"Oldie" but goodie! What to upgrade? Part 2! (For my wife)

[syypher]

Hi all! Back at it again and now trying to upgrade my wife's 4yo gaming computer. It's been a great computer that's been running everything we've thrown at it for the past couple years at medium/high settings. She doesn't really run any high intensive games. Mostly plays World of Warcraft, Borderlands, Overwatch and League of Legends. Nothing crazy. She does edit videos with Sony Vegas with her computer pretty often but we haven't noticed any issues and they render pretty quickly.

I'm trying to see if there are any substantial upgrades ($500 total budget or under) that I can do to really bump up the computers power without causing any substantial bottle necks. Not really looking to build a completely new computer. I'd really rather just upgrade this rig if you guys can see anything that can really take it to the next level.

If there are any suggestions to replace/ upgrade that will substantially boost the overall computer's performance please suggest away!

Thank you!

Current setup:
Windows 10 x64
4yo Crucial SSD 120GB (OS + primary games)
Radeon HD 6800 - 4GB
Gigabyte GA 970A-D3
AMD Penom II x4 965 @3.4Ghz
16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 RAM
WD Blue 600 GB (data + secondary games)
Seasonic 520w Power Supply

 

[Johan45]

How about a new GFX card like the GTX 970 , they're pretty reasonable right now and a good CPU cooler to bump up that PII a few more MHz. Should keep her going for a while

 

[Dlaw]

Time for a new CPU for sure, but that GPU is ready also. For gaming I'd recommend the GPU simply because it's something you can carry to the next build.

For $500, I'd recommend this 980Ti.

 

[syypher]

Thanks guys! What CPU would you all recommend? Was thinking the fx 8300 or 6300 series.

 

[Kenrou]

If you're staying with the same motherboard, i would suggest a 4300/6300 but would not push for more then a slight overclock ?

 

[Dlaw]

I would leave the CPU and board until you can upgrade both.

 

[syypher]

I would leave the CPU and board until you can upgrade both.

She is perfectly content where she is now. She hardly plays anything on Ultra or any games that even require something really "above average" for a gamer. Like BF4, Witcher3 etc. But I kind of wanted to do upgrades to the machine if they can provide provide a significant boost. I'm not an expert in performance increases like you all but the things I was thinking of doing was:

Upgrade CPU to FX 6300.
Upgrade her GPU to Geforce 760 4GB
Upgrade SSD to 850 EVO 250GB SSD

I think that would provide her with a significant increase in performance without a whole new system. But I'm not sure if I could be doing any better more worthwhile upgrades. Thoughts?

 

[Kenrou]

Upgrade CPU to FX 6300.
Upgrade her GPU to Geforce 760 4GB
Upgrade SSD to 850 EVO 250GB SSD

Replace 760 for 960, cheaper (at least where i live), newer, less electric bill and is around ~15% faster

 

[Tír na nÓg]

I would not upgrade the CPU.

IIRC, a 3.8GHz PhenomII IPC roughly equals a 4.5GHz Piledriver (per core).

There will barely be any perf increase by going to a 6300.

+1 for the 960, or a polaris when it's out in a month or two ($200 for a Fury perf@175W...).
+1 for a SSD, you can grab a 120GB for $60.
And an hyper 212 cooler.

All set!

 

[syypher]

I would not upgrade the CPU.

IIRC, a 3.8GHz PhenomII IPC roughly equals a 4.5GHz Piledriver (per core).

There will barely be any perf increase by going to a 6300.

+1 for the 960, or a polaris when it's out in a month or two ($200 for a Fury perf@175W...).
+1 for a SSD, you can grab a 120GB for $60.
And an hyper 212 cooler.

All set!

Okay that sounds awesome! So the CPU upgrade would not be significant enough to warrant it? That's mostly what I'm going for, best bang for the buck. What about a FX 8300? Is that significant enough? I know the FX 6300 and 8300 are both a couple years old now, but they are both 3 years newer than the PhenomII she's using now.

 

[wingman99]

The SSD will only save a few seconds when loading windows and application, it wont help in gaming. I would go for GTX 970 you will have the upgrade you will like. I just did a test on my CPU lowering the clock speed to 2.5GHz in BF4 and my FPS still was running at 104FPS no change.

EVGA GeForce GTX 970 04G-P4-3975-KR 4GB SSC $299.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487088

I would just go with the GPU for now and see if you happy with that.

SSD VS HDD
I did it with a stopwatch and each test I did 4 times.

All test were from system bootup.

HDD Raptor AHCI
PC startup push button 50 seconds to active.

crysis 3 startup 1:07 minute.

crysis 3 loading multiplayer map 41 seconds.

