Tidgy

Pondering on upgrading some of my rig at home. so far only found one game that even slows down (witcher 2) other than that never even had a slow down, but pondering on a cheap fix

Current thoughts are chucking a gtx770 and an extra 6gb ram at it. which will be about £300 ish

will end up as

I7-920
12gb ram (only using 2 slots currently)
gtx770
vertex 4 ssd primary drive
HD secondary drive.

the issue is the gtx770 uses pcie 3, where as my mb only has pcie 2 x16.

it will work and restriction due to backwards slot wont be much from what i can gather.

other option is eventualy do chip, ram mb and cooler and do graphics/ram later

Galifrey

iTrader: (3)

Is your I7-920 Overclocked? If not that would be my first port of call, then upgrade GFX card.

Beef

You don't say what GFX card you have at the moment, which has a bearing on the value of upgrading to a 770.

What's your current spec, and what budget do you have to upgrade?

EddScott

Think PS4 can do 1080p.

Steam Box has the potential to be the cross over between console and PC. It also has the potential to flop - horrifically.

Its the games where the devs make the money so that alone tells you where the earner is in modern gaming.

My PC is an i5, 8GB with a 480GTX running a 26" screen. I can't max the sliders at max res in modern games but I'm not about to spend money for a while yet. Consoles have actually (IMO) reduced the need to have a bleeding edge machine in order to play modern games.

IMO, one of the biggest improvements to a PC is an SSD. Mine boots just as fast as a console.

RAGE is the only game I've ever given up on. Took over an hour to get it to work and it still wasn't right so I binned it - not the PCs fault. The lazy devs (who should really no better) doing the most woeful port I have ever encountered.

Rob_Impreza99

iTrader: (3)

If his main use will be gaming the CPU isn't that important, what he has now should be fine for general use. If that were me i'd be looking to upgrade the graphics card and possibly the power supply at the same time depending on what graphics card or cards he goes for. If its just a single card then the PSU he's using now should be ok if its 550w and above. Obviously a better motherboard would be ideal depending on what he has now, its one of them when you start to upgrade, it can cost you a fortune as you'll eventually want to replace everything.

Tidgy

good point, its a gtx 570 expanded mem version.

budget wise, bang vs pound kinda thing, the 770 is £220-250 so not relay looking to spend much mroe than that, i play at 1920x1080 res so no point in going mroe than that.

Stuart89

No need to upgrade the RAM, 12gb is too much already.

The RAM on the graphics card however is a much different story, you will get much better performance by increasing that but it is more expensive as you need to buy the graphics card with the RAM already on it.

The RAM on the next gen consoles is the same RAM thats in the graphics cards and not the RAM in the motherboards.

When I built my PC 4gb of RAM was good for all of the games out, 8gb was a future proof option and I put in 16gb just because it was so cheap but its complete overkill really.

Idk why that guys hating on PC gaming either, really? I spent £1200 building mine and it plays every game on max settings including BF4 that just came out (PC's almost a year old). If you like consoles then fine, but PC gaming is the pinnacle of gaming so why are you hating lol.

Tidgy

no no its currently got 6gb, the 12gb is after upgrade

jura11

iTrader: (7)

Hi there

Personally I would go down the route of bigger RAM,if you are using memory extensive programs

CPU overclocking will help,have look on good CPU heasink like is Noctua

GPU,I've tried for while GTX580Ti 2GB which has been great in games,although I'm no longer playing games on PC,using my PC mainly for V-ray,but still great card which doesn't cost too much and is still good

GTX770 not sure,I would probably go with HD7970 which I've tried too and must admit great GPU

What PSU you are running?

Jura

Galifrey

iTrader: (3)

CPU is still the most significant part of the system, on a GTX770 and I7-920 is gonna be a major bottleneck, it may even be the bottleneck now (he doesn't state which GFX card).

O/C'ing the CPU is free and on many games which are CPU dependent can give significant performance increases.

Jack, £300 to upgrade a £500 machine that is already better and cheaper than a £1000 Mac seems like money well spent. A mac contains essentially the same components as a PC but you pay through the nose for a look and an operating system, the OS which you regard as "free".

Ant

My advice is put £130 to your £300 and buy a xbox one

Beef

Hmm, a tough choice really. I'm running a 'normal' GTX 570 with an i7-2600k, and so far the only game I've had to come off the very highest settings when playing at 1080p was Bioshock Infinite.

A 770 would be a very healthy boost over a 570, and indeed I'm thinking of a similar step myself, but as Galifrey says, you might just end up bottlenecking it with that 920.

