Am I bottlenecking anywhere? Also upgrade ideas?

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sammy sung

sammy sung

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May 5, 2014
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My current tower situation is as follows

Brand new Thermaltake Chaser A31w/ clear side panel
Intel Core 2 Quad @ 2.66GHz Q9400 6mb L2
Zalman CPU Cooler with fan control
MSI P35 Platinum Motherboard
6GB DDR2 Ram memory
500GB 7200 RPM
Dual layer DVD RW drive
USB 3.0 Controller card (4 ports total)
MSI GTX 295 896mb X2 (single card SLi) with dual monitor support
Kingwin 800 watt modular power supply with LED accent lights
ESATA port
Front panel media card reader

I might be thinking about upgrading my gpu, but it's not my main concern as I'm not worried about playing dx11 games and my 295 more than makes me happy with playing the games I currently obsess over.

I'd like to look into upgrading to an i5 series processor, but I'd most likely have to upgrade my motherboard too then? Maybe my psu, or am I good there? I have no monetary value in my head atm, so if anyone is interested in tossing out ideas, could you do so both with what you'd think is a decent average suggestion, and one that in your mind would be better for a budget builder?

Might also want to upgrade ram, since it's so cheap

Thanks in advance!
 
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damric


Then get it now. It will be awesome!

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damric

damric

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Sep 17, 2010
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If your overall build is performing fine then keep it until next year when the DDR4 platform is more mainstream, Windows 9, ect.

You could do a partial upgrade now and get a huge performance boost and energy effieciency in any area you choose, but I think you should save and update the platform as a whole.

Look at it like this:

To upgrade your CPU right now to a Haswell i5 you will need a new mobo and DDR3 RAM. It's a huge upgrade but be aware that you will need all 3 components. While DDR3 is going to be relevent for a long time, DDR4 platforms are literally right around the corner.

You could upgrade your GPU, but you should really also upgrade your PSU at the same time. I assume your PSU is just as old as the rest of the stuff. PSU should be replaced about every 5 years since the dielectric wears out in the capacitors.

I would get a Solid State Drive when you build your new platform. They are dirt cheap now so there is no excuse for having slow level loading times in games. You should probably install the latest Windows at the same time. Rumor is that we will see Windows 9 very soon.
 
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sammy sung

sammy sung

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Thanks for the replies!

Makes sense. I am pretty happy with how my 295 performs, as dated as it seems. The most graphically intensive games I play are skyrim with barely any mods and swtor, so I've never had to consider upgrading my gpu. All other games I play are mainly rts style which aren't very demanding and can always be toned down in settings without losing much of the visuals.

Just been thinking I could improve my skyrim settings/fps with a stronger processor. But I'm the kind of person where if I'm gonna upgrade one part, I'm gonna have a "might as well" attitude and look at other things as well, ie gpu.
 
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drkatz42

drkatz42

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Apr 5, 2014
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I'm the same way, there certainly are step by step upgrade paths. purchasing a SSD and perhaps a GPU(GTX 760 or 770) will give you a faster feeling rig along with being able to up the eye candy on the games you currently play. Then say in a year, get the MB, i5, and 8 gigs of DDR3 ram <-----good to go for several years.
 
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damric

damric

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Sep 17, 2010
8,017
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37,990


Then get it now. It will be awesome!

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($229.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI Z97-G55 SLI ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($120.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($78.30 @ Newegg)
Total: $429.27
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-08-07 18:36 EDT-0400
 
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sammy sung

sammy sung

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My psu is actually rather new, and my case is even newer. I got the case from a friend who found himself with three of them lol. I actually don't know how, and considering he gave it to me for free, I don't think I wanna know. Would my current psu be able to handle an upgrade to a gtx 750 ti sc? Or just a gtx 760? Also would I see an increase of fps on skyrim at 1080 or 768? Or would my processor at this point be making the idea of this moot?

65a9c64e24.jpg
 
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