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Classic question... upgrade processor or gpu...?

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  • CPUs
  • AMD
  • Nvidia
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June 27, 2014 11:38:50 AM

Hello my friends from toms hardware. Well... my pc has now 2 years and half with me... (i buy it on 2011's christmas) so... my spec are:

- amd phenom ii x4 965
- amd 6870 1gb
- asus m5a78

Bassicaly those are the important components... so i was planning to get an asus h87 mobo and a 4th gen intel i5 4440... but then i thought that my proc could still hold on for a while and get a gpu 770gtx...

so... im open to any kind of suggestion... i pretty much have a tight budget... im not planning on making sli or doing oc...

btw i dont know too much about bottlenecks , etc... my rig i've always use it as a game station.

ah... something that its important to me is that the mobo has to be capable of connecting front usb 3... i've look at the asus formula's but it would be too much... i know... i shouldnt be watching those models but they look good... and if you know about good looking mobos and that stands for what im looking for, then it will work :D 

More about : classic question upgrade processor gpu

a c 902 à CPUs
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June 27, 2014 11:42:30 AM

I would upgrade the CPU first. Your CPU would bottleneck a GTX 770. What is your budget?
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June 27, 2014 12:10:13 PM

logainofhades said:
I would upgrade the CPU first. Your CPU would bottleneck a GTX 770. What is your budget?

500 dollars, and no more... if ill have to buy the processor first... then i would like to buy it but not spending it all or it will be a hurt in the butt to save again for the gpu hahaha, but anyway... lets say that the 500$ are just for the proc plus mobo :) 

*though once i buy the new hardware, ill be selling the old stuff...
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June 27, 2014 12:28:54 PM

In all honesty.. If you can add $50 to $100 you can make a pretty nice combo.
I looked on Newegg and a combo like below would be pretty good for most games on 1080P with high graphics (with some options towards Ultra.)
Gigabyte R9280X OC 3GB $300
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
I5-4670 Haswell $220
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
Gigabyte cheapy mobo with USB 3.0 $70

Not too bad and you can upgrade to a different mobo in time. I did the same thing an just go one upgrade at a time.

You might want to look at ebay or something for a card like a 770 or maybe even a 280X for next to nothing (compared to new and invest in an I7 with a better mobo.

For $5 to $600 you will have plenty of choice my friend ;) 
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a c 902 à CPUs
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a b Î Nvidia
June 27, 2014 12:35:07 PM

I would get the i5 and motherboard first, sell your old hardware, then buy the video card.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($187.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($86.66 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card ($369.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $644.63
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
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a b à CPUs
June 27, 2014 12:43:00 PM

How much can he get out of his motherboard cpu and gpu? not much i say, who would buy them? 500 bucks is not that much for an intel build, even if you don't need things like case and PSU, @OP is it actually possible for you to sell those parts at a decent price?
If yo ucan only spend 500 bucks i would get the pieces logaino suggested and an R9 280X instead of a 290
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a c 125 à CPUs
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June 27, 2014 1:20:37 PM

logainofhades said:
I would get the i5 and motherboard first, sell your old hardware, then buy the video card.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($187.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($86.66 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card ($369.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $644.63
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available


I endorse this build. :D 

The R9 290 would be superior than the GTX 770 whilst usually cheaper. As mentioned you should upgrade the motherboard and CPU first (total: $274.64); the motherboard supports SATA 3 and USB 3.0. The motherboard will also support the next generation of Intel processors, titled Broadwell which should be expected to release towards the end of this year or beginning of next.

The above motherboard is an ATX form factor, your current is microATX (often referred to as uATX or mATX). microATX as you can guess is smaller than ATX, hence if you're worried that the above motherboard won't fix in your current case, then you can go with the uATX version of the same motherboard:

Motherboard: ASRock H97M PRO4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($84.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $84.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Once you save up further funds, you can then spend that on the GPU.

All the best. :) 
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June 27, 2014 1:43:25 PM

Well so far so good... im from peru so prices are kinda different here... the pages im getting info are www.hitacom.com and www.memorykings.com.pe ...

so... should i get the 4460? or the 4670...

and which one is better? the gtx 770 asus 2gb or the r9 280x?... ive read that even though the numbers says that the r9 is better(especially at battlefield), the gtx 770 is better overall all games...

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June 27, 2014 1:53:05 PM

Thats a good one. The last Nvidia that I had is ...well....I don't even remember... I currently have an ASUS ROG platinum 280X that I bought second hand for €220.00 and my god...it's a beast!! BF4 on 1200P and almost all ultra graphs still does around 35-40fps on average. Maybe one or 2 instances where it went down to around 20 for a second.
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a c 902 à CPUs
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a b Î Nvidia
June 27, 2014 2:05:14 PM

Either i5 is fine. You really wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two. If the price is close, get the faster of the two. Price/Performance, the 280x is a better card than the 770.
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June 27, 2014 7:39:30 PM

The difference between the gtx770 and the r9 280x here is just about 15$... so... i should get the r9 right logain? thanks :) 
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a c 902 à CPUs
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a b Î Nvidia
June 30, 2014 8:20:25 AM

I would go with the R9, personally. Performance between the two is close, but the R9 will do better in games that are more vram heavy.
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