Upgrading gaming PC, need advice

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
discoslice

discoslice

Honorable
Sep 18, 2014
122
0
10,680
Hi guys,

I have a circa 3 year old PC I got from CyberPower. I'm running to performance issues on WoW (World of Warcraft) and realize it seems to be a processor bottleneck since WoW is more CPU-intensive than GPU intensive. I'm playing in 2k resolution and am limited to about 30fps in some areas even with two nVidia 770s SLI'd together. From my research, seems like its a processor issue - that I'd like to fix. I prefer to play games on PC so I'm making this my gaming rig.

I've got a:

Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 motherboard
i5-2500k - 3.3 GHZ (OC'd slightly)
Thermaltake FRIO Overclocking Cooler Fan (CLP0564)
1000 Watts - CoolerMaster Silent Pro Gaming 80 Plus Power Supply
8GB memory - (4GBx2) DDR3/1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Module - Kingston Hyperx

So, research seems to say that the newish i7-5820k - 3.3 ghz would be a good upgrade for me. Question is: what do you guys think? And can my current motherboard support that? Do I also need a motherboard and or/ram upgrade?

Thanks!

 
Sort by date Sort by votes
sammy sung

sammy sung

Distinguished
May 5, 2014
1,786
0
20,960
If you ant to upgrade your processor to something from this gen you'll need to upgrade the motherboard as well. In order to have a 5820K you'll need to upgrade the motherboard to an X99 platform(expensive) and DDR4 RAM(very expensive) whereas if you simply went with an i5-4690K you'd have to upgrade your motherboard to a Z97 and get better overall performance.

Lesson to take from this. You don't need an i7 to game at peak performance. Much less a very expensive DDR4 based build
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
smorizio

smorizio

Titan
Jan 22, 2010
30,984
9
125,315
z68/z77 mb were 1155 pin cpu. the new haswell/brodwell are 1150 pins. myself I hold off and wait till end of the summer when newer skylake comes out. the newer skylake is 1151 pins and use ddr-4 ram. in real life ivy bridge cpu were about 10 percent faster as they were a dye shrink. haswell/brodwell may see another 10-15 percent speed bump in real life. myself i would reuse all the parts you can in your old rig and go with new ram/mb/cpu combo. then when you have the funds put in the newest nvidia or amd card out there.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
discoslice

discoslice

Honorable
Sep 18, 2014
122
0
10,680
So, If I got that new 5820k - I'd need a new motherboard AND a new kind of ram? Sheesh. Is my current ram old/bad?

And, you're saying a Z97 motherboard is cheaper than an X99?

And is waiting till the end of the Summer a good idea? I always feel like you're waiting for the next best thing - and then you never make a purchase - always waiting.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
D

dasulman

Honorable
Feb 2, 2014
1,890
1
12,460
put the 5820k out of your head.
if you do video editing, pick up an I7 4790k and an asrock extreme 3,4 or 6 motherboard. then you can keep your ram as well.
if you don't want to do video editing then pick up the I5 4690k.
/thread
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
sammy sung

sammy sung

Distinguished
May 5, 2014
1,786
0
20,960
The release of DDR4(what is used with the X99 platform as it's currently the only one to utilize it) is semi recent and the prices have still yet to drop enough to reflect it's overall performance gains. Much like with the release of DDR3. The vast majority of people use DDR3. Only people that have upgraded recently and also saw fit to follow that particular upgrade path have went with a DDR4 buildset as opposed to DDR3. For gaming you will notice absolutely no difference between the memory speeds. There's nothing outdated about DDR3 memory, yet. It's still the cardinal standard for gaming.

A 5820K has more core/threads and other minor non gaming related specs that make it more progressive than your consumer grade i7 4790K. If you determined you absolutely needed more than four threads, I'd go for the 4790 and call it a day. It's still the most advanced processor available in terms of gaming. But per the price tag and there being more or less no difference in gaming performance between it and the i5 4690K, the i5 is the route to go
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
discoslice

discoslice

Honorable
Sep 18, 2014
122
0
10,680
ok thanks - is getting a new nVidia card over-kill here, to go along with new processor, motherboard and everything? As I said above, I have two 770's SLI'd now. Not sure how much a new video card would give me a jump in performance.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
discoslice

discoslice

Honorable
Sep 18, 2014
122
0
10,680
Ok I have almost everything ready to buy - my only question is about my current gaming case - will it work with everything below? It's pretty big - Azza Hurricane 2000 full tower.

(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811517010)

I'm getting the i7-4790k, msi gaming 5 motherboard, cooler master 212 evo, EVGA supernova G2 850W along with my current (4GBx2) DDR3/1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Module - Kingston Hyperx and 2 nVidia 770 SLI'd.

thanks.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
discoslice

discoslice

Honorable
Sep 18, 2014
122
0
10,680
Thanks dasulman you have been very helpful.

I've been looking into the process of swapping out my old MB and processor and Power supply, etc and putting in the new one. Do I have to re-install Windows 7 then? I'm a little confused on that.

And, anything I should do in advance of swapping motherboards? Like back everything up?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
discoslice

discoslice

Honorable
Sep 18, 2014
122
0
10,680
Ok I'm backing everything up with Acronis True Image. How do I go about re-installing the O.S.? Also, in an unrelated note, i've had this boot.pihar virus I can't seem to get rid of. do I need to format my harddrive and everything while I'm at it? and can I just "restore" my entire PC backup?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
D

dasulman

Honorable
Feb 2, 2014
1,890
1
12,460
to reinstall the O.S you'll need the operating system disk; then once you've built your tower, just load it in the optical drive.
as for the boot.pihar virus, check here: http://www.malwareremovalguides.info/how-to-remove-boot-pihar-removal-guide/
shouldn't take more than 2 hours to get rid.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
discoslice

discoslice

Honorable
Sep 18, 2014
122
0
10,680
Ok - I have the system disk of course. What about all my data, music, programs and everything I already have installed? How can I get those back again? Or, once I install the new Win7 OS, can i just install True Image then restore everything?

Do I not need to format my HD?

EDIT: I took those removal steps - I think Pihar is gone - but Norton keeps detecting it when I reboot. But none of the other programs do...

EDIT 2: I notice you are suggesting an 850 W power supply - I have a 1k now (though it's older) - is 850 enough for 2 hard drives, 1 external, 2 video cards, the MB and processor - with some room to grow?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom