Upgrading 5 Year Old Gaming Rig - Need Advice

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Jemac89

Commendable
Nov 1, 2016
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Howdy,

I am upgrading my gaming rig, which I built ~5 years ago, and I am trying to upgrade it to increase my performance and FPS. I play mainly MMOs, (WoW currently), as well as Eve Online, and a handful of Steam Games. My goal with this upgrade (if possible) is to be able to play Wow at Ultra, at 60+ FPS. Currently I am getting 20-30 at Ultra, on a good day. I would like to spend no more than $300, and I am assuming the most "bang for my buck" upgrade will be a new Graphics Card (which is why I am posting here), but if there are better avenues to achieve this desired performance, please let me know! It's an older rig, so any advice, hardware or otherwise, that will help me get this baby moving a bit faster would be amazing. Here are my specs:


Intel Core i5-2400 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz (3.4GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 2000

SAPPHIRE 100352-3L Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit GDDR

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500413AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s
3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive - OEM

MSI PH61A-P35 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel H61 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Antec BP550 Plus 550W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

SIGMA ATLANTIS ATLANTIS-S Silver Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

PNY Optima 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model MD8192KD3-1333
 
Solution
logainofhades
GTX 1060 would be a great upgrade, from your HD 7950. Not only is it a good deal faster, WoW heavily favors Nvidia graphics. Keep in mind the Legion added 3 new demanding graphics settings. Legion 7 is WoD ultra.
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fl0x

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Nov 1, 2016
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I'd say you should get the GTX 960, you can get the ASUS one for just under $200 but i'd recommend the EVGA or the MSI Gaming edition one, their in the $200's no more than $300 though. I am pretty sure it will work as my friend's MSI GTX 960 runs GTA V at smooth 60fps on ultra high settings.

Those cards are compatible with your motherboard.
 
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Jemac89

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Nov 1, 2016
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The user below posted the 1060 in pc part picker, and it looks pretty reasonable too, around $250. You mentioned "EVGA" and "MSI Editions - can you explain what this means? Is it the same card, but resold by different companies? Are these different in any way?
 
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Hlsgsz

Hlsgsz

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Feb 29, 2016
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Buying old tech is a bad idea, especially on teh GPU side. The 1060 is almost twice as powerful as a 960 and represents a much better investment.


As for EVGA and MSI, they are excellent GPU companies, but PNY will do just as well.
 
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J

Jemac89

Commendable
Nov 1, 2016
23
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1,510


Thank you for the suggestion! I was wondering if you could explain a bit about the differences between these different "editions" of the GPU? EVGA vs MSI vs PNY - how are these different?
 
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Hlsgsz

Hlsgsz

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Feb 29, 2016
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They are not editions, they are just each manufacturer's take on teh same Nvidia chip. This used to matter more during past generations, as they each came with different factory overclocks, but, the way these new chips work, it doesn't really matter. Pretty much any dual fan card will do.
 
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