Time to build a new system?

ZippingPear · Feb 22, 2014

Hi guys,

My computer is now more than 4 years old and for a long time I haven't upgraded anything other than the graphic card. My current system is:

CPU: i7 950 overclocked to 3.9GHz
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master V10
Graphic Card: AMD HD 7950
Motherboard: Gigabyte UD-7 (X58 architecture)
Ram: 6 GB (3 x 2 GB)
Hard Drive: Western Digital 1 TB Caviar Black
Case: Cooler Master Haf 922
PSU: Cooler Master 750 W

I use the system mainly for gaming and to this date it has worked mostly fine. So I'm not in a hurry to change the system. However, I don't want to wait more than 6 months from now either. In terms of budget, this time around I want to build the best possible system. The reason is that some of the heavily modded games I play (skyrim, flight simulator x, etc) need insane amount of cpu and gpu power. In fact, right now the skyrim that I want to play doesn't even run at 20 fps, so I am forced to delete some of the mods I want to keep. So budget is not an issue as long as the gain in performance is visible enough. What I personally don't know at this point is whether I should wait for haswell-e (quad ddr-4 plus more cpu power) and gtx 800 from nvidia to release or just build the system right now. Also, for extra overclocking is it worth it to go with watercooling? If gtx 800 series and haswell-e series were out right now, my ideal set up would have been:

CPU: 6-core haswell-e processor (not going to spend double for 8-core) for $500
Graphic Card: GTX 880 for $700
CPU Cooler: top-end noctua for $100 or custom water cooling for $300
Ram: 4 x 4 GB (ddr 4) for $250
PSU: Corsair 1200i (want to have enough power for adding a second graphic card later) for $350
Case: Corsair 900d (giving extra room for watercooling) for $400
Hard Drive: 128 GB SSD + 3TB WD Caviar Black for $300
Motherboard: Some good motherboard for overclocking stuff for $350

Total: ~$3200

Any comments?

cyborgcity · Feb 22, 2014

ZippingPear :

Hi guys,

My computer is now more than 4 years old and for a long time I haven't upgraded anything other than the graphic card. My current system is:

CPU: i7 950 overclocked to 3.9GHz
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master V10
Graphic Card: AMD HD 7950
Motherboard: Gigabyte UD-7 (X58 architecture)
Ram: 6 GB (3 x 2 GB)
Hard Drive: Western Digital 1 TB Caviar Black
Case: Cooler Master Haf 922
PSU: Cooler Master 750 W

I use the system mainly for gaming and to this date it has worked mostly fine. So I'm not in a hurry to change the system. However, I don't want to wait more than 6 months from now either. In terms of budget, this time around I want to build the best possible system. The reason is that some of the heavily modded games I play (skyrim, flight simulator x, etc) need insane amount of cpu and gpu power. In fact, right now the skyrim that I want to play doesn't even run at 20 fps, so I am forced to delete some of the mods I want to keep. So budget is not an issue as long as the gain in performance is visible enough. What I personally don't know at this point is whether I should wait for haswell-e (quad ddr-4 plus more cpu power) and gtx 800 from nvidia to release or just build the system right now. Also, for extra overclocking is it worth it to go with watercooling? If gtx 800 series and haswell-e series were out right now, my ideal set up would have been:

CPU: 6-core haswell-e processor (not going to spend double for 8-core) for $500
Graphic Card: GTX 880 for $700
CPU Cooler: top-end noctua for $100 or custom water cooling for $300
Ram: 4 x 4 GB (ddr 4) for $250
PSU: Corsair 1200i (want to have enough power for adding a second graphic card later) for $350
Case: Corsair 900d (giving extra room for watercooling) for $400
Hard Drive: 128 GB SSD + 3TB WD Caviar Black for $300
Motherboard: Some good motherboard for overclocking stuff for $350

Total: ~$3200

Any comments?

There is plenty of hardware out there now which dwarfs what you have now, so you may as well get what is out now if your unhappy with your system.

bambiboom · Feb 22, 2014

ZippingPear,

Given the high marks for the AMD HD 7950 3GB on Skyrim when new- 50fps and 70+ max., it's possible your current i7-950 system is just not running at full performance.

Before spending a lot on a new system- and as far as I know, having more CPUs cores will not be a noticeable advantage, you might consider a good tuning of your current system >1. Reload everything on the HD, 2. Up the CPU clock and add a medium level liquid cooler Corsair H60 or similar, 3. Add an SSD, and 4. Consider adding good used second HD7950.

You might do these in order of cost and actually begin with reloading the OS and applications, then raise the clock speed/ add liquid cooling , and so on. If you do buy a used HD 7950 and it doesn't provide the performance you want, then consider the new system.

On the subject of new system, hardware improvements are never done and no system is future-proof. To judge whether to wait, get to know the release dates of new hardware, degree of performance improvement, and cost.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

ZippingPear · Feb 22, 2014

bambiboom :

The base game of skyrim runs just fine on my system. It's just that when I add all the mods especially those graphic overhaul mods, the fps takes a significant hit. For CPU cooling, my CM V10 is able to keep the temps low enough at the overclocked settings I have (3.9 GHz). Any further overclocking results in failing the stress tests that I run after overclocking in at least one of the cores (even though none of the core temps go above 70 C at 4.0 GHz).

Usually I upgrade my CPU every 2 years. The thing is that performance improvement that sandybridge had over nehalem was only moderate and my i7-950 was still kinda new when sandybridge came out. So I decided the increase in performance wasn't substantial enough for me to upgrade my 1 year old cpu. But then ivy bridge and haswell showed only very small improvement over sandybridge and thus for the first time I am left with a more than 4 year old system. My gut feeling is that broadwell is also gonna be only small improvement over haswell. It seems that the times of 60% - 70% jump in cpu performance for each new architecture is over. and so I'm just thinking that I should only wait for haswell-e.

But yea, things that I definitely want this time are SSD, better PSU and a new case giving me room to play with water cooling in the future.

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