Hi guys,
After reading a lot of helpful posts, I decided to ask for your knowledge and ideas. First of all, sorry for my english as I'm not a native speaker so there may be some mistakes here and there.
A bit of context, my PC is quite old to say the least. It's an I5 760 (OC to 3,5) with a SLI of GTX 760 2Gb (yeah, I know...), 16gb of RAM 1333Mhz (which could be the culprit here). The MOBO is a gigabyte P55 something (can't remember exactly) and a 500gb hybrid drive (faster than a classic HDD but slower than a SSD, a good compromise between storage/speed/price).
Here's the thing. I used to be a hardcore gamer in the past but I'm not anymore. However, I still play from time to time and when I do, I am sometimes annoyed by the little stutters or FPS drops that occur on a regular basis. Some habits are hard to kill
My need ? To be able to play at 1080p 60fps on high settings. Nothing more. My monitor and TV are both 1080p 60fps and I don't plan on upgrading anytime soon. As I'm not a hardcore gamer anymore, I don't feel like spending €500 or more for a few games or a few FPS gain. However, with entry level RYZEN, I'm considering it (let's keep an open mind).
Right now, I'm only starting to feel limited by my setup so nothing urgent per se. I read a lot of articles, looked a bunch of benchmarks and feel like my setup could still hold a little bit more. My problem comes from the fact that my issues with stutters or FPS drops may come more from the SLI setup than the processor itself. In Witcher 3, with settings ranging from medium to high, I have between 55-60fps with drops around the 40s. Which is consistent with what I'm seeing in different youtube videos for that processor. However, when youtubers are having a 50fps perf, it is kind of smooth. While on my setup, even at 60fps, I feel like it's a little choppy all the time.
SLI scaling issues ? Could it be my RAM speed ? Just the processor ? The entire system ? I don't know... but there's a gap bewteen the smoothness people are getting online and the smoothness I'm getting at the same FPS rate. On the other hand, I also bought Ryse son of rome on sales on Steam recently and after finding the right SLI bits (after hours of tweaking), I finally have an almost constant 60fps on high but with some graphical glitches and I'm fed up with choosing either stability or nice graphics.
Here are a few scenarios I'm considering :
1. sell the SLI and buy a RX 580. So far, I sticked with Nvidia as a have a nvidia shield TV in my living room but the local gamestream is not ideal. Could be my modem, my processor or graphics cards but I'm noticing a loss of 15-20fps when streaming to the shield (over ethernet) compared to the actual performance I get when playing directly on the PC. As a first step, investing in a RX 580 sounds like a good idea and invest in a big ass HDMI cable and ditch gamestream when I want to play on the TV. My concern : is the RX 580 much better than a sli 760 ? I'd say yes but I'm not sure. However for the price, it seems awesome. If the performance is stil not good, well at least I could reuse the RX 580 in a new setup down the road. I'm also thinking of a GTX 1060... when the prices will go down a little. I already own a good PSU so no worries on that end.
2. Do a bigger sidegrade and combine the purchase of a new GPU with the purchase of a used I7 860 and OC it. From what I'm seeing from the benchmarks, the I7 860 seems to be quite good at keeping a lot of games over 60fps (which would guarantee an almost constant 60fps) without changing my entire setup and for a reasonable price.
3. Ditch the entire system and build a new one. It's not my priority as I don't have the need for it but if I have no other choice, so be it. In anycase, no more SLI as it's more of a pain than anything else. Sure, It helped my system holding a little bit more but the compatibility is never optimal and I spend more time tweaking things than playing. I'm planning on going back to the good ol' single GPU gaming.
So what do you guys think ? And, in case you would suggest building a new PC, which config would you recommend ?
Thanks in advance for your help and looking forward to hearing from all of you.
After reading a lot of helpful posts, I decided to ask for your knowledge and ideas. First of all, sorry for my english as I'm not a native speaker so there may be some mistakes here and there.
A bit of context, my PC is quite old to say the least. It's an I5 760 (OC to 3,5) with a SLI of GTX 760 2Gb (yeah, I know...), 16gb of RAM 1333Mhz (which could be the culprit here). The MOBO is a gigabyte P55 something (can't remember exactly) and a 500gb hybrid drive (faster than a classic HDD but slower than a SSD, a good compromise between storage/speed/price).
Here's the thing. I used to be a hardcore gamer in the past but I'm not anymore. However, I still play from time to time and when I do, I am sometimes annoyed by the little stutters or FPS drops that occur on a regular basis. Some habits are hard to kill
My need ? To be able to play at 1080p 60fps on high settings. Nothing more. My monitor and TV are both 1080p 60fps and I don't plan on upgrading anytime soon. As I'm not a hardcore gamer anymore, I don't feel like spending €500 or more for a few games or a few FPS gain. However, with entry level RYZEN, I'm considering it (let's keep an open mind).
Right now, I'm only starting to feel limited by my setup so nothing urgent per se. I read a lot of articles, looked a bunch of benchmarks and feel like my setup could still hold a little bit more. My problem comes from the fact that my issues with stutters or FPS drops may come more from the SLI setup than the processor itself. In Witcher 3, with settings ranging from medium to high, I have between 55-60fps with drops around the 40s. Which is consistent with what I'm seeing in different youtube videos for that processor. However, when youtubers are having a 50fps perf, it is kind of smooth. While on my setup, even at 60fps, I feel like it's a little choppy all the time.
SLI scaling issues ? Could it be my RAM speed ? Just the processor ? The entire system ? I don't know... but there's a gap bewteen the smoothness people are getting online and the smoothness I'm getting at the same FPS rate. On the other hand, I also bought Ryse son of rome on sales on Steam recently and after finding the right SLI bits (after hours of tweaking), I finally have an almost constant 60fps on high but with some graphical glitches and I'm fed up with choosing either stability or nice graphics.
Here are a few scenarios I'm considering :
1. sell the SLI and buy a RX 580. So far, I sticked with Nvidia as a have a nvidia shield TV in my living room but the local gamestream is not ideal. Could be my modem, my processor or graphics cards but I'm noticing a loss of 15-20fps when streaming to the shield (over ethernet) compared to the actual performance I get when playing directly on the PC. As a first step, investing in a RX 580 sounds like a good idea and invest in a big ass HDMI cable and ditch gamestream when I want to play on the TV. My concern : is the RX 580 much better than a sli 760 ? I'd say yes but I'm not sure. However for the price, it seems awesome. If the performance is stil not good, well at least I could reuse the RX 580 in a new setup down the road. I'm also thinking of a GTX 1060... when the prices will go down a little. I already own a good PSU so no worries on that end.
2. Do a bigger sidegrade and combine the purchase of a new GPU with the purchase of a used I7 860 and OC it. From what I'm seeing from the benchmarks, the I7 860 seems to be quite good at keeping a lot of games over 60fps (which would guarantee an almost constant 60fps) without changing my entire setup and for a reasonable price.
3. Ditch the entire system and build a new one. It's not my priority as I don't have the need for it but if I have no other choice, so be it. In anycase, no more SLI as it's more of a pain than anything else. Sure, It helped my system holding a little bit more but the compatibility is never optimal and I spend more time tweaking things than playing. I'm planning on going back to the good ol' single GPU gaming.
So what do you guys think ? And, in case you would suggest building a new PC, which config would you recommend ?
Thanks in advance for your help and looking forward to hearing from all of you.
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