Looking to upgrade my rig, any suggestions?

[Naota215]

Hello, I'm new to the forums but have been browsing the site for years. I am looking to upgrade my system and am trying to figure out if I should just build a whole new system or if maybe just a mobo/cpu upgrade would be the way to go. I mainly play games, do some Photoshop and other random things. My tech level is pretty high, I have been building systems since about freshman year in high school (2002). My rig specs are as follows

CPU: I7-960 3.2Ghz
Ram: 8gbs Corsair Dominator 1666 MHz
Graphics Card: 2X gtx 670 2gb
HDD: WD black edition 1TB 7200 rpm
Operating System: Windows 8.1 64bit
Mobo: Intel DX58SO
Power Supply: Corsair 650 watt

My main concern at the moment is in games such as Arma 3 and Elder Scrolls Online, I get graphics lag. Arma 3 especially, set to high it ranges anywhere from around 30-60 (60 if I'm super lucky) I know the engine itself isn't the best optimized engine out there, plus with it having to load such large scale areas it is quite taxing.

I suppose the main question I have is whether or not my CPU is bottle necking. I know my cards cant be that bad. But it seems like I should be getting a lot better performance than I am. I was considering upgrading to an AMD board with one of the newer 4.5Ghz Vishera processors in hopes that I can get some more time out of the system before completely rebuilding, Any thoughts anyone?

 

[mrpizzaface]

i believe that it might be your CPU as you have been suspecting the I7 960 is a great processor dont get me wrong but it is a aging product and is falling behind i would reccommend to get a Ivy-Bridge 3770K i dont reccomend the new Haswell or Broadwell due to how their thermal design with power mangement isnt up to Intel par,

BUT, if you do want to make the switch to AMD their 4.5 Ghz Vishera cores dont really provide any improvment in non multithread optimised for 8 cores applications, so you most likely wont see that much of an improvment




Also SLI isnt that well implmented in either of those games which might say something about the lag you are expircing from Arma3 but a GTX670 in non SLI should be able to handle ARMA3 on High settings at 1080P with no MSAA (not needed at 1080)


sorry for the long post BTW i got carried off

 

[Naota215]

By all means, ramble as much as you like. Any input is good input! The 3770k you say? I'll have to look into that. I was thinking along the lines of what you said for the Vhishera, I just really think I should be getting alot better performance than I am. Thank you for the suggestions!

 

[Naota215]

Also, as a shot in the dark. Anyones thoughts on the 4930k over the 3770k? I know its a hex over the quad, but the performance and quality over the quad?

 

[mrpizzaface]

Also, as a shot in the dark. Anyones thoughts on the 4930k over the 3770k? I know its a hex over the quad, but the performance and quality over the quad?

most people believe this when it isnt simply ture, there is a Law of Deminishing return and when you get Enthuist grade products their Power realy isnt up to par for what you pay for them and also the 3770K is a Hyperthreaded 4CORE/8Thread processor which means that in some applications that dont use your CU to its fullest the cores will ofset its power to a Vcore to do other things

But short explination short unless your doing some kind of Video Rendering/ Heavy editing your are NOT going to want a 10 core HT'd processor the 4930K wont be a price/prefromance item

 

[Naota215]

Thats what I thought, thanks for confirming and thanks for the suggestions! looks like I'll be buyin a new mobo and a 3770k. Oh and one more question, I'm thinking I should be upping my power supply as the 650 watt seems like its probably pushing its max with all the hardware running in there, maybe something like a 900 watt?

 

[mrpizzaface]

Thats what I thought, thanks for confirming and thanks for the suggestions! looks like I'll be buyin a new mobo and a 3770k. Oh and one more question, I'm thinking I should be upping my power supply as the 650 watt seems like its probably pushing its max with all the hardware running in there, maybe something like a 900 watt?

yeah i agree but dont grab a 900W PSU grab something more reasonable to keep it around 80% power draw
~750W should do your current system should draw around 515W if i am correct ?

 

[Naota215]

Yes, your right should be plenty sufficient for what I'm using. Thank you again for responding and confirming my thoughts on this. Its really appreciated!