After getting barely 40-50FPS last night while playing SQDM I have decided that I really do need to upgrade. So I plan on upgrading in February/March and want to get the ball rolling
I am currently running
AMD Phenom II 965 Black edition
ASUS Crosshair Formula III
8 GB Dual Channel Ram (I think it is 1600)
EVGA 570 GTX Superclocked Edition
850w Corsair
These are the two base systems that I want to chose from but Skoup advised that the AMD is not a good idea. I am not a fanboy at all I don't mind Intel or AMD I just want bang for my buck.
AMD FX-8350 with suitable Mobo and R9 280x
Intel Core i5 3570K with suitable Mobo and R9 280x
So my constraints are
Budget R8k-R9k
I need a new CPU, Mobo, GFX
I would prefer the components to be from the following manufacturers because they either have a good rep or I have had them before
ASUS
Gigabyte
Sapphire
PC Upgrade Pending
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Salty Ferret
- Senior Member
- Posts: 420
- Joined: Sat Jun 16, 2012 9:19 am
- Location: on the outskirts of candy land
I bought one of these for a friend.
Nothing wrong with the card, good cooling etc. and price.
http://www.wootware.co.za/powercolor-axr9-280x-3gbd5-dhe-radeon-r9-280x-384bit-pci-express-3-0-desktop-graphics-card.html
Nothing wrong with the card, good cooling etc. and price.
http://www.wootware.co.za/powercolor-axr9-280x-3gbd5-dhe-radeon-r9-280x-384bit-pci-express-3-0-desktop-graphics-card.html
Can't tell you about the rig specs as there are more knowledgeable folks in these parts. I can highly recommend http://www.rebeltech.co.za/ though.
I got my GTX770 from them and the customer service was excellent for me. Not to mention that the price of my card at the time was better than Frontosa.
Have a look.
*EDIT: Seems I might of gotten lucky because one of their "specials" for January is 8GB of RAM for R6000....
Never hurts to price around I guess.
I got my GTX770 from them and the customer service was excellent for me. Not to mention that the price of my card at the time was better than Frontosa.
Have a look.
*EDIT: Seems I might of gotten lucky because one of their "specials" for January is 8GB of RAM for R6000....
Never hurts to price around I guess.
Paul, that 3570 is a perfect gaming CPU, I'd go with that if your budget will cover it.
As Phats said, GPU prices are worse at Frontosa than buying from etaillers. I can get you quotes on mobo and CPU from Frontosa though if you like.
Happily, your 8GB of Ram will be reusable in the new build.
As for makes, I would go with a ASUS mobo if you can, they are excellent. As for the graphics cards, manufacturer doesn't really matter, the GPUs are all made by AMD/nVidia so go with the most affordable.
I don't know if you're fixed on the 280x, it'll give you good benefits for BF4 (Mantle), but doesn't give you Shadowplay, which is a really cool feature available to nVidia cards. If your budget permits, consider a GTX770 as an alternative to the 280x.
As Phats said, GPU prices are worse at Frontosa than buying from etaillers. I can get you quotes on mobo and CPU from Frontosa though if you like.
Happily, your 8GB of Ram will be reusable in the new build.
As for makes, I would go with a ASUS mobo if you can, they are excellent. As for the graphics cards, manufacturer doesn't really matter, the GPUs are all made by AMD/nVidia so go with the most affordable.
I don't know if you're fixed on the 280x, it'll give you good benefits for BF4 (Mantle), but doesn't give you Shadowplay, which is a really cool feature available to nVidia cards. If your budget permits, consider a GTX770 as an alternative to the 280x.
What is the difference between a 3570K and a 4670k? What I have read is that the 3570 uses the 1155 mobo where the 4760 uses the 1150 mobo which is the tech replacing the 3570. If I prices are similar should I rather not go for the 4670k?
That being said I usually upgrade every 3 or so years so chances are the 1150 would be replaced by then as well so it is not like I will just upgrade the CPU
That being said I usually upgrade every 3 or so years so chances are the 1150 would be replaced by then as well so it is not like I will just upgrade the CPU
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Skouperd
- Senior Member
- Posts: 982
- Joined: Thu Mar 05, 2009 1:57 pm
- Location: Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
- Contact:
Paul, this is my recommendation:
Option 1:
CPU: i7-4820k @ R3750
MOBO: Asus P9x79 @ R3800
GPU: Asus GTX760 @ R3550
Total = ~R11,000.
