Upgrading 4 Year Old Computer

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I am looking to upgrade my 4 year old computer that is starting to get behind in today/s games. I am willing to spend around $1000 (see below) and will only be using it for gaming, no rendering or editing. I have a 24" Dell P2414H 1080p monitor, Windows 7, a Corsair K70, and a Corsair M95 I bought a few months ago. I was dead set on buying an Asus GTX 970, but it was $350, $60 over the R9 290.



$360 Intel Core i5-4690K + Gigabyte GA-Z97X Gaming 5
$74 HyperX 8GB DDR3-1600
$290 Sapphire R9 290 4GB
$60 Western Digital Blue 1TB 7200RPM
$95 PNY XLR8 240GB
$15 Asus DVD Burner
$50 NZXT Source 210 Elite
$50 Antec Neo ECO 620C
$30 Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
$1024

This is the build I would build. I am looking for the best bang for the buck. Any changes before I build the computer?








 
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IInuyasha74
Just wanted to way in real quick, while I absolutely love AMD, and I have had amazing performance from my Radeon HD 7850 especially for the price I paid, I agree that you should get the GTX 970.

The main reasons I would advise this are mostly performance and efficiency reasons. It uses much less power which has several benefits, but also the performance while it doesn't right out beat the R9 290x, it has great overclocking headroom. The record is currently 2.2Ghz on that GPU, which you won't even get close to cause that was using liquid nitrogen cooling, you still will probably get around 1.4 to 1.5Ghz if you are experienced. 1.3 to 1.4Ghz isn't so unlikely if you are new to overclocking and take your time with guides. At these...
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lunyone

lunyone

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Feb 22, 2006
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How about a system with a 290x?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($175.50 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PERFORMANCE ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($74.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($72.00 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($111.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 290X 4GB Double Dissipation Video Card ($353.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24F1ST DVD/CD Writer ($14.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $953.42
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-13 00:04 EDT-0400

Obviously a system with no OC'ing, but should perform quite well for the $ and you still have everything to do what you want. The better GPU will give you better gaming and the 4 core Intel CPU will handle everything quite well.
 
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jerryvaberry

jerryvaberry

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Jun 24, 2014
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A 970 has better performance than a 290x and is cheaper.
 
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lunyone

lunyone

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Feb 22, 2006
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Some sites that I've looked at has the 970 and 290 competing pretty close. The 980/290x are pretty close in performance, so I'm not sure where you get that the 970 is better than the 290x??

From PCPer site: "Overall performance is pretty tight between competing cards with the AMD Radeon R9 290X taking a slight lead with an average FPS of 77; the GTX 980 scores an average frame rate of 75 FPS. The R9 290 has a similar lead over the GTX 970: 69 FPS on average vs. 66 FPS. These aren’t sizeable wins for AMD but consider this is an “NVIDIA title” it’s a good sign for AMD fans."
PCPer Link to quote.

If you look at PCPer's graphs it shows the 970/290 and the 980/290x pretty close to each other on Shadow of Mordor. Obviously there are games that favor Nvidia over AMD (like Shadow of Mordor should favor Nvidia) so there will some instances where this will be flipped.
 
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jerryvaberry

jerryvaberry

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Jun 24, 2014
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http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1056?vs=1355

You are right that the 970 doesnt definitively beat the 290x in all benchmarks. However, being cheaper, running way cooler, and having way less power consumption... I mean, it seems like an easy choice. Not to mention that a 290x would be a disaster combined with the psu you suggested.
 
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IInuyasha74

IInuyasha74

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May 1, 2013
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Just wanted to way in real quick, while I absolutely love AMD, and I have had amazing performance from my Radeon HD 7850 especially for the price I paid, I agree that you should get the GTX 970.

The main reasons I would advise this are mostly performance and efficiency reasons. It uses much less power which has several benefits, but also the performance while it doesn't right out beat the R9 290x, it has great overclocking headroom. The record is currently 2.2Ghz on that GPU, which you won't even get close to cause that was using liquid nitrogen cooling, you still will probably get around 1.4 to 1.5Ghz if you are experienced. 1.3 to 1.4Ghz isn't so unlikely if you are new to overclocking and take your time with guides. At these overclocks it will still consume less power than the R9 290x and it will easily give better performance.

I would highly recommend trying to find a 4GB version though. While you only plan to use 1080p display some games in 2013 were capable of using close to 2GB at 1080p with settings maxed. Games like Total War easily use more than 2GB, and if you ever go for multiple monitors or a higher resolution or just play modern games maxed out 4GB will quickly become beneficial.
 
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