Seeking for upgrade advices (I've already tracked down options)

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XiLI

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Mar 8, 2014
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Hello good people of tom's!

TL;DR: I want upgrade that lets me to deal well with the following awesome games wave (BF1, CIV6 etc), at the lowest possible price.

My current rig:


  • ■ CPU: Intel i5-4670 3.4Ghz
    ■ RAM: G.Skill Aegis 2X4GB CL9-9-9-24 1600Mhz (8GB total)
    ■ MOBO: Gigabyte H87M-HD3 Attention - its Micro ATX, my case limited to Micro/Mini, I own Corsaid Obsidian 350D
    ■ GPU: MSI Geforce 750Ti 2GB OC
    ■ PSU: Some good 500W Thermaltake which I can't remember its name right now :)

So, i've did my homeworks and figured out some conclusions:

    ■ I will CERTAINLY upgrade my GPU, i'm waiting to see which will be better performance/money ratio from the next generation (might be Geforce 1070 or equivalent polaris)
    ■ I'm willing to upgrade to 16GB RAM
    ■ There's no point in upgrade my CPU, since even Tom's CPU guide I actually own very good CPU and its still not even close to it's maximum performance with my gaming settings.
    ■ I do own FULL HD screen (1920x1080) and I dont see any need to upgrade it anytime soon. MAYBE I'll upgrade to 4K in the following 2-3 years.
    ■ Buying another SSD drive might be good idea (Currently i own 240GB SDD which the OS not resides inside it, mainly for storing and some applications)
    ■ It's quite pointless to upgrade my DDR3 1600MHz to higher clock speed, its not really effective to get faster clock speeds on this type of memory.
    ■ I'm wondering if i should keep an option for SLI\Crossfire to the future


After all those points, ive came down with the following scenarios, and here i need you to help me choose (or even offer a better solution)


Option 1:


  • ■ I'll get a Z97 MOBO, with better support for M.2 SSD
    ■ I'll need to fiddle and hassle with the windows after the upgrade
    ■ I'll get 16GB RAM, 8 GB each, and if i'm already on it i'll get higher clock speed
    ■ Or i'll get another 2X4GB sticks with same clock speed in lower cost
    ■ It will let me upgrade into Broadwell CPU in future, maybe an i7/i7 Devil's canyon
    ■ I'll be able to mount SLI\Crossfire on future. But i don't really care about that.

Total cost - around 150$-200$

Option 2:


  • ■ I'll stay with my current MOBO
    ■ Anyway i gotta buy 2 new 8GB ram sticks, since my current MOBO supports up to 2 DDR slots.
    ■ It will have to be 1600MHz, since my MOBO supports up to 1600MHz.
    ■ I'll keep the money for the GPU.

Total cost - around 50$-70$


Your opinion?
Thanks in advance!!
 
Solution
Ryan_78
Just so you understand, when you upgrade such things, there is absolutely no need to upgrade a mobo unless you are getting a CPU upgrade. I still don't see why you would do that if you aren't changin a CPU. Unless PCIE 2.0 becomes a bottleneck. Or for M.2 and more PCIE slots or some other useless features, only useless if you don't use them. I mean it's a nice to have, but like it's just going to sit open.

No need for expensive ram. Get crucial 2x8 ram the quality is just as good, no heatsink S, they are quite useless unless OC. It's cheap and works very well.

xfx ts 550/. Currently the cheapest and best 550w PSU there is. It's a whole buck les than the seasonic S12II 520 B
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Ryan_78

Ryan_78

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Case is not limited. I don't see why you would think that mid towers can't handle micro ATX boards. But I would go with option 2, also keep in mind combining ram, you need the exact same modules. If you don't, it might not work at all. Even identical ones might now, as they are best purchased in a set. Ts a hit or miss. Get a gtx 1070.
 
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XiLI

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Oh, I might forgot to tell I own Corsair Obsidian 350D
 
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Ryan_78

Ryan_78

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the best they have are the 850w and some other higher stuff
 
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Ryan_78

Ryan_78

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Just so you understand, when you upgrade such things, there is absolutely no need to upgrade a mobo unless you are getting a CPU upgrade. I still don't see why you would do that if you aren't changin a CPU. Unless PCIE 2.0 becomes a bottleneck. Or for M.2 and more PCIE slots or some other useless features, only useless if you don't use them. I mean it's a nice to have, but like it's just going to sit open.

No need for expensive ram. Get crucial 2x8 ram the quality is just as good, no heatsink S, they are quite useless unless OC. It's cheap and works very well.

xfx ts 550/. Currently the cheapest and best 550w PSU there is. It's a whole buck les than the seasonic S12II 520 B
 
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Solution
madmatt30

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I agree with everything Ryan says above , in all honesty you don't really drastically need the ram upgrade.
8gb is still just about enough at the minute, although I do think 16gb is becoming the optimal as of late - I have seem ram usage pushing 7-8gb while gaming on a couple of recent titles on my systems.

New PSU, new GPU , ram upgrade if you can honestly afford it easily.

That's realistically all you need at the maximum to bring your system back to what would be considered a fairly high end gaming rig .
 
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Ryan_78

Ryan_78

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Agreed
Yea honestly if you are not rendering, 8GB is a good starter point as of now. Right now I run 8 GB like Matt and I mean the game I play that pulls the most ram at the moment is Planetside 2, at roughly 5GB on ultra settings. (I'm surprised a 4300 can pull,off ultra, I mean 20-30fps isn't all bad). As of 16GB, it's what gaming rigs call optimal. I wouldn't upgrade unless running out of Ram is issue. More ram will greatly ebenefit rendering and workstation.

I build a friend a rendering/gaming rig. He also runs some light workstation with his small area. He uses 16 GB easily. I had 24 installed.
 
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madmatt30

madmatt30

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I an actually running 16gb in both my main systems nowadays - mainly because I got hold of a load of 4 stick 16gb kits in a bankrupt stock deal at such a ridiculous price I couldn't turn it down.
The majority got split into 8gb sets for builds I did but I kept 2 sets for myself because 'why not'

I never had issues with the 8gb installed before this though in any scenario.

Doom 4 touches 7gb - that's about the only game I've seen that does though.
 
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