5punk

I'm considering upgrading my motherboard, ram, CPU and maybe graphics card (I have a 560Ti 1gb from about 2011), just wondering if now is a good time to upgrade, or am I likely to miss out on either new decent tech or a possible price drop on current gen?

I'm looking at either an i5 4690k, or an i7 4790k, but general consensus seems to be that i7s aren't worth the money just get for gaming due to many games not supporting hyperthreading. Is it worth saving the the cash for now by going with an i5 and investing in a new graphics card?

Fanx!

TezzRexx wrote:Is it worth saving the the cash for now by going with an i5 and investing in a new graphics card?

I would say very much yes. The performance difference between the i5 Haswell and the i7 in gaming is not that big so you'd be better off putting those quid towards a new GPU. the 560 is quite old at this point, and you'd see a massive improvement going to a 960 for sure.

I've just recently stuck a 970 in my otherwise slightly aging rig, and it kicks everythings ass at high settings. Absolutely agree with just getting a shiny, shiny graphics card.

Is getting the i5 an option without a new mobo/ram requirement too?

I don't think so, I'll need to check but I think its just got socket 775, and I think current architecture is on 1150.

Thanks for the reply guys. Ive been reading that the next set is due to come out in a couple of months (Broadwell) which are supposed to be quite powerful, and efficient, so I'm not sure whether to wait a bit and see what happens, or just go with the i5 for now with decent GPU.

AMD hardware isn't a bad option either, I think I ended up saving about £30-40 compared to an intel build and have more-or-less comparable performance.

Though new stuff could change matters rather.

Oh, lemme know if you do upgrade your graphics card, I'll buy the old one for wifey's machine

Will do Berk :D has the gap between AMD and Intel narrowed then? Back when I got the core 2 duo I remember AMD were really struggling.

I'm on AMD, although I forget what exactly. I do remember it being hugely cheaper for about the and performance when I got it.

I think you get a bit better bang for buck with your AMDs these days, possibly still better outright performance with Intel, but the cpu (fx6300) I ended up with was like £15 cheaper for basically the same performance as the intel offering, and it overclocks reasonably nicely.

AMD's are in an odd place. They're actually better multicore chips than Intel, and do perform noticably quicker on applications that properly take advantage of threading and multiple cpus...the problem is that basically zero games do so. Ergo, you're marginally better off with an Intel chip as they are faster in the single core performance.

I'm quite happy with my FX-8350 though, and they do overclock by quite a bit.

I think games are getting better mostly, frostbite (battlefield) has support for a bajillion cores, I think a lot of others are using 2 or more now, certainly seen lots of reccomended specs wanting dual core machines.

The majority of machines in the steam survey are dual or quad core, so there's no excuse on that end.

AMD's latest CPUs are only competitive within their price range. There's a reason why AMD's CPUs only get so expensive, they know they could never sell chips that are more expensive because it would be ludicrous. I'd rather spend an extra 10-20% to get a quality Intel CPU than any AMD CPU at the moment.

But that's just me.

I'm looking at upgrading at some point in the next 6 weeks.

Looking at MSIs X99S board (not the stupid, pointless krait edition) i7 5820k (machine isn't just my gaming rig) and 16Gb of Corsair Vengeance (speed depending on how I feel at time of ordering)

Recommendations for/against?

Anery wrote:I'm looking at upgrading at some point in the next 6 weeks.

Looking at MSIs X99S board (not the stupid, pointless krait edition) i7 5820k (machine isn't just my gaming rig) and 16Gb of Corsair Vengeance (speed depending on how I feel at time of ordering)

Recommendations for/against?

Only con is the price really.

Researching my current parts, everything is quite expensive at the moment, I think cause they are changes coming in the next 3-6 months CPU wise and with DDR4. That set up would be quite future proof though and MSI seem to have a good rep.

I've just placed my order for CPU (i5 4690k) and Mobo (Gigabyte Gaming 5). Can't wait as my current set up is getting wonkier by the day!

I concur, the price is steep but it should put me in the position to take advantage of newer tech in the future. I'm still dithering over price though. 167 quid for a mobo is about 40 quid more than my normal limit and the price of the RAM...well, might have to sell a few body parts.
Going to sit on this a bit and see what prices are like in 6 weeks.


EDIT
Anyone have or thinking of getting an M.2 HD?

Not trying M.2 but I am going to give SATA-E a whirl.

What's the popular brand of PSU these days? Last time I looked corsair were but I'm seeing some people have various issues with PSUs despite receiving good reviews on sites.

I was going to get this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CP-9020 ... B00GN8VTVW

but now considering this: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... =CA-003-SF

Or am I being a spacktard and should be looking at something else?

Find £20 more, buy this, never worry again, ever.

Also, http://www.jonnyguru.com/ is good for PSU reviews.

Aaand, for what it's worth, I'm a strong believer in overspeccing PSUs, they're not a lot more for a decent upgrade in wattage, and if you're not pushing it to its limit all the time, you don't get weird stability issues or exploding capacitors.

That and you can upgrade everything else without the "Will I need another £100 to make this shit actually work" worry.