Upgrading Radeon 7870 / Possibly CPU

7horus7

Honorable
Aug 26, 2013
2
0
10,510
Hello, any advice is much appreciated. This was my first PC build 4-5 years ago and served me well up until recently with advancing requirements. Upgrading because of framerate issues and like to look at pretty ultra graphics on my games. Play Witcher 3, Fallout76, Planetside 2, CRPG's.
I am showing a lot of heavy HD usage at boot and other intermittent times .. 100% usage.

I'm also excited for future games like Cyberpunk 2077, Skyrim 2, Starfield...to a much lesser extent Star Citizen...I have a pretty large CoolerMaster case with lots of room.

Approximate Purchase Date: Now or this week

Budget Range: $300 or below for GPU

System Usage from Most to Least Important: gaming w/limited mods, surfing the internet, watching movies,

Are you buying a monitor: Later. Have a smaller 22 in monitor, 1080p



Parts to Upgrade: GPU, possibly CPU
Current parts:
Core i5-3570k
2x 4GB DDR3 Ballistix PC3
Corsair CX750
ASUS P8z77-v LK
Hard drive is 500G (non SS)

Do you need to buy OS: No

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com or microcenter in store

Location: Minneapolis MN-

Parts Preferences: Intel, otherwise no.

Overclocking: if the GPU comes that way.

SLI or Crossfire: no

Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

 

7horus7

Honorable
Aug 26, 2013
2
0
10,510
OP if you had taken the time to browse previously answered questions you probably would have gotten your answer.

Which is: I went to Micro Center and after talking with the guys there I bought an open box GTX 1060 OC 6GB Windforce. It is a Gigabyte which I didn't want, but when taking out the old Radeon 7870 I happened to note it was a Gigabyte as well, and it served me well for 4+ years.
The 1060 is wonderful. I slightly overclocked it by an additional 100MHz - can't get it beyond that without crashing, voltage or no.
I now know about sockets and that I don't want to upgrade my CPU because:
a. it's just fine for my needs
b. I'd have to replace the motherboard for a newer processor generally, and that's not in my budget.

I replaced the HDD drive with a Samsung Evo SSD and that is also awesome.
I found another pair of 2x4 GB Ballistix ram on newegg to match my current pair. Installing today.