My current setup is:
i5-750
Radeon HD 5770
4GB 1600 MHz DDR3
ASUS P7P55D
I put this computer together 4-5 years ago. Historically, this is about the time when I would be looking to swap out the Mobo/CPU/GPU/RAM again, but when I look at the options I feel really underwhelmed at the level of upgrade I would get in my price range. For example the tom's reviews have my current processor only a couple tiers beneath the current generation while I moved up 6 tiers on that chart when I upgraded to my i5 over a similar price range and time span. The situation is a bit better for graphics cards but still only moves me up like 5 spots on the equivalent list and the reviews say that moving up less than 3 spots is not generally worthwhile.
I usually don't care for shooter games and am usually not very perceptive when it comes to advanced graphical settings so I don't need anything amazing, but I do want to be able to at least play reasonably new games at my monitors' native resolution (1920x1080) without turning all the settings down to 0. The thing that made my realize it might be time to upgrade is that I tried out the Wildstar open beta and, while it made me interested in the game it also ran at like 10 fps.
I would probably be looking to spend around $600 for the 4 items, which would probably mean an i5-4590 and an R7 265 or R9 270X with the other 200 set aside for the motherboard and RAM.
The other option I'm seriously considering is buying a 2GB R7 260X along with another 4 or 8 GB of the same RAM I have now, which would cost $165-$200 depending on the RAM and spending the $600 in another 18-24 months.
I'm fairly flexible on spending more or less money and whether I spend it sooner or later if I'm ultimately getting a good deal.
In light of all that, here are my questions:
a) Is my sense of the market/interpretation of Tom's best value ranking lists correct? Would the upgrades I get these days in my price range be underwhelming compared to the performance of my current machine over the last 4 years considering I'd want them to last for the next 4 years? Does it look like the situation will change within the next couple years?
b) Does my alternative plan seem reasonable? Is a 260X even going to be enough of an upgrade over my 5770 to tide the rest of my machine over? Is there a smarter way to spend that money to give my machine a short term boost?
c) I'm not usually a fan of crossfire/sli, but is there a smart option in there where I buy one card now and get a second one in a year or two when I upgrade the whole system? It's kind of a tricky question, but how good a card would I need to get now for the resulting sli to be comparable to a card that's $200 18 months from now (and for bonus points, how much is the price on that card likely to drop in the next 18 months)?
d) 8 or 12 GB of RAM? I've always found that having plenty of RAM is one of the best things you can spend money on, but if 12 GB would be excessive for my current system I'll just save the $35 difference. I'm assuming it will have to get trashed if I build a new computer in a couple years.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. I realize it's a lot and answers to any part of it would be really helpful.
P.S. I notice that the processors all have a GPU integrated onto the die these days. Is that useful at all? It feels like wasted money that I apparently have no choice but to throw to Intel.
i5-750
Radeon HD 5770
4GB 1600 MHz DDR3
ASUS P7P55D
I put this computer together 4-5 years ago. Historically, this is about the time when I would be looking to swap out the Mobo/CPU/GPU/RAM again, but when I look at the options I feel really underwhelmed at the level of upgrade I would get in my price range. For example the tom's reviews have my current processor only a couple tiers beneath the current generation while I moved up 6 tiers on that chart when I upgraded to my i5 over a similar price range and time span. The situation is a bit better for graphics cards but still only moves me up like 5 spots on the equivalent list and the reviews say that moving up less than 3 spots is not generally worthwhile.
I usually don't care for shooter games and am usually not very perceptive when it comes to advanced graphical settings so I don't need anything amazing, but I do want to be able to at least play reasonably new games at my monitors' native resolution (1920x1080) without turning all the settings down to 0. The thing that made my realize it might be time to upgrade is that I tried out the Wildstar open beta and, while it made me interested in the game it also ran at like 10 fps.
I would probably be looking to spend around $600 for the 4 items, which would probably mean an i5-4590 and an R7 265 or R9 270X with the other 200 set aside for the motherboard and RAM.
The other option I'm seriously considering is buying a 2GB R7 260X along with another 4 or 8 GB of the same RAM I have now, which would cost $165-$200 depending on the RAM and spending the $600 in another 18-24 months.
I'm fairly flexible on spending more or less money and whether I spend it sooner or later if I'm ultimately getting a good deal.
In light of all that, here are my questions:
a) Is my sense of the market/interpretation of Tom's best value ranking lists correct? Would the upgrades I get these days in my price range be underwhelming compared to the performance of my current machine over the last 4 years considering I'd want them to last for the next 4 years? Does it look like the situation will change within the next couple years?
b) Does my alternative plan seem reasonable? Is a 260X even going to be enough of an upgrade over my 5770 to tide the rest of my machine over? Is there a smarter way to spend that money to give my machine a short term boost?
c) I'm not usually a fan of crossfire/sli, but is there a smart option in there where I buy one card now and get a second one in a year or two when I upgrade the whole system? It's kind of a tricky question, but how good a card would I need to get now for the resulting sli to be comparable to a card that's $200 18 months from now (and for bonus points, how much is the price on that card likely to drop in the next 18 months)?
d) 8 or 12 GB of RAM? I've always found that having plenty of RAM is one of the best things you can spend money on, but if 12 GB would be excessive for my current system I'll just save the $35 difference. I'm assuming it will have to get trashed if I build a new computer in a couple years.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. I realize it's a lot and answers to any part of it would be really helpful.
P.S. I notice that the processors all have a GPU integrated onto the die these days. Is that useful at all? It feels like wasted money that I apparently have no choice but to throw to Intel.
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