Upgrade Fever Need advice (7970)

[Brady Godwin]

Hello all -

I'm interested in diving into wide screen gaming. Most likely a 2560x1440 setup on a single monitor or 5760x1200 on three monitors (already own). I play mainly (newer) MMOs but want the very best FPS, on the highest settings even in very taxing environments like raids or large scall PvP. Also the occasional FPS. I also do lots of graphic design work so I live in the Adobe creative suite.

Current Specs:
CPU - i7 920 @ 3.8ghz (D0, HT turned off)
CPU cooler - generic iBuyPower sealed liquid cooler (120mm)
GPU - Radeon 7970 XFX Black edition (had to replace the cooler twice due to defective fans)
RAM - 12GB DDR3
Corsair 850W PSU

I'm looking for advice on my PC components to upgrade. I was planning on building a rig from scratch but wanted to see if I could save some bucks by upgrading this one.

Questions:
1. How much is this older CPU holding me back? Would an upgrade to a 4770k (and new mobo) make a large difference? Or is any awesome new tech (socket) on the near horizon?
2. Graphics card - I know the 7970 needs some help here. Would adding a second one in xfire be a good choice ( or are micro stutter issues gnarly)? Or would a upgrade to a GTX 780 ti make more sense.
3. Is this PSU sufficient for 2, large GPUs.

Thanks in advance!

 

[ak47jar3d]

Yes, processor will hold you back bit with two cards. Adding a second one is better option than gtx 780 amd microsuttering wouldn't be a big problem. And yes, I would say your psu will be enough.

 

[paitjsu sadff]

if possible you could ovrclock your cpu as far as it would go and add a second 7970 will give you great framerates at 1440p...that way you save a lot of money. if you have plenty to spend then yes for mmo games a haswell i7 would provide better minimum fps....

 

[Brady Godwin]

I think I'm at the limit of what this entry level liquid cooler can do. I'm open to upgrading the cpu/mobo just don't want to do so and have Skylake come out in a few months

 

[paitjsu sadff]

I think I'm at the limit of what this entry level liquid cooler can do. I'm open to upgrading the cpu/mobo just don't want to do so and have Skylake come out in a few months

it is said that skylake will once again not really improve on the processing power but more on the graphics capability of the chips...i would NOT worry about that, the core i7 4770k will always still be relevant no mather what...and a good upgrade for you the MMO fan..
Skylake is a ''tock'' only, cannondale should be the next ''tick'' but this is not before 2016...sleep tranquile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock

 

[coozie7]

Because this is a working machine and the 4770K is faster than the current i7 920 : http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2013/06/01/intel-core-i7-4770k-cpu-review/1 I'll say a CPU/MB/RAM upgrade is a investment you should make, if this was a purely gaming rig I'd say that just adding a better GPU/GPUs would be the way to go.

Hard call on the GPU.
Right now, if you're in the USA particularly, AMD prices are too high and supplies of the 7970 are all but gone, it'll probably be better for you to look for a well cooled R9 280X-same GPU, different name and often cheaper. Yes, the two cards will Crossfire together.
On the other hand, selling the current 7970 will yield a fair amount of cash, particularly if it's one of the better cooled examples, and a single 780Ti will be quieter than a pair of 7970s, so it's really down to your preferences.
At a pinch, I'd opt for the 780Ti but check your version of Adobe, I'm not sure which GPU acceleration it can use-again, I'm looking to the machines earning potential rather than its gaming performance here so if it's faster with an AMD card then I'd go CF, if it's faster under CUDA then the 780Ti would be my choice.

If you decide on the CPU/MB/RAM/GPU upgrade it may be better to build from scratch and sell the current system as a 'mainstream' gaming rig, as it stands it's actually a bit quicker than my setup and there's very little out there I can't play at very high settings!

 

[Brady Godwin]

Because this is a working machine and the 4770K is faster than the current i7 920 : http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2013/06/01/intel-core-i7-4770k-cpu-review/1 I'll say a CPU/MB/RAM upgrade is a investment you should make, if this was a purely gaming rig I'd say that just adding a better GPU/GPUs would be the way to go.

