Advice for Upgrade (CPU, GPU, Mobo, RAM)

dency45

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Sep 22, 2012
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Approximate Purchase Date: January 2014 and March 2014

Budget Range: $450 each for January 2014 and March 2014

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, Surfing, watching movies

Are you buying a monitor: No. But I'm thinking of buying a wide tv. 2560 x 1080.

Parts to Upgrade: CPU, Mobo, RAM, GPU

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com

Location: Philippines

Parts Preferences: Intel CPU, any brand for mobo and GPU

Overclocking: Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution: 1920 x 1080

Additional Comments: I always play games like CoD, Batman, Dota 2, Skyrim, tomb raider, and any other games that will be released that i like.

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: I want to increase my fps with maximum settings of graphics. Also that will last for around 3-5 yrs without upgrading for the next gen games. I am also thinking of upgrading my monitor to 2560 x 1080, but it is a low chance.

My Computer Specs:

Intel G630
RAM 4GB 1333mhz
Asus P8H61 MLX
Sapphire Vapor X HD 7770
Seasonic 520 watts
NZXT Phantom 410

Question. Which should I upgrade next for the March budget then for the May budget or should I wait to buy them all at once?
 
Solution
If you have $900 to solely cover cpu/gpu/mobo/ram then you have a lot to play with. Tbh at that price your resolution is kinda irrelevant as you'll have up to $500 to spend on graphics alone which can cover you nicely on pretty much any normal single display.

The i5 3570K is still worth consideration, but as you want this build to last a while it's probably best to jump to the 4670K, it's no faster but runs on a newer platform which offers upgrade potential. Right now there's a bit of a price gap, but it should probably narrow in time. Given your usage, there's probably not much point wasting an additional $100 on an i7 4770k, but it's perhaps worth considering as games like BF4 are beginning to exploit multithreading better.

If you...

Rammy

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If you are going to have a $900 budget then wait until you have it and start from scratch. Alternately, buy CPU/motherboard with the first chunk, and use old components to get it up and running, before upgrading graphics and anything else at the next.

It's kinda pointless for anyone to suggest anything specific for 6months down the line, nobody has a clue what stuff is actually going to cost.
What is clear is that you should have a good plan of what you intend to buy before you start buying anything.

From your parts list, it's likely that the case is reusable, and quite possibly the PSU too. However, if you go for a high end card (as your budget is pretty decent and you mentioned upgrading your display), then you are probably going to need to consider a bigger PSU within the budget too.
 

dency45

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Sep 22, 2012
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Thank you. For example I will buy them all this coming January, can you recommended a certain parts? So I will have an insight. please recommend each for 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1080.
 

chrisso

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If you put a second hand i5 2500 or 2400 in that mother board you will be so close to state of the art you wont want to bother building from scratch. I estimate (i cant be arsed to check the cpu scores) a performance increase over double the power you have now, maybe 2.3 times the performance. This should cost you about £110 english money. The rest of the machine would work fine, but you could go to 8 gig 1600 meg ram no problem, about another £40.
Building a newer machine would gain little more performance for a lot of extre money.
 

Rammy

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If you have $900 to solely cover cpu/gpu/mobo/ram then you have a lot to play with. Tbh at that price your resolution is kinda irrelevant as you'll have up to $500 to spend on graphics alone which can cover you nicely on pretty much any normal single display.

The i5 3570K is still worth consideration, but as you want this build to last a while it's probably best to jump to the 4670K, it's no faster but runs on a newer platform which offers upgrade potential. Right now there's a bit of a price gap, but it should probably narrow in time. Given your usage, there's probably not much point wasting an additional $100 on an i7 4770k, but it's perhaps worth considering as games like BF4 are beginning to exploit multithreading better.

If you do pick a Haswell (4*** series) processor, I'd recommend looking at the mid-high end motherboards. The super expensive ones are very fancy but don't offer much return on your spending other than aesthetics, niche features and acronyms. The ASRock Z87 Extreme4, Asus Z87-Plus and Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H are all pretty competitive on price and probably offer the best value/features balance. Right now they are priced in the $140-150 bracket.

Ram is pretty simple. You want 8Gb, in 2 sticks, at least 1600Mhz speed. You can double it up to 16Gb, but games really don't use that, or spend money on faster ram, but the performance hike is going to be pretty small for the amount spent. Roughly $60 maximum right now.

