Worth upgrading i5-2400 system components?

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dosto

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I built my home system 2.5 years ago, primarily for gaming, although I do some light productivity/office work on it as well (no video editing).

Currently, my system consists of:

CPU: Intel i5-2400

Motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (upgraded from original 8GB)

GPU - EVGA GeForce GTX760 w/EVGA ACX Cooler 2GB (upgraded from GTX 560)

SSD - Crucial M500 240GB (upgraded from Crucial 120 GB SSD)

HDD - 1 TB WD Black

PSU - Corsair TX650

Case - HAF 912

Monitor - Dell 22" 1080p 60Hz

CPU Cooler - Hyper Evo 212

My gaming consists of mostly MMOs, although I will play some other games as well, on occasion. I don't play many fps games.

I'd like to upgrade my monitor to 24" 1920x1200 soon, but stay at 60Hz. Currently, I don't have any interest in getting a monitor over 60Hz, thus my goal is to get a solid 60 fps on very high/ultra settings. Should I consider a G-sync monitor?

I'm looking at building a new system in mid 2015, after Windows 10 and new next gen Intel (Skylake?) come out.

I'm considering upgrading the following:

1. Monitor 24" 1920x1200 (my current monitor is 6 years old)
2. GPU to GTX 970 or 980
3. SSD to 512 GB (Crucial, Intel or Samsung?)

Should I upgrade anything on my system or just wait until I build a new system? Constructive thoughts on upgrading vs buying new system are greatly appreciated.



 
Solution
endeavour37a
Sounds like you really want to get some newer stuff right now and perhaps in 9 or so months get a new MB and CPU, software can be updated at anytime on what you have now or later so it is what it is.

If I were to buy right now the 980 would be my only choice, the 970 is a big step up from a 760 but you are thinking into the future buying parts that will go into another upgrade in 2015 so the 980 would be the way to go I think.

Perhaps just add another SSD to your M500, have been looking at the MX100 and reading about it lately, not a GREAT performer (but we are only talking milliseconds ) but price per GB is about as good as it gets, the 512GB for around $200 is a steal for what you are getting.

Hard to nail down a screen today...
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Rapajez

Rapajez

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The biggest change would be jumping from a 760 to a 970/980...that should let you max out anything at 1080p and 60FPS for a few years. That's assuming the $350 price is worth the 30-50% bump in speed. You may just want to OC what you have?

Upgrade the monitor if you don't like what you have. Is it at least an LED-LCD? If so, maybe hold on a little longer. If you upgrade now, the GTX 760 may struggle a little bit more with the slightly higher res. Also, if you buy now, look into IPS panels, as nothing else has changed much in the 1080p 60Hz monitor department. Maybe save a little more and just pick up a 1440p monitor with your new build.

The rest you're probably better off waiting for a new system on. The fastest SSD right now is the Samsung 850 Pro, but probably not worth the money coming from your SSD. The 840 EVO is right behind, and the SanDisk Extreme Pro Series isn't far behind. Again, you're probably not going to notice a real-world change, with your current system. Just use what you have for now.
 
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menetlaus

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in reverse order

3) sure, go for it - a new/bigger SSD can easily be bought now if you need the room and moved over to a new system in 2015.

2) Can if you want to - though they may be a little cheaper in 2015 and length of the card may limit case choices if planning to move to the new system in 2015.

1) Gsync probably won't be a big benefit for you (edit: with a 60Hz monitor) after the upgrade if you get a powerful GPU like a 970/980 and gaming at 1920x1200, though over time as more demanding titles are released - a 970 won't be able to keep up a 60Hz minimum. So this I would say depends on how long you expect to keep the monitor.

For what it is worth - if looking at a 970/980, I'd go for a higher refresh rate and gsync enabled monitor (probably with the new system to allow market to develop a little more) as I wouldn't want to have the monitor be the part holding back the CPU/GPU/new system if it is able to game at say, 95Hz/ultra settings.
 
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D

dosto

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Apr 10, 2014
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Thanks for the quick and helpful responses.

Currently, my system is running fine - and has since I first built it - and I'm not having any issues with gaming, for the most part, although I feel the GTX 760 might be taxed at times.

It appears my biggest "bottleneck" might be my GPU/monitor combo; focusing upgrades here might result in most significant/noticeable performance gains.

As a side note, when I do build a new system, my current home/gaming system will be moved to my office (replacing my very first build, an AMD FX 4100, used just for office work only, no gaming). This "trickle-down" system allows me to integrate older parts I've upgraded in my home/gaming system into my office/work system.

