Requesting advice for gaming PC upgrade

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silicoln

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Dec 21, 2017
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Good afternoon folks,

I currently have a gaming PC that I built in 2013 with minor upgrades since. While I do want to look into water cooling soon, id like to at least start with working towards a stable 60 fps on higher end games like Shadow of War and (maybe) Skyrim with mods. I love my PC but I know that I can be doing better. Here's my current setup:

Motherboard - ASUSTeK Z87-PLUS

Processor - Intel Core i7-4770K

Core Clock: 3,500 MHz Graphics Card - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (4GB)

Core Clock: 1,114 MHz, Mem Bus Clock: 1,753 MHz Memory - 16GB (2x8GB DDR3 @ 1,332 MHz each)

Accessories - Corsair H80iGT Liquid Cooler
- H80i-GT Sealed liquid cooler

While I do tend to be a bit more fiscal, it's the end of the year and I'd like to get my PC a Christmas present. If needed, I do have a recent (today's) bench mark and stress test that I've done on my current rig. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
 
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Karadjgne
You have an Asus board. The absolute best place to find any and all info you'd ever need for OC in that bios is over at the Asus ROG forums. Those boys do nothing but OC the pants off all the mobo's. Just search for the z87 plus and read everything, then read it all again. Look at any 4770k/4790k posts too, I've looked at several for my cpu and board where ppl actually posted their complete bios setups, so enabled me to figure out what any why they adjusted what they did. Also Google is great for looking up every setting name to figure out exactly what you are looking at. Knowing exactly what Ring voltage is and what it does is more important than just adding voltage for a guess.

For the ssd, I'd use something like Partition Magic...
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silicoln

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Dec 21, 2017
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510
It was 1920x1080 prior to my new monitor, but even then I was having constant fps drops in high detail games. My new main monitor resolution is a 2560x1440
 
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sizzling

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Oct 18, 2006
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For 1440p you need a gpu upgrade. Are you overclocking your 4770k? My 4670k @ 4.3Ghz can hold 60fps in all but 2 games where it drops into high 50's but those are games where the extra threads of the i7 will help you. If you want to upgrade the cpu then you can look at the 8700k, anything less isn't worth it but it will need a new motherboard and RAM.
 
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silicoln

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Dec 21, 2017
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510
Thanks for the quick responses mate, I intend on doing the upgrade tonight if possible. And I do agree with your assessment regarding my GPU. The constant thing I'm seeing is that a, my card is outclassed (obviously) and b, I chose the cheaper variant by only getting the 4GB version. I'm currently eyeing the 1080 as the Ti version seems to be a bit more than I need. That, and I could also afford another stick of RAM without breaking the bank haha.

Also I have not overclocked my CPU. I am extremely new to that and would need a wee bit of help lol
 
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Karadjgne

Karadjgne

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Dec 26, 2012
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First, you have the capability, so I'd add a decent amount of OC, 4.3-4.5GHz. Combined with the gtx970 there's no reason at 1080p you should suffer any real frame loss. I have a 3770k and 970 and run over 130mods including 4/8k flora/fauna/cities, enb, and multiple fnis/skeletal mods and still pull a constant 60fps. And that's with a 4.6GHz OC, 124% OC on Asus STRIX gpu and 16Gb of ddr3 1866 OC 2133MHz. And yes, according to GeForce Experience I'm also running 4k DSR on several games.

Moving upto 1440p is going to be @1.7x harder work on the gpu over 1080p, so you will have to lower some settings there. The i7 has the capability, so make sure physX is on the cpu, not gpu in nvcp. That monitor won't really affect the cpu at all, resolution is all on the gpu. So you'll be ok with many of the cpu bound settings, but lowering stuff like AA etc will help the gpu out.

As far as an xmas present goes, there's 3x things I'd bump for 1440p. First would be the ram. If you can't get @1600/1866 stable, then grab some from ebay. Ddr3 is cheap enough now. Second use an SSD for C drive, a 250/256 will run @$100-130. Lastly, if you still suffer high gpu usage and frame loss after all that, consider a move up on the gpu. Rx580 or gtx1070 will allow that monitor to purr.

 
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silicoln

Prominent
Dec 21, 2017
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510
A couple of questions for you Karadjgne,

First, as I do not have experience overclocking a CPU, where would the best place to get a safe and comprehensive step-by-step guide be? Second, I actually do have a 256GB SSD drive however, as I had to clone my original SSD to move the OS onto the new one, I lost about 200GB of memory and have no idea how to get that back. Any ideas?

I'll definitely be looking into a third stick of RAM tonight, but you're recommending the 1070 over the 1080? Out of curiosity, what's your reasoning?
 
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Karadjgne

Karadjgne

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Dec 26, 2012
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You have an Asus board. The absolute best place to find any and all info you'd ever need for OC in that bios is over at the Asus ROG forums. Those boys do nothing but OC the pants off all the mobo's. Just search for the z87 plus and read everything, then read it all again. Look at any 4770k/4790k posts too, I've looked at several for my cpu and board where ppl actually posted their complete bios setups, so enabled me to figure out what any why they adjusted what they did. Also Google is great for looking up every setting name to figure out exactly what you are looking at. Knowing exactly what Ring voltage is and what it does is more important than just adding voltage for a guess.

For the ssd, I'd use something like Partition Magic (free) and go take a look. It's probably still there, just been set as unallocated space. PM will allow you to adjust it. Just be very careful though, playing around with partitions is the easiest way to wipe one out, so make very sure you have a complete backup (like an iso for instance) that's not on the same drive.

You don't need a 3rd stick of ram. 8Gb is arguably a definite minimum needed for a gaming setup. 16Gb is more than any gaming setup uses. You'll average @6-12Gb of ram usage at best. So adding another 8Gb will put you at 24Gb, with 16Gb in dual and 8Gb in single channel. That could possibly slow you down further. With as cheap as ddr3 is now on ebay, I'd dump the 16Gb of 1333MHz you have now, maybe even sell it for a few bucks, and replace it with 16Gb of 1866MHz or 2133MHz, looking for the lowest Cas numbers (1866 cl10, 2133 cl11 is good). With the pre-haswell cpus this was still of some importance, not much, but every little bit helps. That 1333MHz you have now is the lowest supported by the cpu, which runs either 1333 or 1600 standard. Running slightly faster ram, with some cpu OC just makes things move quicker.

Eaither a 1070/ti or 1080/ti is fine for 1440p, you answered before I finished typing.
 
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