As we are sticking to Nvidia, you are likely to have to pick between the GTX770 and GTX780. The GTX780 is obviously faster, but there is nearly a $200 price gap between them which at some point in the not too distant future will be filled by the GTX770Ti. By the time you purchase, it's possibly the GTX780 will be comfortably affordable, and the GTX770Ti will almost definitely be. An alternative solution might be two GTX760s, which would enable you to stagger purchase dates, but generally I'd stick with a single card. All three cards will eat through any game at 1080P, it really depends how much you have/want to spend.

Additional costs to consider are a CPU cooler and a new PSU.
New PSU is not essential but perhaps advisable, especially if yours is a few years old. A lot of PSUs are now being specifically labelled as Haswell compliant due to the unique characteristics of low power usage. Something like a 600W PSU is pretty comfortable for running any single graphics card but if you want to mess around with overclocking, a bit of headroom is always nice so I'd probably recommend around 650W for a single high end card and overclocked CPU. Seasonic is a great brand to stick with, but there are plenty of good, high quality options out there, Seasonic SSR650RM, Rosewill Capstone 650M, Corsair HX650, XFX P1-650X, to name a few.

For CPU coolers, that's a whole different conversation, but worth thinking about. If you aren't terribly interested in overclocking, but just want a nice return on investment, something like a Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo is a nice improvement on the stock cooler for minimal outlay. If you fancy pushing the CPU further, things like the Noctua nh-d14 or Phanteks ph-tc14 are about as good as money can buy.
 
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chrisso

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you could of course, with my suggestion put in the latest graphics card with no problem. The problem you see with your old computer as it was is that it had a low end cpu in it, and you believe the whole system is weak. It was only held back by its budget engine.
 

Rammy

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You are absolutely right that due to CPU stagnation, out of the box performance between a 2400/2500 and a 4670K is minimal. However if you are talking about buying a new CPU and a new graphics card anyway (by some margin the two most expensive components in any build), then you might as well change the platform too, especially if it brings tangible benefits.
 

dency45

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Sep 22, 2012
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I want to build from scratch due to my current mobo is limited to Sata 3 and only USB 2.0. It can also support ram at 1333mhz,
 

Rammy

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I wouldn't say any brand has a specific advantage, most of them sell reference cards which are identical, and their own custom cooler overclocked cards, which aren't vastly different most of the time either.
The most popular versions of the GTX780 are probably the MSI GTX 780 Gaming and Gigabyte GTX780 Windforce 3X. I also quite like the look of the Gainward GTX780 Phantom and the EVGA version with the cooler from the GTX Titan, depending on their pricing and usage. Generally speaking, pick from nearer the cheaper end of the pricing . The main difference will be in the clock speed and their cooling/acoustic performance. If you were buying today on the US market, the Gigabyte would probably be the card to buy.
 

Rammy

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Nothing against it, but which brand to chose is a bit irrelevant, its the card that matters.
Using the GTX780 as an example again, the cheapest card is $500. There are 7 cards priced between $500 and $510. Of those, the Gigabyte card is the fastest by a good margin, so it's the one to buy.
Using the GTX770 as an example, the PNY card is the cheapest, and priced $9 below its nearest rival. Given most of the cards are of similar speeds, it would seem to be the one to get, however it comes with a reference "blower" cooler which has its uses, but probably isn't going to be as efficient or as quiet as one of the multiple axial fan designs. Models by Asus (+$11), Gigabyte (+$17) and MSI (+$22) are incrementally faster, and have better coolers.
 

Rammy

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Your current graphics card is very good really. It'll play any game on the market, but you will have to adjust settings to make stuff playable. It's getting phased out (renamed really) but it's still often a recommended entry level gaming card. Unless you are trying to play with the high levels of MSAA and other stuff that cripples graphics card performance, the likely culprit is your processor.


For sure upgrading is always an option, the issue you have is that simply upgrading your cpu isn't necessarily going to give you the results you want. It's likely to smooth things out a bit, but as you said in your OP, you are looking for a long term solution, and that probably means a more high end graphics card.
If you are already upgrading the graphics card and motherboard (and RAM), it's probably best to look at replacing the motherboard too. As we mentioned above, your current motherboard has a few inherent limitations which aren't dealbreakers, but are enough to give you an incentive to trade up.

If you have $900 to spend, and want to spend it all, a motherboard is definitely advisable.
 

Rammy

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It's your money :)
Buying the CPU/motherboard/ram is going to set you up nicely, but it's not going to totally transform your experience as you are going to be limited by your graphics card to some degree. If you do chose to do it this way, then I'd keep an open mind about graphics cards. It's over 2months to February and there could be plenty of movement in the graphics card market by then (falling prices of high end cards, presumably the appearance of a GTX770Ti, and more options amongst the 290/290X range).