Although I'm itching to build a new system, since it's been 2.5 years, I'm leaning towards waiting until Win10/Skylake/DDR4/G-sync.

If I upgrade anything, I'll likely upgrade GPU/monitor and possibly a larger SSD, since all of these could be used in a new system as well.

Although I don't post in the forums much, I enjoy reading (and learning from) the posts, and really appreciate the helpful responses to my post.



 
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endeavour37a

endeavour37a

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Feb 25, 2013
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Sounds like you really want to get some newer stuff right now and perhaps in 9 or so months get a new MB and CPU, software can be updated at anytime on what you have now or later so it is what it is.

If I were to buy right now the 980 would be my only choice, the 970 is a big step up from a 760 but you are thinking into the future buying parts that will go into another upgrade in 2015 so the 980 would be the way to go I think.

Perhaps just add another SSD to your M500, have been looking at the MX100 and reading about it lately, not a GREAT performer (but we are only talking milliseconds ) but price per GB is about as good as it gets, the 512GB for around $200 is a steal for what you are getting.

Hard to nail down a screen today, shooting for 60Hz is a smart move I think now as they are pretty cheap and plenty good for any gaming. I have an old Gateway 1920x1200 TFT panel that just works great, 72hx and 8ms response in 24". There are so many new screen sizes coming out now it's hard to make a choice, and many resolutions. If I were to get something new to live with for the next few years it would be QHD 2560x1440 in at least 27", 5ms response time and 60Hz would be fine. There some new aspect rations hitting the market that look very cool, sort of replacing the duel monitor set up many people like, like Cinema 21:9 instead of the standard 16:9 in FHD. It's really a personal choice for you, what you want in a screen, when you find that then research the best screen that fits your specs.
 
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Rapajez

Rapajez

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Agreed with all of the above, only if you're going to upgrade the SSD, you might as well get the fastest. The Crucial MX100 would be what, 10-20% in storage performance? Unless you're just running out of SSD space, grab the best. Samsung 850 Pro, Sandisk Extreme Pro, Samsung 840 EVO (in order from fastest to slowest). I'd still go Samsung, for their management software, features, and better reliability.
 
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menetlaus

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Hey Rap, Please back that statement up.

Quoted from: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269-7.html

"At the end of the day, the real-world differences between SSDs in a desktop environment aren't altogether very large. The most important jump happens when you go from a hard drive to (almost) any solid-state drive."

The writers at Tom's say there is no need to get the fastest unless you have the workload for it. Why do you think OP needs the best for playing games?
 
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Rapajez

Rapajez

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Back up the drive-to-drive comparisons, or the fact that he should go with a faster model in general? If it's the former, here's the MX100 vs the 850 Pro (both 256GB models, which is important. Larger capacity SSDs are generally faster)

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1221?vs=1253

If it's the later, I'm basically agreeing with you, but the OP already HAS a SSD. I'm saying that there's not much of a bump going from the current SSD he has to a newer Crucial MX100 series, so he might as well do nothing, or go with a much faster model. While most of the stats only apply to certain workloads, others will effect game loading, app starting, windows boot time.

To quote another post here: "The most important one by far is random 4k reads, followed by sustained reads. To put it in perspective 95% of all your OS activities are reads, games are similar." Those are the stats you should pay attention to, when comparing 2 SSDs.

Also, there's other factors besides performance. Samsung SSDs still have the best reliability rate.

From Marc Prieur, of hardware.fr, here are the SSDs failures rates according to a French e-tailer as of April 2014:
- Samsung 0,54%
- Sandisk 0,70%
- Kingston 0,72%
- Intel 0,90%
- Corsair 0,91%
- Crucial 1,08%
- OCZ 5,66%

The failure rates are based on parts sold between April 1st 2013 and October 1st 2013, for returns before April 2014, which represents 6 months to one year of usage. The statistics per brand are based on a sample of at least 500 sales.

Do note that although these numbers don’t paint the complete picture of world wide failure rates, but they are still an interesting sample to look at.
- See more at: http://www.hardware-revolution.com/best-ssd-best-hard-drive-august-2014/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+hardware-revolution+%28Hardware+Revolution%29#sthash.aAzLvoTM.dpuf
Click to expand...

Samsung also includes one of the best SSD management software packages out there. It allows you to check SMART data, perform TRIMs, Firmware Updates, and optimize a dozen Windows settings all from the GUI.
 
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