Upgrading which part would create biggest increase to performance?

jm090 · Oct 5, 2015

Hey,

I Built my first PC back in 2012, but have since spotted that performance is starting to tail off a little and that it's slowly but surely falling behind. My Build is as follows.

SSD: 60gb OCZ agility
HD: Seagate 100GB
MOBO: Z77 Extreme-4m
CPU:I5 2500
GPU: Sapphire HD7850 2gb GDDR5 OC
RAM: 8gb Corsair Vengeance

Upgrading which part would create the biggest performance improvement?

I'm open to any suggestions willing to spend max £200 at any one time, but am open to a longer term plan/idea! Have looked into crossfire but don't really think it's worth shaking that cage as it seems it was a bit of a flash in the pan and not worth it in comparison to a solid single card. Also been looking at potential for upgrade to a CPU and Mobo around an LGA 1150 socket but feel I may end up having to may alot more money to achieve noticeable difference?

Anyway any suggestions would be appreciated, I'm specifically looking for, as most people do, the most bang for my buck.

Many Thanks,

Jack

coozie7 · Oct 5, 2015

The CPU/MB are older parts but still more than capable-although you may want to hunt through E-bay and try to find a 'K' series CPU so you can unlock it's
(and the motherboards) overclocking potential. Not everyone wants to OC, so if that's not for you then don't go that way.
You'll DEFINATELY get a big improvement with a new graphics card either a R9 380 or GTX960 would give a nice boost and fall well within your budget, trouble is there's then a huge gulf, both in price and performance, between those cards and the next level up-R9 390 and GTX970-with even the cheapest GTX970s being around the £230 mark.

geofelt · Oct 5, 2015

My stock approach:
------------------------------------------------------------
To help clarify your CPU/GPU options, run these two tests:

a) Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

b) Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 70%.
Go to control panel/power options/change plan settings/change advanced power settings/processor power management/maximum processor state/
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.
Conversely what a 30% improvement in core speed might do.

You should also experiment with removing one core. You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option. set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many cores.

If your FPS drops significantly, it is an indicator that your cpu is the limiting factor, and a cpu upgrade is in order.

It is possible that both tests are positive, indicating that you have a well balanced system, and both cpu and gpu need to be upgraded to get better gaming FPS.
-------------------------------------------------------------

bootcher · Oct 5, 2015

Since your CPU is still pretty decent and it can be overclocked easily, I would upgrade the GPU. From the 7850 (which is nowadays a rebranded R7 265) a nice upgrade would be a R9 280x which would be the best to fit in your budget.

jm090 · Oct 5, 2015

Thanks for the suggestions guys seems we're looking at a new GPU, thanks for the speedy responses and I'll let you know how it goes!

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