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What would you upgrade next with a Phenom II x6 and a HD 7970

Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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What would you do to this rig?

Total: 37 votes (6 blank votes)

  • That CPU is junk - upgrade to Sandy/Ivy Bridge before tinkering with GPU
  • 13 %
  • Get a second 7970 and put it in crossfire
  • 0 %
  • Sell the 7970 and get a 680 if it beats the 7970 by 20%+
  • 4 %
  • Be happy with what you have until it can't game smoothly @ 1080p
  • 36 %
  • Get an SSD before any CPU or GPU tinkering
  • 49 %
  • Other (comment below please)
  • 0 %
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Graphics card Expert

seumas_beathan said:
Cmon, you must know that that is a very good system and you will be able to play as smooth as anything at 1080p for a good 3 years

Absolutely Seamus, that's why I think it'd be best with an SSD as other CPU's GPUs wouldn't add that much at this point in time.
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Kkkk1 said:
Absolutely Seamus, that's why I think it'd be best with an SSD as other CPU's GPUs wouldn't add that much at this point in time.


Woops i didnt see the ssd part, Yh your right, put an ssd in that machine and you will not regret it
Graphics card Master

If I get an SSD, is there any way to clone my OS installation onto the SSD and then wipe my HDD?

I haven't taken the jump to SSDs because the big ones (240GB+) are just now hitting the $1/GB mark and I'm not a huge fan of reformatting/reinstalling everything on my system. I have a 500 GB Caviar Black HDD for my OS and games/apps, and 7 TB of external HDDs for data/backups...
Graphics card Expert

BigMack70 said:
If I get an SSD, is there any way to clone my OS installation onto the SSD and then wipe my HDD?

I haven't taken the jump to SSDs because the big ones (240GB+) are just now hitting the $1/GB mark and I'm not a huge fan of reformatting/reinstalling everything on my system. I have a 500 GB Caviar Black HDD for my OS and games/apps, and 7 TB of external HDDs for data/backups...


Yes, there are dozens of capable programs that will image your current drive to an SSD. However, I would do a clean install and use ACHI mode instead of IDE for your drive. Its not like reinstalling will take very long on an SSD anyway.... especially if you load from a flash drive. Also, most games that let you install from the internet (i.e. Games on Steam, WoW, etc) will let you copy the folders to a new location without much fuss. That will minimize your downloading once you are back up.
Graphics card Master

redeemer said:
get 7870's crossfire

end of thread


this would involve selling my 7970... kind of a pain... would be much easier to just drop in a 2nd 7970 if I were looking to go the crossfire route (and people don't seem to be voting for that!)
Graphics card Master

What is your Monitor resolution? If it's 1080p a second 7970 wouldn't help a lot. I'd likely go with an SSD and wait for a bigger improvement on the CPU later. A 120hz monitor or high res IPS monitor are also options.
Graphics card Master

bystander said:
What is your Monitor resolution? If it's 1080p a second 7970 wouldn't help a lot. I'd likely go with an SSD and wait for a bigger improvement on the CPU later. A 120hz monitor or high res IPS monitor are also options.


Yup I have a 24" 1080p monitor and probably won't upgrade that... currently working on persuading my wife that it's a good idea to buy a 46" HDTV... would be difficult to convince her that I need both that AND a monitor upgrade (I'm also pretty happy with 24" 1080p gaming :D  )
Graphics card Master

Yeah, work on the HDTV first, your comp doesn't really need help atm. I've seen some really good pricing on 42" HDTV's these days, of course 46" is even better.
Graphics card Master

That depends on what you consider a bottleneck. I do have an SSD and it's nice, but it pretty much only reduces load times, it has almost no effect once the zone/area is loaded in that game.
Graphics card Master

I'm worried that an SSD won't really speed up some critical things on my system (boot time in particular) because of all the external HDDs I have which seem to make Windows take an extra 45-90 seconds to boot while it performs some sort of check on them.
Graphics card Expert

you have a good rig.only upgrade needed is a SSD.they are insanely fast.mushkin enhanced 250gb SSD for $270 is a catchy price.other wise sammy 830 128gb ssd for $200 is a high recommendation.
another option-
collect money and upgrade to ivy bridge when it's out.a single 7970 is enough to max out any game at 1080p.you cooler is good;)
it's your decision.
Graphics card Master

Quote:
You would be surprised how much an OS just feels fresh and new and light and fast and perky you would be appalled when you go back onto a slower HDD OS just gets all ((( *** BUNGED *** ))) up from slow info throughput and it just get worst as time goes on and the drives fill up. SSD is like the touch points in a car they can really make a cheaper car feel like it is higher end and and a fast car feel even faster. I learned how slow Windows is when I recently switched intermittently tell I get my 7850 CF to Linux LXDE it is fast as a mofo cause the HDDs aren't working so hard and it's light weight ect. Put it this way Linux is just as fast or even a bit faster on one HDD than Window 8 was on three HDDs in RAID0 man I could just Imagen what an SSD could do woot I might have to pick one up for a test drive no pun intended LOL I couldn't help myself LOL.


You clearly didn't read what you quoted. The 2nd sentence says I have an SSD. I am well aware how it is faster on loading. It doesn't, however, make games run faster, only load faster, which I do like as more and more games were getting on my nerves while I sat at the load screen.
Graphics card Expert

It seems to me that the original posters current rig is plenty powerful enough for the time being. Personally I think the next logical step would be a decent SSD to reduce load times. This will give you an even more balanced rig.
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