As a CPU upgrade, an i5-4670k would offer a significant boost in CPU power (>50%), even before a very easy and simple overclock.

So as I say, tough choice - without more knowledge as to where your existing bottleneck is it's hard to recommend effectively.

When you say it runs slowly, do you mean at maximum graphics settings, or all the time? How far below maximum do you have to drop before it becomes smooth - and by smooth I mean a vsync'd 60fps.

Beef

That would be a very poor choice - the 570 is already on a par with the graphical performance of the 'next gen'. For just £85 on top of the cost of a XB1 you could get an i5, new mobo and a R9 280X, which would be so much more powerful than an XB1 it's not even funny.

The +£85 is a valid comparison as that would be how much you'd pay for an extra game or two and maybe a second controller.

Ant

Don't all the dicking around bore you?

It seems PC gamers get more excited how far they can get their slider across and fps than the actual game itself.

Beef

Aside from the fact that no, tinkering doesn't bore me, when given a choice between 'graphics or gameplay' the response of PC gamers is 'why not both?'.

Having said that, the last time I took the lid off my PC was simply to have a look and make sure everything was ok - it had been many months before that since it had last come off. Everything was OK BTW, and it remains unchanged from when it was built over 2 years ago.

But with my PC plugged into my TV, a wireless controller, and Steam's Big Picture mode, operationally my PC acts like a console. It just happens to be one that can do 1080p @ 60fps.

Tidgy

BI runs fine at full settings on my current setup. might hold of for a while then and do the full bongo as and when.

Beef

I would (and, indeed, am) - when modded Skyrim continues to look quite so gorgeous I see no reason to upgrade. I suspect Arkham Origins will be another title that will need a step down from 'ultra' settings, but that's like stepping down from Kelly Brook to Natalie Portman - a long way from the Pat Butcher that is consoles.

Galifrey

iTrader: (3)

Hmmm surely that's an upgrade?

Shaun

I love threads like this.


Tidgy,
IMO you have a couple of options. Two of those would be to either buy another 570 and SLi or buy a HD7970 (personally, I'd stick with a single card solution). This will give you a boost.

12GB of memory in total MAY help out..... anymore than that will be a waste imo, unless you use programs that will USE IT - and that should not be a given.

Just to put this in to perspective for you. My set-up is using the same CPU as yours (clocked to over 4ghz), 12 GB of ram and a single HD7970. I game at 2560x1600 resolutions with no issues..... I have another HD7970 if I did. lol

Been smashing the granny out of BF4.... it looks and plays great.

Beef

Well that depends on your personal preferences I guess - feel free to substitute for women/men/livestock of choice according to your own preferences. Much like how PC gaming lets you customise a system to exactly what you want, not just what Sony/Microsoft say you can have...

Beef

That's not a bad idea at all actually - a second hand 570 can probably be picked up very cheap.

Shaun

It's certainly an option, yes, but there are caveats around dual card setups. The OP needs to bear that in mind. 570's appear to scale well and the nvidia drivers for SLi appear to be OK.

Tidgy

personaly i'd just say sod it and take both



:l ol1:

Tidgy

matchign 570 prob wont be an option, its teh tripple slot expanded me version and to get the sazme again (assuming it fits) would prob be 770 money.

not planning to go over 12gb tbh. perhaps thats the best route, upgrade the ram then graphics next year and oc it

Galifrey

iTrader: (3)

Agreed, but Kelly Brook must be a crap **** the amount she gets cheated on hehe

eagle

as your on the 1366 socket your not going to be able to do much, except get a larger cooling device and overclock it.
as for graphics options the 7970's are cheap at the minute (compared to the start of the year) and would work with your motherboard, it would show a large upgrade over what your currently running, but then adding another 570 would also show a good return.

if your looking at £300 limit, then get the 7970 / r9 280x and bigger heatsink and overclock the i7.
either a noctua d14 or corsair h90.. or h100 if you have a large case..

Tidgy

another 570 isnt an option.

not sure its worth going as far as a r9, one pcie 2.0x16 on the motherboard.

7970 is an option, although i prefer nvida

Beef

You don't have to use 570's from the same manufacturer - but if it's triple-slot then as you say, physical space is a problem.

PCIe 2.0 x16 will be fine for an R9.

Tidgy

its tripple slot upgraded ram version so i expect it would need to be the same card?

Beef

Only the GPU needs to match - the 'lesser' of the two cards is the specification that would be used across both slots, so if you had a 2.5GB 570 @ 1.5 GHz and a 1.25GB 570 @ 1.4 GHz, then it would treat both cards as if they were 1.25GHz @ 1.4GHz.