Hard call on the GPU.
Right now, if you're in the USA particularly, AMD prices are too high and supplies of the 7970 are all but gone, it'll probably be better for you to look for a well cooled R9 280X-same GPU, different name and often cheaper. Yes, the two cards will Crossfire together.
On the other hand, selling the current 7970 will yield a fair amount of cash, particularly if it's one of the better cooled examples, and a single 780Ti will be quieter than a pair of 7970s, so it's really down to your preferences.
At a pinch, I'd opt for the 780Ti but check your version of Adobe, I'm not sure which GPU acceleration it can use-again, I'm looking to the machines earning potential rather than its gaming performance here so if it's faster with an AMD card then I'd go CF, if it's faster under CUDA then the 780Ti would be my choice.

If you decide on the CPU/MB/RAM/GPU upgrade it may be better to build from scratch and sell the current system as a 'mainstream' gaming rig, as it stands it's actually a bit quicker than my setup and there's very little out there I can't play at very high settings!

Selling it and starting over isn't a bad idea. I hadn't really considered that, didn't know there was really a market for used PCs (or parts). What do you think would be a good starting point? Besides the aforementioned specs this PC has:

Cooler Master HAF case
Antec liquid CPU cooler
1 TB HDD
128 GB SSD
ASUS P6x58D Premium motherboard

 

[paitjsu sadff]

Because this is a working machine and the 4770K is faster than the current i7 920 : http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2013/06/01/intel-core-i7-4770k-cpu-review/1 I'll say a CPU/MB/RAM upgrade is a investment you should make, if this was a purely gaming rig I'd say that just adding a better GPU/GPUs would be the way to go.

Hard call on the GPU.
Right now, if you're in the USA particularly, AMD prices are too high and supplies of the 7970 are all but gone, it'll probably be better for you to look for a well cooled R9 280X-same GPU, different name and often cheaper. Yes, the two cards will Crossfire together.
On the other hand, selling the current 7970 will yield a fair amount of cash, particularly if it's one of the better cooled examples, and a single 780Ti will be quieter than a pair of 7970s, so it's really down to your preferences.
At a pinch, I'd opt for the 780Ti but check your version of Adobe, I'm not sure which GPU acceleration it can use-again, I'm looking to the machines earning potential rather than its gaming performance here so if it's faster with an AMD card then I'd go CF, if it's faster under CUDA then the 780Ti would be my choice.

If you decide on the CPU/MB/RAM/GPU upgrade it may be better to build from scratch and sell the current system as a 'mainstream' gaming rig, as it stands it's actually a bit quicker than my setup and there's very little out there I can't play at very high settings!

Selling it and starting over isn't a bad idea. I hadn't really considered that, didn't know there was really a market for used PCs (or parts). What do you think would be a good starting point? Besides the aforementioned specs this PC has:

Cooler Master HAF case
Antec liquid CPU cooler
1 TB HDD
128 GB SSD
ASUS P6x58D Premium motherboard

i would keep the SSD and throw in a much cheaper powersupply to sell and keep that corsair you have and try to get around 900$ for the rest...maybe even the case you could swap for a cheaper one if you would want to keep that one....you may also want to sell it with only 8gb and keep a 4gb for you...so i think listing it at around 975$ would be a good place to start, i dont know if the others will agree with me tho..it's a bit sketchy knowing the graphics card alone could sell for about almost 400$ these days with the prices being as crazy as they are...even tho we all know it is not worth that, you probably paid less than that for the card brand new...it's your call really.

 

[coozie7]

Either Craiglist or E-bay would be good starting points, but don't ignore the good, old fashioned small ads, you'll pay no fees that way, even though you may not get as much.
Probably $800 is a little hopeful but not a bad starting point, AMD prices are starting to become more reasonable but still high and the overall system is still a very capable one.
If the water system can transfer over and you have the stock CPU cooler, I'd swap them over and probably keep the SSD. As for the HDD either scrub it using a proper data scrubber (takes FOREVER BTW), transfer it into the new build or physically smash it, don't just do a format/install you leave yourself open to having personal data compromised-it's very unlikely but possible.
As I said, I'm advising on the basis this is primarily a working system and that you'll increase your earning power by investing in faster core components, for purely gaming purposes a faster card/Crossfire is all you really need.