Best route for maximum gain

AloeThere · Jun 1, 2016

Hi, I'm trying to work out what would be the best route to upgrading my pc. Any resources that can help teach me for further upgrades would be greatly appreciated, but for the time this is what my pc looks like;

AMD FX 6300 Six Core Processor 3.9GHz
Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P Rev 4
Crucial Balistix Sport 8GB (2 4GB sticks)
Radeon R9 280x

Its all dated, I'm just not sure where to start upgrading and if the GPU is suffering because of the rest of it, should be replaced, or worth keeping for crossfire?

Frag Maniac · Jun 1, 2016

Better CPU would be my first priority, but I wouldn't dump more into an AMD one honestly, unless you wait to see how good Zen is.

The GPU is equal to my 7970, which I plan to keep until end of this year to upgrade. By then there should be some more Dx12 games, and possibly a benched peek at Zen and the 1080 Ti.

If you want a quick temp solution that you can carry over to your next CPU/MB upgrade though, AMD is launching the $200 R9 480 end of this month, which is about 50% faster than your GPU. It would probably be bottle necked a tad by your CPU, but still faster overall.

It really depends on your budget, and how soon you want to do this.

AloeThere · Jun 1, 2016

Frag Maniac :

Okay thanks, from reading around thats the direction I thought I had to head. Any recommendations as to what to go for to replace my current AMD CPU? I'm assuming I'll have to buy a different motherboard to accomodate a switch from AMD?

Thats good news, I'll just try and keep peeled with whats up and coming towards the end of the year then.

SinxarKnights · Jun 1, 2016

AFAIK there are no real resources other than the mass of data just spread around the internet. One thing to do is look up CPU benchmarks that include yours and look at the gaming test with that chip. That will help you identify if there are potential bottlenecks with your current CPU and graphics card. Some test you can run for yourself to compare against a high-end GPU benchmarking rig.

Honestly your current system is in a weird spot. You would need to upgrade the CPU to something half decent (such as a current gen i5). But the issue is you prolly won't see any gains from doing so. However it enables you to later install a more powerful graphics card without the fear of it being brought down by the CPU.

This requires you to buy an entirely new platform though with a significant cash investment. Even if you upgrade to something like the FX 8350, it will bottleneck a R9 290x and above, or a GTX 970 and above (game/application dependent of course).

The 280x isn't a bad card by any means at 1080p. I upgraded from a R9 280 (heavily OC'ed - non 'X') to a GTX 970 and while there is a performance gain, it isn't as much as you may think (i use an i7-4790k @ stock).

Frag Maniac · Jun 1, 2016

AloeThere :

Yes, of course you'd have to buy a different MB to switch from AMD, but also to switch to Zen, which is socket AM4.

As I said though, what you get depends on your budget, and how long you're willing to wait. Without knowing that, I'd be shooting in the dark trying to advise you. Intel CPUs tend to cost more, but are generally worth it. That could change with AMD's Zen though.

AloeThere · Jun 1, 2016

Frag Maniac :

Same again, I figured but I just wanted to be 100%. Sorry for coming over so dense in this.

I'd probably say around £300 for CPU and MB, I can go higher if needs be honestly I'm just not sure how much I'd need to spend for it to be worthwhile. I'm willing to wait if its going to be a much larger improvement but wanting to upgrade asap within reason.

AloeThere · Jun 1, 2016

SinxarKnights :

I just wondered if there was some collated beginners guide or somewhere that broke everything down manageably. Thanks though that'll help give me reference points even when I'm not 100% with everything.

Yeah its the product of sporadic and uninformed earlier choices, just trying to get everything to a level I'm happy with and that I can make deliberate and relevant improvements upon later.

Like I said to Frag I'm happy to spend a fair amount to start evening out the kinks in my set up and I do want to keep it up to par with current games. I might be wrong with this but the current games I'm playing such as Warhammer Total War, Stellaris and Xcom are more cpu reliant than GPU? So I'd be better investing more in that, at least initially?

Frag Maniac · Jun 1, 2016

AloeThere :

Check https://uk.pcpartpicker.com

For instance for around 284 lbs, you can get an i5-6600k, and ASUS Z170 MB that supports DDR3. The only real difference with DDR4, is it is potentially faster when OCed, but you'd have to buy new RAM of course.

MB
https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-Z170-P-D3-Asus-Motherboards/dp/B0126R2T44?ie=UTF8&tag=pcp0f-21

CPU
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-I5-6600K-Processor-Cache-LGA1151/dp/B012M8M7TY?ie=UTF8&tag=pcp0f-21

Total = 284 lbs

Keeping your current RAM would also help you start saving toward a better GPU, but like I said, the one you have is easily good until end of this year.

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