Looking to upgrade to 6950 possibly

[cfisher87]

Hi,
My question is, what would be the best upgrades I could do for my desktop to use for gaming. I use 2 23inch 1080p monitors.(Rift, BF3 and looking forward to SWOR and D3)

Here's my current specs -
GIGABYTE GA-MA790GPT-UD3H
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Black Processor HDZ720WFGIBOX
GTS 250 1gb OC (not sure on rest of specs)
300gb 10k
500w powersupply


What I was personally thinking about so far for upgrades -
another set of the same ram (around $32)
AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition Deneb 3.7GHz ($160)
ATI 6950 2gb (not sure on company)
OCZ Solid 3 SLD3-25SAT3-60G 2.5" 60GB SATA III MLC ($95)

I am not looking to spend more than $650 for all upgrades.

Does anyone have any input as to what my thoughts were to upgrade? Should I look for a 6950? or maybe a 560ti or 570? I'd prefer not to fully start from the ground up but if that's what people would recommend that's the way I'll start to look.

If I left out anything or anyone has any questions please feel free to ask!

Thanks

 

[jk47]

IMO, you would be cutting it really close with that power supply. For that build I'd recommend bare-minimum 550W PSU, 600W to be on the safe side - and an efficient brand like Antec or Corsair. I personally just got a sapphire 6950 toxic with my new system, and I went PSU 750w, incase I choose to get another card for crossfire.

Also I'd go Intel for the processor.

 

[geofelt]

I think you can do this gradually.

1) For starters, a 6950 class graphics card will be a major boost over a GTS250. A GTX560ti is about the same power, so compare prices.
Either will run on a 500w psu if it is of decent quality with at least 30a capability on the +12v rails.

2) 4gb of ram is all you really need for games. You can defer here, and see how you do. No games I know of can use more than 2-3gb. If you also do some multitasking while gaming, then you need more. If you need more, get a 8gb matched kit. Ram is cheap and there is no downside to extra ram. If your two sticks can also run with it, you will have 12gb. If not, then 8gb is ok.

3) Games rarely use more than two or three cores. The extra core on a X4 wil largely go unused.
Have you tried to OC your X3? regardless, wait to get your new graphics card and see hwow well your x3 drives it.
I would hesitate to upgrade to a X4 today. It would be ok for a small boost, but not a major one.
Intel ivy bridge is on the horizon, and even today, sandy bridge is superior.

4) I love the ssd's. They make everything feel so much quicker. But, do not expect much benefit to gaming. Levels will load faster if the game is installed on the ssd, but that is about it. To hold several games, you should look more to 120gb. Again, waiting is not bad. SSD prices continue to drop, and we might go from $2 per gb down to $1 per gb. Yoday, I like Intel and Samsung best for reliability.

 

[ilysaml]

+1 for geofelt post, only disagree in the following:-
1) The Phenom II 980 Particularly is doing as good as a Core i5 2500K, 5-8 FPS difference between them in gaming.
2) The use of the X4 is not only for gaming, the OP might use multi task applications, doing some renders on CS5 and here it goes for the X4 or X6

 

[cfisher87]

Thank you both for your replies!

I do multitask quite a bit so a decent ram upgrade would help in my situation (I left out I use photoshop and will be doing basic HD video editing soon)

I did have my x3 overclocked to 3.1 for a little bit of time where the temperature was barely any higher (stock cooler). But i was talked into not doing that because one of my friends said AMDs do not overclock well and are more prone to failing. He is not an expert in anyway but he has more experience with stuff like that than I do. You feel that AMDs overclock just fine if done properly?

And finally the SSD would mainly be for my OS. I wouldn't expect a big jump in performance for games.

This was very insightful and I haven't been reading up on new tech enough I guess because i forgot about ivy bridge coming up soon. I may just save a little more and build a whole new machine with that on the horizon. I may just get some ram and the 6950 and possibly xfire another down the road on a new mobo

 

[FlintIronStagg]

+1 for geofelt post, only disagree in the following:-
1) The Phenom II 980 Particularly is doing as good as a Core i5 2500K, 5-8 FPS difference between them in gaming.
2) The use of the X4 is not only for gaming, the OP might use multi task applications, doing some renders on CS5 and here it goes for the X4 or X6

+1

 

[ilysaml]

Well regarding the OCing thing, AMD breaks always the best world records in OCing, the FX 8150 has been pushed to 8.4 GHz, the 955 BE was pushed to 7.1 GHz anyway that's insane OCing anyway and requires superior stuff.

You can push all the Phenom II CPUs to 4.0 - 4.2 GHz very stable without any problem.

 

[FlintIronStagg]

yup, and getting the 980BE if you even leave it at stock, still performs very well with that stock clock of 3.7- easily would hit 4.2

 

[cfisher87]

Awesome info!

Thanks again to everyone who has helped me.

This was my first post and I'm 100% certain I will be using these forums more!

 

[FlintIronStagg]

we will be here, we have a bench thread you are welcome to hit up when you get it all together, and also just dropping in to comment is always welcome

 

[cfisher87]

Best answer selected by cfisher87.