Upgrading PC for Tera

[erick1473]

Hello there!
I am not very knowledgeable when it comes to PC hardware which is why I've decided to turn here for some advice.

I've been having some FPS issues playing Tera on my current setup:

Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3 AMD870 ATX AM3 DDR3 1PCI-E 2PCI RAID HD Sound GBLAN SATA3 USB3.0 Motherboard
AMD Phenom II X4 965
Radeon HD 5770
2x2GB Gskill ram
Seasonic M12II 520W EPS12V 20/24PIN ATX Power Supply



While I am solo leveling I usually have around a unplayable 20 FPS on lowest settings and every 8 seconds or so it will drop to 0 FPS for a couple of seconds.

So I'm looking to upgrade either the GPU or CPU with a budget of 300$. I currently cannot afford to revamp my whole system but I can afford a good CPU or GPU for now and maybe a couple months down the line I can get the other. I'm hoping to be able to play at a stable 60FPS without the sudden frame drops.

I've read that Tera is a pretty CPU intensive game and I was thinking of upgrading to a I5-3570K but without a GPU upgrade, would this give me at least playable FPS on lowest settings? Or would it be better to upgrade my GPU first and then CPU later.

Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[RichAC]

spend all your money to upgrade your cpu. to the fastest intel core clock speed you can get.

keep the same gpu.

your still rolling the dice no matter what you do. but i would say don't bother upgrading the gpu....

i have an phenom II 820 with a 5870. and get 30 fps outdoors. 15 fps in the cities.

and horrible stutters when loading populated areas, which i can't figure out. might be due to my sb750 and hdd. i dunno, i get it in every mmo, aion, lotro, tera. the lotro has the maturest community, they all tell me to get an ssd, but i'm not convinced that wold fix my issue.

yet skyrim, bf3, and metro 2033 run fine on high settings with 30-60 avg fps vsync'd and no stutters.

 

[erick1473]

Ah I see, will I need to buy a new motherboard if I plan on upgrading my CPU? Or will my current motherboard suffice?

 

[RichAC]

Ah I see, will I need to buy a new motherboard if I plan on upgrading my CPU? Or will my current motherboard suffice?

need a new mobo too if you going to go with intel. I would ask on the forum what a good recommended mobo is for the i5.

 

[HEXiT]

not in this case a faster cpu wont help at all. better cooling and a better gfx card would... as long as you have a decent 550w psu you can pretty much any gfx card in up to a 7870 ot 660ti without fear of bottlenecking.
you may have to oc the cpu but the 965 will oc very well and give comparable performance to the new mid range buldozers.
as long as you have a good cpu cooler 3.6 should be doable..

 

[erick1473]

Hmm, so I'm slightly confused now. It is either I get an CPU upgrade along with a motherboard, then a few months down the line upgrade GPU + cooling or the other way around. People have been telling me Tera is an extremely CPU relent game but it makes sense that I upgrade my GPU to improve in game FPS. Which option would allow me to get decent FPS if I can only upgrade one or the other?

 

[RichAC]

Hmm, so I'm slightly confused now. It is either I get an CPU upgrade along with a motherboard, then a few months down the line upgrade GPU + cooling or the other way around. People have been telling me Tera is an extremely CPU relent game but it makes sense that I upgrade my GPU to improve in game FPS. Which option would allow me to get decent FPS if I can only upgrade one or the other?

the people who are actually veteran tera players. that are the ones tell you tera is very cpu dependent.

are the ones who i would listen to.

 

[RichAC]

tera's recommended gpu is a 9800 gt haha. and its also a known fact that tera is horribly optimized for the amd phenoms.

I mean most of the game is optmized for a single core. especially the UI which they said they are working on (but will never happen)

 

[RichAC]

not in this case a faster cpu wont help at all. better cooling and a better gfx card would... as long as you have a decent 550w psu you can pretty much any gfx card in up to a 7870 ot 660ti without fear of bottlenecking.
you may have to oc the cpu but the 965 will oc very well and give comparable performance to the new mid range buldozers.
as long as you have a good cpu cooler 3.6 should be doable..

overlock the 965be? haha. imo he should get that i5 3750k which is like double the score on passmark and amazing in video game benchmarks...and overclock that instead.


tera hates amds. do what they tell you on the tera forums OP.

 

[erick1473]

Best answer selected by erick1473.