New ssd vs new gpu

[BeCoolBro]

I want to upgrade my current system.It consists of an i5 750,a sapphire 5850,4gb ram, an asus p7p55d motherboard and a 750gb western digital caviar black hdd.I game at 1920x1080 I and I mostly play fps so the framerate makes a difference for me.I also do some light video editing.I am thinking of either getting the 80gb intel postville or the 5870.What would really make a noticeale difference?Which of the two would you prefer?What else could I get to improve my pc's performance?

PS.My budget is as much as the cheapest 5870 model.

 

[coldsleep]

What about getting another 5850 and CrossFire-ing? If you have the base P7P55D, then you wouldn't want to do that, but if you have one of the other models (Deluxe, Pro), it might be an option.

If CrossFire is not an option, the 5870 is going to improve your performance some, but probably not enough to justify the upgrade cost. See http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-card-geforce-radeon,2646-7.html for some ideas.

The SSD isn't going to improve your fps at all, but it will make the computer feel more responsive in daily usage.

 

[BeCoolBro]

The only reason I said I wanted the 5870 is because I can't crossfire x8 x8 only x16 x4 .And yes I know it is not going to improve my fps but it would make booting time faster and the responsiveness would really be nice.So,is there something else I could do to improve fps and performance?Maybe get a cooler and oc for the first time?What else?

 

[coldsleep]

Get an SSD and a CPU cooler.

I wasn't really knocking the SSD, just pointing out that it isn't going to help much in games.

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

Or wait till later in the year for the SSD. But upgrading after already having a 5850 seems ridiculous to me.

 

[lehighace06]

i tend to agree with these guys, SSD won't increase your gaming performance but is a nice upgrade. from 5850 you already have one of the better vid cards on the market, so excepting to go xfire there's not much reason to upgrade what you have there.

if i may pose an alternate way to spend some money that you are obviously itching to spend ... upgrade your monitor. you haven't posted what you have but i'm guessing you likely have a 19" or maybe 21" monitor. for the same price (or less) than an SSD or new vid card, you can get a really nice high def 25" or even 27" monitor which will be a really big upgrade from a "normal" monitor, and you should be able to use your current monitor as a secondary monitor to allow web browsing while gaming or watching HD video in full screen, as you can see in my sig i have a dual monitor set up with samsun screens, and that's treating me very well

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

@lehighace06

Do you use any sort of special software to make using different programs on different monitors easier? Like keeping a flash vid full screen on one and doing stuff on another?

 

[lehighace06]

not really, my nvidia drivers work just fine, i assume ati card drivers would too

 

[BeCoolBro]

I actually have a 24 inch hd samsung monitor and I don't have enough space to fit another and anyway it's great by itself.I am not itching to spend money,I just want to upgrade my pc.If there is something that is worth it and I should wait for it,I might as well deposit the money in the bank.Anyway,I just have one last question,I rememer there was an article here at TH about crossfire and there were charts where you could see how many fps would someody lose if he/she did xfire x16 x4 as compared to x16 x16 and x8 x8.Does anybody have a link to that article or remember out of his/her head how many fps would I lose if I xfired with my motherboard?The number doesn't have to be completely accurate,just a rough guess.Thank you for your trouble

 

[brett1042002]

If you can OC that 5850, you'll get close to the performance of a 5870.

I, personally, would leave the GPU alone... try to OC it if you're after a few more FPS... and go for an SSD.

I was blown away at the performance going from a HDD to SSD. Games load a lot faster and the OS operates smooooooooooooooth.

Just be sure to read up on the "Do's and Don'ts" with SSDs to ensure you maximize its performance. Things like moving the page file to another drive, disabling write cache, never defrag, etc etc....

 

[Onus]

It is an older article, referring to x16,x4 Crossfire on a P35, but in that scenario it could be worse than just the single card at x16.
Gaming on one monitor while having a wiki or something else open on another may require running the game in a window rather than full screen (so the mouse isn't trapped in the game), but should work pretty well. If you're at 1920x1080, you don't lose much space playing in a window.

 

[RetiredChief]

(1) Overclock the I5-750, After Replacing the Intel stock HSF! 3.2 Is VERY easy and many have no Problem hitting 3.8. Monitor Temps.

(2) OC the 5850.

(3) Go for the SSD. While it will not help the games, it does make the overall system MUCH more responsive. Much faster boot time (May depend on how often you reboot the system to be cost effective) and improves program load times (for games that use a map, it may improve page loads). My gut feeling is SSD prices will decline over the next 6 months (starting to see more sales). Watch out for ones with poor controllers, check reviews and look at the 4K random read/writes. The sequencial speeds (most advertise these values) are less improtant.

Currently have three SSDs, one each in 2 laptops and one in a I5-750 desktop. Should have my 4th one today (an 80 gig Intel clone) - for added storage space for the two laptops (will get a USB3 express card for the laptops).

Added:
OCZ is coming out with a PCI-e version (120 Gig for around $370) that is really fast!! (May put out a cheaper 80 gig version)
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3788/oczs-revodrive-pcie-ssd-preview-an-affordable-pcie-ssd