Best upgrade?

[Ironhawx]

So I'm thinking of doing a bit of upgrading and was wondering what part would give me best performance boost. I'm not sure if switching over to a new I7 4770k and mb is as cost effective as just upgrading my gpu, heres what i currently have:
I72600 (Stock)
16gb 1600ghz ram (about to up to 24 since i have a spare 8 set sitting by once i make switch to win8.1)
256gb SSD storage
120gb SSD for os (both SSDs are Samsung 840evos)
1tb hdd storage seagate 7200rpm
Sapphire 7950 3gb 384bit

My question is would i get better increase in performance in games like BF4, Arma 3, Landmark. With a new cpu/motherboard upgrade or upgrading gpu, and if I upgrade gpu I'm leaning towards a amd280 as they are just shy of performing as good as a 780 but 200 dollars cheaper, though when looking at benchmakrs there was a synthetic tesselation one that the Nvidia absoulutely out performed by almost three times that of the amd. So which would be best for first update to my system the gpu (and if so which card do you think will give best bang for buck over my current 7950) or the cpu/mobo. Thanks for any insight.

 

[Robert17]

Welcome to OCF .

What's your budget? It appears that gaming is a focus, but what else do you task your rig with? What monitor do you have? You already have some decent horsepower so it's a matter of are you in 'need' vs. 'desire' mode. Many years ago a fellow told me that if entertainment was the objective that I should feed my senses, i.e., sound, video, tactile.

Are you considering a new monitor, mouse, keyboard, joystick, speakers, head phones? Those can be upgraded too.

 

[Pierre3400]

Well erm.

How about a complete setup list of your current system, instead of half of it?

24Gb ram? Completly useless. If you have 2x 8gb running in Dual, leave it!

 

[Ironhawx]

Well erm.

How about a complete setup list of your current system, instead of half of it?

24Gb ram? Completly useless. If you have 2x 8gb running in Dual, leave it!

24gb ram helps with my multi-tasking, I realize since most games are 32bit, they can only utilize 3gb of ram. Also not sure what you mean complete list of system, whats missing in terms of what would power performance? I listed what is essential to buying or so I thought.

Anyways to answer poster before Pierre, mainly just gaming, run duel monitor one an old 23in lcd lg 1080p w/ like 50,000contrast, then I have an LG 37in LED TV/Monitor as it had an IPS screen. Also as far as sound goes have a Roccat Kave XTD headset as after searching and testing probably best 5.1 headset and provides great soundscape when playing said games.

I mean in all the games (aside Landmark) I get good frames with them maxed out, just noticing the rig (I assuming from what research I did mainly gpu) is starting to not handle the new games (newest one to come is Watch Dogs). I know a buddy got a 780 not to long ago upgrading form a 7950 like myself and he saw almost dbl the frames in a few games biggest one being Landmark (though devs have constantly said they are working hand in hand w/ Nvidia so could just be better optimized for their architecture at this point). Just either way budget is about 1000 so just shy of just upgrading it at all this point, so wanted to go ahead and upgrade most beneficial at this point.

No need to upgrade kb/mouse as I just got the Roccat Isku kb and the Kone XTD mouse and love them, possibly might get a flight stick and possibly an IR headset thing for when I'm flying around in arma.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

What driver version are you running?

 

[Ironhawx]

I assume you mean for gpu Im pretty sure 14.3 beta

 

[Robert17]

For $1k you can acquire a newer MB, CPU, and RAM. And getting a 'k' suffix processor would allow you to overclock. So toss in some aftermarket cooling. I've seen that Intel's Devil's Canyon chips are about to be available, the I7 4790k being the high end @ $370. Match it up with good cooling, MB, and some speedier RAM and you'd have a pretty awesome rig and after OC'ng to 4.5 or better (stable) you'd be a fairly happy camper.

 

[Ironhawx]

For $1k you can acquire a newer MB, CPU, and RAM. And getting a 'k' suffix processor would allow you to overclock. So toss in some aftermarket cooling. I've seen that Intel's Devil's Canyon chips are about to be available, the I7 4790k being the high end @ $370. Match it up with good cooling, MB, and some speedier RAM and you'd have a pretty awesome rig and after OC'ng to 4.5 or better (stable) you'd be a fairly happy camper.

Ya but from what research I've done I may get better load times, but won't really help in gaming performance realm, but Idk about helping maintain 60fps through out the most intense moments.

 

[Robert17]

You never listed your MB. Are you getting SATA3, USB3, and other chipset performance improvements via your current setup? You have SSDs but are you getting the full benefit of their potential?

 

[Ironhawx]

Its an Asrock Z68 Extreame3Gen 3, so ya i have USB3 and sata3, and if I had ivy bridge would have pcie16 3.0 (currently 2.0 as well not ivy bridge)

 

[Pierre3400]

Also not sure what you mean complete list of system, whats missing in terms of what would power performance? I listed what is essential to buying or so I thought.

Complete list is as follows:
CPU
Motherboard (Brand and model)
Ram (Brand and model)
Harddisk and/or SSD (Brand and model and size)
PSU (Brand and model)
GPU (Brand and model, and amounts in use)
anything else that my be plugged in?

The list you gave is only an indication as to what you are running, if you look at my, or most other users signatures, you will see complet lists of hardware, all with one common goal, to make sure the people helping you know exactly whats going on.

If you are doing dual gaming, and using both screens, you can peak above 3gb use of mem, but in you case adding more GPU's wont help.

When you say multi tasking and using more than 16gb of ram, what are you doing?

The reason why i say dont, is basically because triple channel went out with the x58 boards, and since then its been Single or dual. If you have 4 slots, then adding 3x 8gb will indeed leave you with 24gb ram, but it may also due to mixing of ram, and also bad setup in the ram lanes (running), decrease overall performance. If you want to tell people you have 24gb ram, go for it. Personally i ahve never really used above 8gb, and that running Inventor, streaming and browser at the same time.

If i knew which motherboard you had, i'd look it up in the manual, to be sure you dont decrease performance by wanting that 24gb ram.

EDIT:

This is page 20 or your motherboard manual.

If you notice, (and this is certainly on purpose) there is no diagram of how 3 sticks of ram should be placed. That said, is also clearly says, the ram should always be identical.

 

[Robert17]

So you could step up to PCIe 3. Stepping up in that alone would allow you better video performance. There's some math involved but you'd notice with some bench marking.

 

[Ironhawx]

My apologies Pierre first day on sight, but ya guess should've been clear its Corssair vengence 9-9-9-24 cas 9, whats in now is that but 8x2 and the additional 8 would be that same set just an 8 set so 4x2 so basically just using up my other 2 banks. Figure it doesn't hurt and better than having them collecting dust. Also I guess to finish out build PSU is a OCZ Gold 750w, and that would be last part to list.

 

[Pierre3400]

My apologies Pierre first day on sight, but ya guess should've been clear its Corssair vengence 9-9-9-24 cas 9, whats in now is that but 8x2 and the additional 8 would be that same set just an 8 set so 4x2 so basically just using up my other 2 banks. Figure it doesn't hurt and better than having them collecting dust. Also I guess to finish out build PSU is a OCZ Gold 750w, and that would be last part to list.

It timings are the same, and its 4 sticks, then you should be ok, but i'd still hold check performance before and after install.

 

[Ironhawx]

will do, but ya they are exact same timings everythign same model just in differen sizes orginally bought the 8gb(4x2) set back in 2012 and got the 16(8x2) set end of last year.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

I assume you mean for gpu Im pretty sure 14.3 beta

Try updating to the newest version (14.4 WHQL).
Landmark is so new that drivers will have a big influence on its performance.