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Upgrade i7 960 to i7 4770 or single r9 290 to crossfire ?

Tags:
  • Gaming
  • Intel i7
  • Crossfire
  • CPUs
Last response: in CPUs
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May 9, 2014 7:24:05 AM

Hi there,
So i would like to upgrade my PC for the best gaming experience possible, meaning +60fps with eveything maxed out in games like Crysis 3 or the upcoming Watchdog.

Currently i have :
- i7 960 3.2Ghz (overclocked to 3.8Ghz, can i safelly go higher than that without water cooling ?!)
- Noctua NH-U12P CPU cooler.
- 1 XFX R9 290 (on PCI 2x)
- 6 GB of ram

Right now i cannot play AC IV Black Flag with everything maxed out at 60fps, it quickly drops to 30fps. Crysis 3 runs around 40fps with everything maxed out. Wildstar (MMORPG) can drop to 20 FPS in big cities with lots of players around.

I mainly play at 1080p, but i have 3 screens and sometimes enable eyefinity just for fun, but of course things get worse.

So what do you think should be my next upgrade ? Should i get a second R9, or get an i7 4770 with new mobo, faster memory (12GB this time). The new CPU option is substentially more expensive, so i would like to be sure i get steady +60fps.

Thank you for any advice you can provide :-)

More about : upgrade 960 4770 single 290 crossfire

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May 9, 2014 7:27:42 AM

I would overclock more, and wait for Broadwell to upgrade.
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May 9, 2014 7:36:49 AM

RobCrezz said:
I would overclock more, and wait for Broadwell to upgrade.


Oh wow i did not even know about the Broadwell chip. DDR4 support sounds cool.
Thanks for the suggestion, how far do you think i can push my CPU, i think i tried up to 4.1Ghz, but temp went up to 78 celcius, and that was just windows in idle.
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May 9, 2014 7:36:55 AM

If you really want to upgrade now, go with the newer i7 and get yourself 8GB RAM. The R9 290 is already a very good GPU and not many games will take advantage of Crossfire. That's before you get to driver issues and additional heat. If the second PCIe slot on your motherboard runs at x4 then it won't have the necessary speed to properly utilise Crossfire anyway.
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