Dilemma: Upgrade CPU or Upgrade HDD

luckystrikes · Jan 27, 2015

Hello Community,

I have a dilemma over the few weeks now.

I can buy only 1: CPU or HDD

My Rig:
CPU : i3 - 3220 3.3 Ghz
HDD: WD Blue 1TB 7200
RAM: 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333 mhz
MOBO: GA- B75M - D3H, LGA 1155
GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 650

My purpose is just to simply increase my overall performance,
when I play LOL my FPS was solid stable at 60fps.
Now, i start to see 58-59 fps and IT DOES Tears/Stutter MY SCREEN.
It's a tiny drop but still gives me alot of stutter? so I miss few seconds of game play.

* I don't rely on Windows Score but it gives me 5.9 score for Data Tranfer Rate.
(everything else is 7.4 or above)

Which one should I upgrade to make the most effective overall performance change to my rig?

I play League of Legends often and I use time to time video editing to upload my 2200 ELO plays

pasow · Jan 27, 2015

hard drive performance is nearly pointless in gaming. go for the CPU upgrade.

your minor changes in frame rate though suggest you might be able to solve your frame rate discrepancy without new hardware. check what’s using your CPU and RAM as you play and make sure nothing unnecessary is pulling resources away from the game.

sned12 · Jan 27, 2015

Your HDD is fine. I'd say upgrade the CPU. What processor are you thinking of upgrading to?

LilTwist · Jan 27, 2015

if your going to upgrade anything the cpu is what you want to upgrade. Hard drives only affect load times not performance so if you are looking for better performance then you need a better cpu and gpu. CPU first though

luckystrikes · Jan 27, 2015

sned12 :

For CPU, It would be either i5 - 3570/k

a) and I am not too sure if there will be a noticeable difference.

Changing from i3 - 3220 ----> i5 - 3570/k (not planning OC, so i guess better off with non-k ).

b) I am sure they would be compatible as long as they are both LGA 1155?
( cuz some say, physically fit chips doesn't mean they are compatible internally??)

mlga91 · Jan 27, 2015

luckystrikes :

With a GTX 650 there will not be much a difference in a CPU upgrade, im afraid, but it will let you upgrade to a better GPU, or you can start with a better GPU, like a R9 280/290, and then upgrade the CPU.

luckystrikes · Jan 27, 2015

mlga91 :

luckystrikes :

With a GTX 650 there will not be much a difference in a CPU upgrade, im afraid, but it will let you upgrade to a better GPU, or you can start with a better GPU, like a R9 280/290, and then upgrade the CPU.

Could you explain why GPU is related to CPU Change??

LilTwist · Jan 27, 2015

a gpu is your graphics card and a cpu is your processor if you have a top of the line gpu with a crap cpu you can bottleneck the graphics cards performance making it to where its not letting you show its full potential so if you have (say for example) a 3.0Ghz duel core processor with a GTX 980 gpu for all games that utilize more than 2 cores will bottleneck the gpu making it perform at a fraction of the fps it could if it had a cpu that was 3.0Ghz quad core or quad core with hyper-threading to pair it with and most newer games that have been coming out are now using 4 or more cores in a cpu

luckystrikes · Jan 27, 2015

LilTwist :

Thank you very much for your response!!!

Now I am really confused.

So it comes down to CPU or GPU. Which one first.....

In my specific case, What would you buy first.
**I have 520 or 540W **

Thank you,

LilTwist · Jan 27, 2015

you might get a small performance boost in games with a new cpu with the one you have now and depending on what games you play an even greater performance boost with a new gpu its up to you but if you want better performance in all aspects you will need to get both

gibbly · Jan 27, 2015

luckystrikes :

the cpu gives you a solid wall in games that you can't go past, gpu performance is flexible though. what he is saying is that your graphics card cannot give enough power to reach the cpu wall and so a cpu upgrade isn't going to help your frame rate because the gpu is the bottleneck (I can neither confirm nor deny the information only explain the logic)

also the hdd performance doesn't effect most games

luckystrikes · Jan 27, 2015

gibbly :

Thank you,

Would upgrading GPU from GTX 650 to GTX 750 Ti would be significant upgrade for performance wise?

other words, is GTX 750 Ti enough to push to the limit of my CPU i3 - 3220 so i am worth buying a New CPU Then??

