Recommend me a next upgrade

Lord Nikon

Hi, I am currently unsure of what upgrade my PC should receive next. I use it soley for gaming(Battlefield 4), and feel it could do better on running faster(either RAM or GPU). Below is my spec, and thanks for looking....

Intel Core i7-930 - 2.8 GHz - L3 8 MB Cache - LGA 1366 Socket

ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 - Socket 1366 - Chipset X58 - ATX

OCZ StealthXStream II 700 W PC Power Supply

WESTERN DIGITAL Caviar Green - 1 TB - 64 MB - SATA Hard Drive

Crucial Ballistix RAM – 1 GB – DDR3 1800MHz X 3 sticks

Kingston 128bg SSD.

Corsair Hydro Series H50 - Liquid cooling system (CPU heat exchanger with integrated pump)

Radeon HD 5770 1GB - GDDR 5(Graphics)
8800 GTX(Physics).

Lu Tze

whats your budget? And what resolution is you monitor/do you play at?

Digital Solitude

How does it run right now? FPS and settings?
What's your budget?

Lord Nikon

No idea what my FPS is, and not sure how to find out. BF4 is running on medium quality graphics.
Monitor is a 20" BenQ, non HD. Could push to a 22" HD monitor, as that's all I would have room for.

Budget is depending on what I would need to upgrade. Some of the hardware that CEX have these days is alright priced, and year warrantied.

Digital Solitude

Download and install Fraps, run it and play for a few mins.

If you use HWInFo you can check the usage while you're gaming, to see what's slowing you down

Lu Tze

Lord Nikon wrote: »

No idea what my FPS is, and not sure how to find out. BF4 is running on medium quality graphics.
Monitor is a 20" BenQ, non HD. Could push to a 22" HD monitor, as that's all I would have room for.

Budget is depending on what I would need to upgrade. Some of the hardware that CEX have these days is alright priced, and year warrantied.

Your first upgrade should be the graphics card, perfect for 720p, but if you want better performance, especially in resolutions above that, i would target that first. You dont need to go top of the line to see a big improvement. A 750ti would see a big improvement, and can handle 1080p at good settings and frame rate, and pick them up around the €140 mark.

Secondhand you have adverts, and somebody mentioned that you get a 12 month warranty when buying from CEX which is nice

Lord Nikon

I had wanted to record my gameplay before, and from what I can remember, Fraps slowed my gameplay considerably. I'll give it another go, as I've added the SSD, so it should run much smoother.

Luck100

BF4 has an in-game FPS meter, you can enable it from the console. Unlike FRAPS it has no impact on your performance.

Hit the "~" key for console, then type:
PerfOverlay.DrawFps 1

You'll have to do that every time you start a new round. If you want to have it by default, you can put it in your personalized config file:
http://diaryofdennis.com/2013/11/04/how-to-load-bf-4-console-commands-on-startup-with-a-config-file/

Alternatively, I find that MSI Afterburner can do monitoring (FPS and lots of other stuff) with negligible impact on performance.

SterlingArcher

Personally I'd upgrade the gpu anyway. can pick up lots of bargains that will be a good upgrade for the rig.

Lord Nikon

Think I'll upgrade the GPU. Should I take out both cards and add a new one, or keep one of them in for physics? Which one should I keep in for physics, as I could get a few euro for the 5770.

TerrorFirmer

That i7 is quite outdated now as well, can you overclock it? Still life in it though, doesn't need to be outright replaced just yet but overclocking will help.

The 5770 is definitely a major weak point in the system, there is no need anymore to keep the 8800GTX. Even a €100 budget card like the GTX750 would be a major upgrade for you. A €180 GTX950 would be excellent.

You also should be looking at 8GB ram. I'm surprised BF4 even runs OK with just 3GB!

Obviously your budget will determine what your next step is...

Lord Nikon

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

That i7 is quite outdated now as well, can you overclock it? Still life in it though, doesn't need to be outright replaced just yet but overclocking will help.

The 5770 is definitely a major weak point in the system, there is no need anymore to keep the 8800GTX. Even a €100 budget card like the GTX750 would be a major upgrade for you. A €180 GTX950 would be excellent.

You also should be looking at 8GB ram. I'm surprised BF4 even runs OK with just 3GB!

Obviously your budget will determine what your next step is...

I'm guessing the i7 would be my most expensive upgrade, dont really feel too confident to OC.

Might be able to fit the other cards into a barebones rig at home, future project or something.

Oh, forgot to update, Ram now is Corsair Vengeance Pro(Blue), 16gb 1600mhz.

pcuser

Lord Nikon wrote: »

Crucial Ballistix RAM – 1 GB – DDR3 1800MHz X 3 sticks

(Physics).

Do you have just 3gb ram? It should also be installed in pairs,

game4it70

pcuser wrote: »

Do you have just 3gb ram? It should also be installed in pairs,

Not with the LGA 1366 Socket as its triple channel.

@ op keep an eye on adverts for triple channel kits as a jump to 3x2gb would help.
Even a small overclock to 3.4-3.5ghz would be good and should be easily achieved.

TerrorFirmer

Lord Nikon wrote: »

I'm guessing the i7 would be my most expensive upgrade, dont really feel too confident to OC.

Might be able to fit the other cards into a barebones rig at home, future project or something.

Oh, forgot to update, Ram now is Corsair Vengeance Pro(Blue), 16gb 1600mhz.

Even if you don't overclock the 5770 is still the overwhelming bottleneck in that system. What is your budget? Even the cheapest upgrade listed is still a huge upgrade.

€100 - GTX750 2GB

€130 - GTX750Ti 2GB

€170 - GTX950 2GB

€230 - GTX960 4GB / R9 380 3GB

€350 - GTX970 4GB or R9 390 8GB

Just rough prices, look around. R9 290 is good value on the 2nd hand market at about €240 for a 4GB R9 290 decent model. Cards like the GTX680/HD7970 go for about €140 and are as fast as the GTX960.

Lord Nikon

Would €150 be a decent price for a New Sapphire HD 7970 3gb GDDR5 384bi, or should I bargain down?

Digital Solitude

€150 is very good for that

TerrorFirmer

Unless you're buying it from a shop with a 12 month warranty, 'new' means nothing really, if you're getting it 2nd hand. I see people on boards all the time selling 'new' cards, but there's no warranty and often they've been 'tested', so it's really just plain old second hand. €150 is a good price for a 7970 though. Still a good card. At this stage wouldn't call it astoundingly good value, given that second hand 280X's sell for 180 and cards like GTX680 sell for €150 also.

Lord Nikon

It was on adverts, and I'm usually reluctant when purchasing used goods out of warranty, or none at all. Although exception for say, Cex, as they give warranty on used goods. I'll keep looking. Thanks for the replies.