Longevity = 4 to 5 years on the CPU and motherboard with the GPU replacable in 3 years time.
Option 2
CPU: i7-4820k @ R3750
MOBO: Asus P9x79 @ R3800
GPU: get a second GTX570 @ R1300 second hand and SLI the two.
Total = R7500 + R1300 = R8800
Longevity = 4 to 5 years on the CPU and motherboard, 1.5 years on the GPU
Option 3
Well their aint' any really. My logic is as follows.
1. More and more games make use of multiple cores
2. We had the exact same argument when quad cores arrived and people insisted that dual cores with higher clock speeds are the future, it is virtually impossible to buy any single or dual core CPU today, ergo they were wrong, multi cores are the future.
3. Hyperthreading is a very cool solution and it basically doubles up your core count on the CPU. The fact that some games, and I re-iterate SOME games benefit from not using said hyperthreading is nothing more than bad programming. If you have a CPU with hyperthreading, you can very easily disable said hyperthreading in the BIOS, if you really HAVE to play SAID "some" games. If your CPU does not support hyper threading, well, guess what, even if MOST games perform better with hyperthreading, you will still not be able to turn it on.
4. i7's for the above reasons is thus a no brainer.
5. Considering the various i7 platforms, LGA1150, 1155, 2011, the cost between the 3 different CPU's are nothing material which brings us to the only differentiator being the motherboard. Again, for me this is a no brainer that the LGA2011 is the obvious choice, marginally more expensive but you get quad channel memory (read my article on understanding cache, latency and bandwidth). Bottom line, more bandwidth is good.
7. CPU's are no longer getting dated as quickly as they used to. Not to long ago, the performance of a CPU will double ever 18 months, and unless you really had the lastest CPU, you just could not enjoy the latest games. Today, even a 3 year old i7-950 is capable to play any game that there is on the market without any form of constraints. (granted, it does not score as high in benchmarks, but what is your objective, high benchmarks, or a good solid gaming experience?)
8. GPU's are really pushing the bounderies. Mantel is coming out which may, or my not, be a game changer. I am very keen to see what happens in that space but unless you have game developers getting onboard, this is nothing more than pie in the sky theoretical mind masturbation excercise. The same can be said with NVidia's GSync. GSync I think hold a lot of promise and may be something that will extend the life of a GPU considerably. Right now, a game at 40 FPS is unbearable, but with GSync and the way that it is supposed to work, you may get a couple of extra milage out of the card. Again, mental masturbation until monitor manufactures start supporting it. In my mind, I don't rate Shadowplay that highly, there are enough other programs that can capture your game while you play if you absolutely have to. So unless we have some clarity on which way the market is going, I am not quite prepare to call who is the winner being AMD or NVidia. I must say, I am leaning towards NVidia for increased longevity.
9. Given my views on the above, the fact that you can quite easily drop your graphics quality just a tad bit, if you go with option 2 mentioned above, get yourself a second hand GTX670 or another GTX570 then not only will you be sticking in your budget, but you will also ensure that you will be standing in line in a year's time, or 18 months, when the GTX8x series launches to pick yourself a good GTX770 up, plug it into your hyperthreaded ready RIG and game on. If you go with the normal i5 route, then when the time comes, you will be sitting there needing to upgrade not only your GPU when you start hitting bumbs, but also you CPU and motherboard.
I want to use Geth as an example here. His pc is currently a Q9xx series, one of the second (or third) generation quad cores that hit the market. (the first was the Q6xxx series). That CPU is about 6 years old now. He had to upgrade his GPU a number of times since then and even with that CPU of him, he could upgrade his GPU (currently GTX570) and plug in a GTX670 or something and get another nice boost. (Granted the CPU is getting long in the tooth). The point I am trying to make, when that CPU of Geth became available originally, the big argument was "ooh, no, don't go quad core, rather get dual core with higher clock speeds". How many dual cores do you know are still able to play games today? Ps, I should add, I still have a QX6700 (older CPU than Geth's) which Ursula uses for her gaming. Bottom line, get yourself the best CPU you can.
