Gaming PC Xmas Upgrade - What is more important and what should I get? Component Question (Recommendations Appreciated)

Emil Amell · Dec 15, 2014

I'm going to upgrade my Gaming PC this Xmas and I don't know what I should focus on during my upgrade purchase. My specs are as of now;
Gigabyte 970a-d3p motherboard
XFX 270x gpu
6300 Black edition cpu
600w corsair psu
Cooler Master HAF 912 Adv. Chassi

I'm thinking about getting a GTX 970 (non reference version recommendations appreciated) Or getting an Asus Z97-A and a i5 4690k.
Help is greatly appreciated! Thank you

Xyos · Dec 15, 2014

970 is a good choice. Eventually the motherboard/cpu should also be replaced. If you were looking for immediate gains in gaming the new mobo+cpu would not give you a noticable difference in gaming, but the 970 upgrade would. If you can afford it I would say upgrade it all, but if not go for the GPU first.

Emil Amell · Dec 15, 2014

Xyos :

Thanks for replying, I appreciate it

Emil Amell · Dec 15, 2014

just bumping to get some other opinions on this

synphul · Dec 15, 2014

You may end up being bottlenecked with a gtx 970 and the 6300.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1720237/amd-6300-core-geforce-gtx-770-bottlenecking-issues.html

This shows where an older i5 2500k got better fps over the 6300 holding back an oc'd 680 the poster mentioned was similar to a gtx 770. If the 6300 is holding back a 770 (roughly comparable to r9 280x) then it's going to hold back a gtx 970.

The 970 is definitely a stronger card than your current one:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1043?vs=1355

This may give you some info in terms of fps increase recent i5 (4670k) - current equivalent would be 4690k (and likely a touch stronger for less than the older 4670k) relating to the 6300.
http://www.hardwarepal.com/2014/09/28/best-cpu-gaming-9-processors-8-games-tested/

It's up to you, the 970 might be a really nice gpu but won't really shine until you upgrade your cpu and motherboard. It appears from what I've seen so far that your current gpu is getting near the cpu bottleneck stages in most cases - investing in a stronger gpu won't put you that far ahead if that's the case.

synphul · Dec 15, 2014

Unfortunately, it depends on the game(s). Most people play more than one game and performance isn't something that can be pinpointed to just one solid configuration. If a game is more gpu intensive, it'll show some benefit (even with cpu bottlenecking) with a stronger card. If the game relies moderate to heavy on cpu, then upgrading the card won't make any difference since the cpu is the weak link. Not all games are gpu bound anymore and a faster cpu alone can boost fps by 10-20+ which doesn't sound like a lot, but depends on current performance. 15-20fps can mean the difference between playing at 40 or 60fps. If already at 60fps, then 80fps probably won't seem like a huge improvement.

Emil Amell · Dec 16, 2014

synphul :

Thx for the nice and educational reply, I will probably go for a cpu and mobo upgrade then

Thank you guys for helping out.

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