Worthwhile to upgrade CPU and motherboard instead of building a whole new rig?

jedimasta446 · Jun 18, 2015

Hi, I came here to ask around if it is a normal thing to just upgrade your cpu and motherboard to a newer generation instead of building a whole new rig around whatever you were planning to upgrade on. Right now I have an i5-2500 at 3.3ghz and it sits on an asus sabertooth z77. I was looking to upgrade to something new and with a bit more umph to keep up with how fast software is evolving. If anyone has any tips, Id love to hear.

Ps: Currently have a Radeon 6950 for my gpu. Really wanting to upgrade that. I feel that my want to upgrade my gpu is my reason for my want to upgrade my cpu, so that I may avoid bottlenecking.

Thanks,
Preston

digitaldoc · Jun 18, 2015

I would upgrade the GPU, and keep your MB and CPU. They should be fine for a while longer as Haswell does not offer much of an upgrade, for gaming, over your Sandy Bridge 2500k.

Also, if you have 4 GB of RAM, I would get it up to 8 GB as a smarter upgrade, and also consider an SSD which will make the whole rig feel faster.

PCBuilderProbs · Jun 18, 2015

keep the mb and cpu, the i5 sandy bridge is still powerful enough to handle today's games. Your GPU is horribly outdated.

avenseth12 · Jun 18, 2015

Why upgrade? Are you having problems with games? Your setup should be fine for games just not on ultra settings. If that is what you want then I would upgrade your whole rig. That way you can future proof for awhile.

utgotye · Jun 18, 2015

There's nothing wrong with that setup unless you are a graphics whore who needs to be able to tell a bunch of people online who don't care how big you e-penis is because you can run game X 60 FPS @ 4l res on ultra settings.

If any of the above describes you, you should probably upgrade your your GPU.

PCBuilderProbs · Jun 18, 2015

utgotye :

all the flavors in the world, and you chose to be salty.

utgotye · Jun 18, 2015

I do love salt....

synphul · Jun 18, 2015

Of the two options, I'd upgrade the gpu first. The 2500 is still a pretty competitive cpu in spite of its' age while a stronger gpu will probably increase fps, allow higher visuals etc. depending on the game and resolution.

lol @ PCBuilderProbs

PCBuilderProbs · Jun 18, 2015

seriously though that card is old, I'm currently on the HD 6000 series and damn is it outdated. I'm getting a 390x in the next week or so since it came out today, not that I recommend something that crazy to OP or anything but it wouldn't be a bad idea to upgrade his GPU as that is the only bottleneck in his system atm, besides maybe ram if he's running 4gb

jedimasta446 · Jun 18, 2015

digitaldoc :

Thanks for the advice! It is much relief to know that I only really need to make one upgrade. Money for hobbies doesn't come too easily for a sophomore, lol

digitaldoc · Jun 18, 2015

You're welcome, and enjoy the upgrade.

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