GTX770
FX8350 + GTX780
FX8350 + GTX770
I5-3450 + GTX670 = i5-4670k + GTX670
FX8350 + GTX670

NGTO1 · Sep 16, 2013

Eximo :

Thanks for the fast reply. Would it be reasonable to just get a 780 with my current mobo and CPU (I can't sli with this mobo)? Would I be held back by the i5-3450? I would like to grab another 670, but then I would still have to get another mobo since my current one doesn't support sli. Would the i5-3450 still do ok if I SLI'd 670s? I really like the MSI PE and they are around $320 on Amazon right now. The mobo I want is $140.

I think after another 670, mobo, and PSU (I don't think 600w will cut it for two 670s) would run me around $579. I have a back-up installation thumb drive from Dell, would I need to use that if I replaced the Mobo?

Sorry so many questions! :/

Eximo · Sep 16, 2013

Your Dell installation is tied to your motherboard, so you would also have to buy Windows with a new motherboard.

i5-3450 isn't that far from a i5-3570k at stock clocks. And a 4670k is only about 10% faster then that. Of course both can be overclocked.

I think a GTX780 would be a little bit wasted with a i5-3450, but not by much. Could always upgrade the rest of the system later though and offset some of the costs by selling the 670.

NGTO1 · Sep 16, 2013

Eximo :

Ok, well it seems for cost maybe I should go with a single 780 and perhaps something like an i7-3770 then sell my 670? I took a look at some benchmarks and the i7-3770 did much better than an i5-3450 and the i7-3770 wasn't too far off the i7-4770k for about $70 cheaper.

I'm thinking I'm leaning more towards a single GTX 780 to save the trouble of getting a new mobo and OS. But the only question remains should I upgrade me CPU to an i7-3770 or go all in with the i7-4770k? Will a Corsair 600w PSU be enough for that? Or should I grab a 750/850w? Is there potential that my mobo won't support the 4th generation Intels?

I know you said the OS is tied to the mobo, so replacing the CPU shouldn't be a problem as far as my OS is concerned?

Eximo · Sep 16, 2013

Your motherboard won't support the 4th gen intels. Different socket.

LGA 1156/LGA1366 1st Gen, LGA1155/LGA2011 2nd and 3rd Gen, LGA1150 4th Gen. (No news yet on the socket for Haswell-E)

A 3770 would only show marginal performance gains in games over an i5-3450 or i5-3570 with the exception of games like Crysis 3. Hyperthreading adds a little more oomph behind multi-threaded titles (which will become more common) Benchmarks only reveal so much.

It is certainly the cheapest option. Perhaps wait for the Broadwell consumer grade chips in 2015 to upgrade the rest of your system, buy a second GTX780. Problem with buying the faster cards is you have some reason to keep them when they are outdated. I still run a pair of 580s.

If you have something like the CX600, you should be okay. Though I am not really big on recommending them outside of budget builds. If you want to get a larger power supply for future upgrades, go for it. (Though power requirements are trending down, not up)

NGTO1 · Sep 17, 2013

Eximo :

So if I'm not going to get much of a performance gain going from an i5-3450 to an i5-3770, maybe I should grab an LGA1150 mobo with sli support and grab an i7-4770k and get another 670 to sli it with my current 670? It's either that at this point, or maybe just sell my 670, buy a 780, get a new PSU, stick with my i5-3450 and call it a day? I think the latter would be cheaper (and easier!), I'm just not sure at this point. I just don't want to spend close to 300 bucks for a new CPU that will only give me minimal gains. If I'm going to see a significant boost to FPS with the 780 over the 670, even considering the speed of the i5-3450, maybe it'd be smart to just go that route?
Final suggestion?

Thanks for all the suggestions help too, I really appreciate it.

Eximo · Sep 17, 2013

I don't imagine I will find any benchmarks that show a i5-3450 with a GTX780 as a comparison for any actual proof, but we can look at the raw numbers, with the 3570k thrown in there for comparison.

i5-3450 3.1 - 3.5Ghz
i5-3570k 3.4 - 3.8Ghz (up to 4.8Ghz overclocked)
i7-3770 3.4 - 3.9Ghz
i5-4670k 3.4 - 3.9 Ghz (4.3-4.5Ghz overclocked, high temps)
I7-4770k 3.5 - 3.9 Ghz (4.3-4.5Ghz overclocked, high temps)

What you gain with the i7 chips is a little more cache, and hyperthreading. There are some small gains there for games, but not a lot. They honestly aren't worth the extra ~$100 it takes to get them unless you are doing something other then gaming. Haswell chips also have few new instruction sets that will make certain tasks much faster.

LGA1150 boards, on the other hand, come with a lot of neat features. At a minimum 6 SATA III ports on an Intel raid controller, some boards have up to 10 with added third party controllers. Native USB 3.0 ports, practically everywhere. PCIe 3.0 x16 or dual 8x, plus another PCIe 2.0 8x.

GTX670 is only a reasonable buy because you already have one, otherwise the GTX760 is the better pick. GTX780, and Titan, are based on a different architecture, but the GTX650, GTX660, GTX760, GTX670, GTX680, GTX770 are all the same chip with slight modifications or cripppled sections.

I think your best route would be to buy an updated video card, because that leaves you the option to upgrade the rest of the system later. Though a GTX780 is practically the cost of buying a chip and motherboard and power supply.

NGTO1 · Sep 17, 2013

Eximo :

Ok. What I've landed on is just getting an MSI GTX 780 or the 780 Lightning, an 850W PSU, and more RAM.

These should all work with my mobo right? (I'm still sorta new to this so forgive me)

I decided last night after checking my CPU after running Tomb Raider on Ultra (drops to 40 FPS aren't uncommon) that it never was running at 100%. From what I've read on the internet, that would indicate my GPU is limiting my computer's performance and not the CPU.

In the next five months or so if I start to notice my CPU is running at 100% I'll probably grab an i7-3770k since I can keep my current mobo with that one.

I did turn off the hair feature (forgot what it was called) in Tomb Raider and I gained about 10FPS just from that change. Otherwise everything else is max (I let Geforce Experience apply my graphical settings).

Thanks again for all the help. I'll update next week when I get the stuff installed and let you know how it runs.

Update #1: So I decided to go with just a new GPU, more RAM, and PSU. I picked up an MSI GTX 780OC, Corsair TX750, and Crucial Ballistix 16GB. Out the door after tax and overnight shipping (I'm impatient) it ran me $977.

I'm happy to report my games are running noticeably better (can run Tomb Raider with fancy hair turned on almost locked at 60fps, hair mode off it runs at a silky smooth 60fps). My graphics score on 3D Mark jumped from 7368 to 11561. That's a good 36% jump.

Also important to note. I'm using a Dell XPS 8500 that came with the i5-3450, 8 gigs of RAM, 1TB HDD, and an HD 7770. So far I've been able to replace the GPU 3 times (MSI 660ti, MSI OC PE 670, and MSI OC 780), replace the RAM, the PSU twice, and switch cases. And everything has been literally plug-n-play with no problems whatsoever. The only downside to all the changes I made was I lost built-in WiFi when I switched cases because dell had it sautered into the case so I couldn't remove it without damaging it. So for anyone out there with a Dell XPS 8500 who wants to upgrade, I can attest that at least MSI GPUs work just fine.

Thanks Eximo for the help.

NGTO1 · Oct 13, 2013

update:

So, I ultimately wasn't happy with the performance increase I received from just upgrading my GPU to the 780. I decided to return the 780 and the 750w PSU to get a new MSI gaming board, 4770k, 850w PSU, and a 2nd 670.

I'm happy to say I've seen a huge advantage over the 780 in performance and my temps are nice and low and I've yet to witness any micro-stutter (I'm not quite sure what to look for for that, but if I'm noticing no negative framerate or other issues for that matter, then I'm happy).

I only ran into one problem when putting the 2nd GPU in, the system wouldn't recognize the 2nd one until I uninstalled the gpu drivers and reinstalled them. After reinstall, it recognized it right away and allowed me to turn on SLI in NVidia control panel.

Just thought I'd update. Thanks.

Eximo · Oct 14, 2013

Pretty hard to catch the microstutter in SLI. It really shows as more of a screen tearing. When you turn around rapidly in an FPS you might see a line of pixels that don't match with what's on the other side of the line. Happens when a runt frame makes it to the screen, but the frame pacing Nvidia uses in their driver keeps it from happening too often.

I only really see it in BF3 on occasion.

Thanks for the best answer.

NGTO1 · Oct 14, 2013

Eximo :

No problem man. Ok, good to know.

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