BF3 loading origin and web browser 44 seconds.

BF3 loading multiplayer map 1:40 minute.

Battlefield: Bad Company loading multiplayer map 19 seconds.

Samsung 850 EVO SSD AHCI
PC startup push button 30 seconds to active.

crysis 3 startup 46 seconds.

crysis 3 loading multiplayer map 25 seconds.

BF3 loading origin and web browser 14 seconds.

BF3 loading multiplayer map 37 seconds.

Battlefield: Bad Company loading multiplayer map 16 seconds.

 

[Kenrou]

What about a FX 8300? Is that significant enough? I know the FX 6300 and 8300 are both a couple years old now, but they are both 3 years newer than the PhenomII she's using now.

Unless your motherboard is the rev. 3.0 i personally wouldn't try it, and even then i would think twice about it.

 

[syypher]

The SSD will only save a few seconds when loading windows and application, it wont help in gaming. I would go for GTX 970 you will have the upgrade you will like. I just did a test on my CPU lowering the clock speed to 2.5GHz in BF4 and my FPS still was running at 104FPS no change.

EVGA GeForce GTX 970 04G-P4-3975-KR 4GB SSC $299.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487088

I would just go with the GPU for now and see if you happy with that.

SSD VS HDD
I did it with a stopwatch and each test I did 4 times.

All test were from system bootup.

HDD Raptor AHCI
PC startup push button 50 seconds to active.

crysis 3 startup 1:07 minute.

crysis 3 loading multiplayer map 41 seconds.

BF3 loading origin and web browser 44 seconds.

BF3 loading multiplayer map 1:40 minute.

Battlefield: Bad Company loading multiplayer map 19 seconds.

Samsung 850 EVO SSD AHCI
PC startup push button 30 seconds to active.

crysis 3 startup 46 seconds.

crysis 3 loading multiplayer map 25 seconds.

BF3 loading origin and web browser 14 seconds.

BF3 loading multiplayer map 37 seconds.

Battlefield: Bad Company loading multiplayer map 16 seconds.

That sounds great. Thanks for doing the test for me. GPU should be the biggest factor to pour the $ into then huh?

I guess she can use the current 120gb SSD she is still using but I'll have her use a 2ndary drive for games and what not.

 

[Helgaiden]

i believe there is enough budget to do an i3+mobo+gpu upgrade. While that phenom is probably fine, if you're gonna spend the whole budget then a system overhaul is totally doable. I recently settled on an i3 for a budget gaming build and was very surprised at how it performs against FX-6300s/FX-83xxs and i5s and such. And then maybe an RX480 if you wait a little and can get one and you can realistically be nearly $100 under budget and be set for a long long time.

 

[Tír na nÓg]

^ I totally agree!

 

[syypher]

i believe there is enough budget to do an i3+mobo+gpu upgrade. While that phenom is probably fine, if you're gonna spend the whole budget then a system overhaul is totally doable. I recently settled on an i3 for a budget gaming build and was very surprised at how it performs against FX-6300s/FX-83xxs and i5s and such. And then maybe an RX480 if you wait a little and can get one and you can realistically be nearly $100 under budget and be set for a long long time.

Really? Wow! I haven't built a computer in about 2-3 years but i3s are that capable now? That sounds awesome!

Could you recommend a i3 proc + mobo? I know previously there were "standard best ofs" like the Q6600 and the i5 4670k etc.

 

[wingman99]

That sounds great. Thanks for doing the test for me. GPU should be the biggest factor to pour the $ into then huh?

I guess she can use the current 120gb SSD she is still using but I'll have her use a 2ndary drive for games and what not.

Your old CPU is still way a head of GTX 970 GPUs in speed. The GPU is what you can carry over to your next system, if you don't believe me just buy a GPU first what do you have to loose.

Gaming Benchmarks: CPU Performance
http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page6.html

 

[Johan45]

Wingman is right and with a good CPU cooler you could easily get another 4-600 MHZ from the 965. I wouldn't run any FX on that board TBH. You won't be able to OC it and the per core performance will be lost compared to the PII 965. The only advantage of the FX would be some newer CPU instruction sets. If you're an AMD fan the next release "zen" should be here by early next year and according to speculation is supposed to be a good boost in performance compared to the piledriver.

 

[M@rk]

How about a new GFX card like the GTX 970 , they're pretty reasonable right now and a good CPU cooler to bump up that PII a few more MHz. Should keep her going for a while

Why not a R9 390? its better than the 970..

 

[Tír na nÓg]

It think it's worth a few weeks wait for the Polaris.

Edit: maybe a few day
http://wccftech.com/amd-stock-rally-continues/