Gaming PC Help and Upgrade advice

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Biggestbear

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Mar 18, 2017
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Hello. My knowledge in PC tech ranges about as far as me reading my PC specs, but I play 100% of my games on PC. My best friend and I put my gaming rig together 2 years ago, meaning I bought all the parts and he put them together, and I am wondering if it is time for an upgrade. So I would like to ask for any input on upgrading my current rig.

My current specs:
Motherboard: AsRock 970 Performance
CPU: AMD FX 8350 Eight-Core Processor 4.0 GHz
CPU Cooling: Hyper 212 Evo
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960
Memory: DDR3 16GB
Operating Software: Microsoft 10 Educational

If anything else is needed let me know.

So I bought Battlefield 1 a while ago and no matter what I did, I could not get above 20 FPS. I understand that BF 1 is a CPU intense game and don't expect any real solutions for at least +30 Fps. 20 FPS is my limit to were I start getting annoyed about my frames. Other games like Arma 3 and H1Z1 also have FPS issues. The one piece of software I was told to get was Park Control. Even though it helped, it wasn't enough. So I was wondering if I have a bottleneck some-were in my PC or if I just need a full on upgrade.

Currently my price limit right now is about $300-$400 but with income taxes that may change. Any advice within or outside my price range is helpful.

Thanks in advance.
 
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CRO5513Y

CRO5513Y

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The problem i see is your PC is rather well balanced meaning upgrading the CPU or GPU will probably leave the other bottlenecking in most situations. I would go for a solid GPU now perhaps an RX 480 since it suits your budget and is an excellent choice for Battlefield 1 on High settings at 1080p. Then wait a few more months for Ryzen 5 to come out and bring good competition and selection to the CPU market and upgrade then or a bit after to bring your whole system up to spec. Hope this helps :)

*Edit* Here is a YouTube video of someone running BF1 1080p on Ultra with an RX 480 + FX 8350 and he is getting 60+ FPS for the most part even tho he is recording which would put a bit more stress on the CPU as well. > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz6NSYP13oA
 
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Biggestbear

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It really does. Most of my friends tell me it is my AMD Cpu, but I always had suspicions that they are on the Intel bandwagon.
 
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CRO5513Y

CRO5513Y

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Intel bandwagon is starting to deflate these days hopefully Ryzen 5 the new AMD CPUs coming to the consumer market can give Intel the competition they need for the consumer i5s/i7s once and for all! :p (I hate fanboys more than anything.. running an i7-6700K myself but also came from an FX CPU when i first built my budget gaming PC a few years back it was solid for the price!)
 
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The Paladin

The Paladin

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I am all for competition it mean my next intel will be cheaper,but more to the actual question asked about his rig;

yes your system is well balance but aging, the recommendation of an AMD RX480 is a very good one, as it actually works better than with intel cpus. and many have had great results with the RX480 cards.

try it first and see how you feel about your system, you failed to mentioned what hard drives you had, so if you haven't done so yet, something to consider as well would be a nice 250gb/120gb SSD as well.

 
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Biggestbear

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I run a 250GB SanDisk SSD that runs my software and a 2 Terabyte hard drive that I use for storage. Installing action intense games onto the SSD was a temporary solution for a while but it can only hold so much.
 
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Biggestbear

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I found this and was wondering what the difference was with 8gb and 4gb. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150782

Also, I asked my friened about the graphics card and this is what he said. "So it may work, but no gauarantee it will work at peak performance if at all. Your motherboard does not have a PCIe 3.0 slot and that is what that graphics card is."
 
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CRO5513Y

CRO5513Y

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He is correct with the "not getting peak performance" as it is indeed a PCIe 2.0 slot not 3.0 which the RX 480 support. Link > http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/970%20Extreme4/?cat=Specifications. But it will be fine for now don't worry about it being too underperforming it will serve you well but i would recommend upgrading your CPU/MOBO/RAM when you can. Don't worry about the "No guarantee it will work" part as it will work provided the GPU isn't dead on arrival PCIe 2 will just limit the bandwidth slightly. :D
 
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Biggestbear

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Update: I bought the RX 480 card and have noticed the improvements, but no where near the 60+ fps depicted in the video for BF 1. I was just in a King of the Hill match in Arma 3 and was only getting 10-15 fps. My friends that I was playing with said the server was optimized and they were having no problems with frames. I do believe they have a better set up than I do.
 
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Biggestbear

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That is a thing I always do. Turn everything down or off. Only thing that really makes a difference is distance rendering. But I can't really do anything if I can't see that far in front of me.
 
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