LilTwist · Jan 27, 2015

yes gtx 750Ti is a wise choice i personally own it and it is a good card and for pushing your cpu well like i said it depends on the games you play. if the game likes it better if you have a quad core then a duel core cpu wont perform well with that game and bottleneck the gpu but if the game is ok with duel core than your good all games are different so your best bet is to upgrade your cpu after you upgrade your gpu

gibbly · Jan 27, 2015

luckystrikes :

gibbly :

Thank you,

Would upgrading GPU from GTX 650 to GTX 750 Ti would be significant upgrade for performance wise?

other words, is GTX 750 Ti enough to push to the limit of my CPU i3 - 3220 so i am worth buying a New CPU Then??

it's almost twice as powerful, so a nice upgrade, Im not sure how much it will push your cpu. look at game benchmarks to see what fps the two components give on games and if the graphics card gets higher fps than your cpu that will make it worth upgrading it later

LilTwist · Jan 27, 2015

yes gtx 750Ti is a wise choice i personally own it and it is a good card and for pushing your cpu well like i said it depends on the games you play. if the game likes it better if you have a quad core then a duel core cpu wont perform well with that game and bottleneck the gpu but if the game is ok with duel core than your good all games are different so your best bet is to upgrade your cpu to something that is 3.0Ghz or more quad core after you upgrade your gpu. A low end i5 will do you wonders but i5 and i7 are pretty expensive

gibbly · Jan 27, 2015

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500327&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=
that is the particular card that I have and i'm very satisfied
it OCs well, runs quiet ant the temps dont even go up from the ambient temperature

LilTwist · Jan 27, 2015

if you have the money for it this is the best choice for a 750Ti
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487028
they run really cool and they can be overclocked really easy

gibbly · Jan 27, 2015

LilTwist :

why does that card have a pcie power connector? The pcb limit is only 60w. It doesn't HAVE to be plugged in to run does it?

LilTwist · Jan 27, 2015

ok I did a little looking around and I think I found the best match for you its a i3-3240 Ivy Bridge Dual-Core 3.4GHz LGA 1155
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116773&cm_re=i3-3240_Ivy_Bridge_Dual-Core_3.4GHz_LGA_1155-_-19-116-773-_-Product

yes it is a dual core but it has hyper-threading which means in short it pretty much turns itself into a quad core when programs or applications demand it or lets say if you have a 3.0Ghz quad core vs a 3.0Ghz dual core with hyper-threading the quad core will still perform better than a dual core with hyper-threading but at least with the i3 it will still perform better than a dual core without hyper-threading so if you have the money to buy a i5 cpu then thats what you want but they are expensive so the dual core i3 CPUs are your next best thing also there are no such thing as a i3 quad core they are all dual core with hyperthreading

yes the card does have to be plugged in to work if you dont plug it in it wont work to its full potential or it wont work at all

luckystrikes · Jan 27, 2015

LilTwist :

Omg Dude,

Thank you so much for your time.

Actually found the product and posted a link for me, that is so nice of you.

I am going to order that one right after this post.

Thanks so much buddy, much much appreciated truly!

Have a nice day !!

luckystrikes · Jan 27, 2015

Okay I just read the new post here..

So what is PCIe connector?

Normal GPUs don't have a PCIe connector but this one does ??
and how to put connect to a PCIe connector? I really dont know where to put them on the motherboard.

Do I even have a PCIe connector on my MOBO? GA-B75M - D3H

Sorry... for so many questions....

LilTwist · Jan 27, 2015

It is OK you are here to learn but yes you do when it comes to graphics cards and other cards there is PCI slots then there is PCIe slots the graphics card should be put in the closest slot to the CPU that it will fit in which is a PCIe either 2.0 or 3.0 but that really doesn't matter because you can put a GPU with 3.0 into 2.0 slot the performance loss is negligible

luckystrikes · Jan 27, 2015

LilTwist :

Okay, my life is complete now. haha

Thank you so much once again.

One day I will help others like I got help from you.

Sam

gibbly · Jan 28, 2015

luckystrikes :

i was referring to the power connector port that this card has, you can only draw 60w through the motherboard from a pcie slot but without oc my 750ti doesn't go over 30w, the power connector paired with the beefy cooler means that this is a card made for heavy oc

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