The last time I built PC was in 2010 when I got back from Iraq. Right now I have an ASUS Rampage GENE III LGA 1366, a NVIDIA 260 and a older i7 with 2.1 GHz. I want to upgrade cheaply as possible. I have been looking at an MSI 970 GX. The part that I am lost on is the new processor. I found a deal on an i7 960. Can I drop the new processor and graphics card and be good? Is there anything else I should watch out for?
I'm done with consoles. Wanting to upgrade
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- Apr 27, 2009
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Not sure I would dump more money, into such an old system, unless that i7 960 is insanely cheap. GTX 970 is a good card, but Nvidia will be releasing new hardware, supposedly, in June. My only real concern would be your power supply.
I can get the i7 960 for $90. I really am trying to avoid building a new PC. I don't need a super powerful system, basically my goals are to have Sims 4 run better for my wife, and I want to play No Man's Sky. Then when I put away more money pull the Nvidia 970 out of current system and stick it in my next build.
ThePurpleJay
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The i7-960 is an extremely old CPU, and is simply not a new enough architecture to handle the newer games coming out. I would opt out for a similarly priced AMD option, or a much newer Intel CPU that you can also get a crazy deal on.
ThePurpleJay
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By AMD CPU, I mean a completely different motherboard with the CPU. LGA 1366 is extremely outdated, are you sure you want me to recommend a chip in that socket instead of one of the newer Skylake or Haswell-E chips?
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You cannot use AMD chips, in your board. That isn't a horrible price, for that CPU, but I still doubt it will keep up with a GTX 970. Since you intend to reuse it, in a future build, that is not a big deal. Neither title you mentioned are overly demanding, so a first gen i7 is still good enough, for now. What is the make/model, on your power supply? Honestly, it your GPU that is holding you back more than anything. You are below the system requirements, for No Man's Sky, GPU side. I would bet even a GTX 950 would show substantial improvement, over what you have now.
ThePurpleJay
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I know you can't use AMD chips in LGA 1366. By a different mobo I meant a different mobo in the 970 (AMD) chipset. First gen i7s won't keep up I agree, but that's why I was asking him to find a good deal on a newer CPU.
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My reply was to the OP. I think we posted at the same time.
A first gen i7 is still adequate for the titles mentioned. An i7 960 is still about as good as an FX 8320/8350.
ThePurpleJay
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Your welcome. The PC building community is a lot milder and helpful than the console community. We like to help out people.
ThePurpleJay
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logainofhades :
My reply was to the OP. I think we posted at the same time.
A first gen i7 is still adequate for the titles mentioned. An i7 960 is still about as good as an FX 8320/8350.
That may be true. A first gen does appear to good enough to handle mild gaming. Although it might even be overkill for Sims 4; My last computer was a Toshiba Satellite Radius 11, ($400) one of my favorite touchscreen laptops. It came equipped with Intel HD Graphics, and it handled TS4 fine at 40 FPS medium settings.
- Apr 27, 2009
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Yea, No Man's Sky, is a bit more demanding, as its minimum is an i3, and a GTX 480. That why I mentioned a GTX 950. It should be plenty, for No Man's Sky. Since the OP is wanting to keep this cheap as possible, I would probably go ahead and snag that i7 960, and get a GTX 950. By the time they are able to build a new rig, we will already have Pascal, and possibly AMD's greenland.
According to passmark, a socket 1151 i3-6320 would beat the i7 960 while consuming half of the power. The old i7 960 is from 2009 and lacks the instruction sets for many newer games. It also runs hot at 130W. If I were you I would build a new socket 1151 system with the i3-6320. In my opinion it isn't worth spending $90 on a hot CPU that is already outdated.
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The games, that their system will be playing, don't require those new instruction sets.
The Sims 4 Minimum Requirements
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ (2.0 GHz Dual Core required if using integrated graphics)
CPU Speed: Info
RAM: 2 GB
OS: Windows XP
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or ATI Radeon X1300 or Intel GMA X4500
Sound Card: Yes
Free Disk Space: 10 GB
No Man's Sky Minimum Requirements
CPU: Intel Core i3
CPU Speed: Info
RAM: 8 GB
OS: Windows 7
Video Card: nVidia GTX 480
Free Disk Space: 10 GB
Alright then. What CPU are you running right now? You said it was running at 2.1GHz. As far as I know the lowest 1366 i7 is the i7-920 which runs at 2.67 GHz. So are you running the 80W 2.13 GHz Xeon E5506? You may have to upgrade your cooling solution if you go from a 80W to a 130W CPU.
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