Looking to upgrade, was hoping for some help

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J

Jezerton

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Nov 27, 2013
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I cleaned up my old Radeon 5870, added thermal paste how ever it's not given me any sort of performance increase, thus I came to the conclusion that I'd like to upgrade my GPU.

My current specs:
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 970 (3.7GHz)
Motherboard: Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5870
PSU: Cooler Master V850
Playing at 1920x1200, looking for a target of 60FPS
I don't personally care whether it's Nvidia or AMD, looking purely for performance and price.

The first question I have is whether or not I should just upgrade my GPU by itself or upgrade both my CPU and GPU together. Will my CPU be a bottleneck at this point in its life? Does it also need an upgrade or could I get by for now without upgrading it.

Second is which GPU I should get (and CPU depending on whether you think it's time to upgrade that too). I've personally been looking at a price range of £120 - 180 for my GPU, how ever if you think I could spend a little bit more and get even better performance for the price then please do say. I've looked out a MSI GeForce GTX 960 STRIX so far, but seeing as I'm not up to date on GPU's and it's taking a little while to become so, I thought I could do with some advice from others.

If I'm missing any vital information please do say.

Thank you for reading and for any help/advice.
 
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Mxhawthy

Mxhawthy

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Mar 9, 2014
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Hello,

To start with, your CPU is relatively powerful for it's price, and will not be bottlenecking any mid-range GPUs, however I would recommend upgrading the CPU next, after your GPU.

The GTX 960 is a very good card for performing at 1080p for high settings in new games, however it's AMD counterpart, the R9 380 has proven to perform marginally better in benchmarks (only very marginally).

I don't really know how well these two cards will perform at 1920x1200, but at around £170 these are your only real options, unless you can afford the next step up, which would be a GTX 970 or R9 390, which are around £250 so they are a fair bit more expensive.

How important is playing games in high settings to you? If you are happy to play on medium-settings, then the 960/380 cards will be perfect. If you want to play on highest settings then you will need to save up more money for the 970/390 cards to stay at 60fps.

Also, I assume that your PSU is 850w? Please correct me if it isn't, as the wattage will impact your choice of GPU.

 
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J

Jezerton

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Nov 27, 2013
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Hello Mxhawthy, thank you for responding.

Playing games at the highest settings isn't my highest priority, if I can play stuff at Medium-High with 60FPS I'd be very content. If this means I require the more expensive GPU's, so be it.

Yes my PSU is 850W.

I'd be very willing to move up to the GTX 970 or R9 390, how ever if I was to get one of those GPU's would I more urgently need a CPU upgrade or would it still be as you said, just the next thing to upgrade when the time comes.

Thanks for the help so far.

 
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Hawkshot

Hawkshot

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Aug 19, 2014
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get the GTX 970 if you can afford it, the CPU will slow thing down but it is still fairly powerful you should look to upgrade this in the future when money allows it, for now you will be fine :)
 
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Mxhawthy

Mxhawthy

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Mar 9, 2014
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You've got a nice PSU so I would forget about the GTX 960 and focus on the R9 380 as this card performs slightly better, but it consumes a little bit more power which is why I asked about your PSU :)

It will be very close. Playing on medium-high settings with an R9 380 will be very close to the border of 60fps I think.
It may sometimes dip to around 50-55fps but I doubt it will go any lower than that.

If that is not good enough for you, then the only thing you can do is get the more expensive R9 390. But yes, this high-end GPU will be bottlenecked by your CPU so will require an upgraded CPU also. You could upgrade to something like the Intel i5-4460 with an H97 chipset motherboard if you are wondering about CPU upgrades, This CPU is much better, and will last you for a good number of years before needing another upgrade.
 
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