MatthewVilter said:
I am looking to upgrade my rig to handle the current wave of PC tailored games (i.e. ARMA 3) and hopefully keep me covered for the duration of this new generation of consoles. I am also interested in recording and/or streaming gameplay video.
My current rig (from 2011) is:
Motherboard -
MSI LGA 1155 Intel P67
CPU -
Intel Core i5-2500 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost)
Video Card -
EVGA GeForce GTX 560 1GB
RAM -
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 1600MHz
Storage -
Samsung 2TB 5400rpm HDD
Power -
Rosewill 600W
All running Windows 7 Home Premium and outputting to two 1080p displays (only one for gaming) and stereo headphones
My (many) questions about my upgrade:
1) I am planning to pick up an SSD to use as a boot drive. The one I am looking at is the
Samsung 840 EVO but I could save some cash by getting something like the
Crucial MX100. Will I notice the
performance difference?
2) Is 250GB about right for a boot drive with some games on it?
3) I think I will need a 3rd drive to record HD video. What kind of drive should I be looking for?
4) Is 16GB of RAM the right amount for this kind of gaming?
5) Is it better to get, say, 2 x 8GB sticks or 4 x 4GB sticks of RAM? E.g.
This or
this?
6) For a video card I am looking at the
EVGA GeForce GTX 770 4GB. I think it might be overpowered for my needs but I do plan to get a bigger monitor at some point and I don’t want to have any problems recording video. What do you guys think?
7) That video card calls for a 600W power supply...which is exactly what I have. I am used to over building on the power end. Should I be worried?
8) I have
looked at some Ivy Bridge CPUs and I’m not really seeing a huge difference from what I already have. Am I missing something? Will my old CPU bottleneck my system if I leave it in with all of these other upgrades?
9) Should I be thinking about upgrading to Windows 8?
Thank you so much for your time!
- Matthew Vilter
Ans 1. Both of them are great and their specs are identical. So just save yourself 25 bucks by buying the mx 100.
Ans 2. Yes that is a good amount of space for your os and some games. But you shouldn't store media content there.
Ans 3. Just get yourself the cheapest 2 Tb 5900 rpm video drive out there. Something like this would do fine:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... Costs you about 95 bucks
Ans 4. 16 gb is overkill for the current games. However if you do heavy multitasking (i.e video editing + photo editing + recording + gaming at the same time), you might need 16 gb. I suggest you keep your 2*2 gb sticks and get 2 more 4 gb sticks of the same brand with the same Cas timings and configure it this way: A( 1st ram slot)- 2gb, B(2nd) - 4 gb, C(3rd) - 2 gb, D(4th) - 4 gb.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... Buy this and combine it with your ram in the configuration i suggested.
Ans 5. See above.
Ans 6. The Gtx 770 is a great choice if you have multiple displays. However having a bigger monitor makes no difference. The resolution makes the difference. A gtx 770 would render the same on a 20 inch 1080p display and an 85 inch 1080p display.
Ans 7. If you plan on overclocking your graphic card get atleast a 700 watt psu and make sure you have sufficient cooling.
Ans 8. No an i5 2500 will be great for atleast another 2 years. Rest assured, it won't be the bottleneck in your system.
Ans 9. If you are ok with the metro ui, then the windows 8.1 experience is great. The bootup times are better than windows 7. However, it does not give you a big spike in performance. Whatever you do just make sure you have the 64 bit os installed.