Ok, that's my 2cents on the topic. Now, I am curious to hear the counter arguments, because I know a lot of people will defend their own purchases (being predominately i5's), but I would really like to hear their arguments in a logical fashion as I've put down my logic behind my reasoning.
Ps, and this my dear friends is how you open up a can of worms... ;-)
Option 1:
CPU: i7-4820k @ R3750
MOBO: Asus P9x79 @ R3800
GPU: Asus GTX760 @ R3550
Total = ~R11,000.
Longevity = 4 to 5 years on the CPU and motherboard with the GPU replacable in 3 years time.
Option 2
CPU: i7-4820k @ R3750
MOBO: Asus P9x79 @ R3800
GPU: get a second GTX570 @ R1300 second hand and SLI the two.
Total = R7500 + R1300 = R8800
Longevity = 4 to 5 years on the CPU and motherboard, 1.5 years on the GPU
Option 3
Well their aint' any really. My logic is as follows.
1. More and more games make use of multiple cores
2. We had the exact same argument when quad cores arrived and people insisted that dual cores with higher clock speeds are the future, it is virtually impossible to buy any single or dual core CPU today, ergo they were wrong, multi cores are the future.
3. Hyperthreading is a very cool solution and it basically doubles up your core count on the CPU. The fact that some games, and I re-iterate SOME games benefit from not using said hyperthreading is nothing more than bad programming. If you have a CPU with hyperthreading, you can very easily disable said hyperthreading in the BIOS, if you really HAVE to play SAID "some" games. If your CPU does not support hyper threading, well, guess what, even if MOST games perform better with hyperthreading, you will still not be able to turn it on.
4. i7's for the above reasons is thus a no brainer.
5. Considering the various i7 platforms, LGA1150, 1155, 2011, the cost between the 3 different CPU's are nothing material which brings us to the only differentiator being the motherboard. Again, for me this is a no brainer that the LGA2011 is the obvious choice, marginally more expensive but you get quad channel memory (read my article on understanding cache, latency and bandwidth). Bottom line, more bandwidth is good.
7. CPU's are no longer getting dated as quickly as they used to. Not to long ago, the performance of a CPU will double ever 18 months, and unless you really had the lastest CPU, you just could not enjoy the latest games. Today, even a 3 year old i7-950 is capable to play any game that there is on the market without any form of constraints. (granted, it does not score as high in benchmarks, but what is your objective, high benchmarks, or a good solid gaming experience?)
8. GPU's are really pushing the bounderies. Mantel is coming out which may, or my not, be a game changer. I am very keen to see what happens in that space but unless you have game developers getting onboard, this is nothing more than pie in the sky theoretical mind masturbation excercise. The same can be said with NVidia's GSync. GSync I think hold a lot of promise and may be something that will extend the life of a GPU considerably. Right now, a game at 40 FPS is unbearable, but with GSync and the way that it is supposed to work, you may get a couple of extra milage out of the card. Again, mental masturbation until monitor manufactures start supporting it. In my mind, I don't rate Shadowplay that highly, there are enough other programs that can capture your game while you play if you absolutely have to. So unless we have some clarity on which way the market is going, I am not quite prepare to call who is the winner being AMD or NVidia. I must say, I am leaning towards NVidia for increased longevity.
9. Given my views on the above, the fact that you can quite easily drop your graphics quality just a tad bit, if you go with option 2 mentioned above, get yourself a second hand GTX670 or another GTX570 then not only will you be sticking in your budget, but you will also ensure that you will be standing in line in a year's time, or 18 months, when the GTX8x series launches to pick yourself a good GTX770 up, plug it into your hyperthreaded ready RIG and game on. If you go with the normal i5 route, then when the time comes, you will be sitting there needing to upgrade not only your GPU when you start hitting bumbs, but also you CPU and motherboard.
I want to use Geth as an example here. His pc is currently a Q9xx series, one of the second (or third) generation quad cores that hit the market. (the first was the Q6xxx series). That CPU is about 6 years old now. He had to upgrade his GPU a number of times since then and even with that CPU of him, he could upgrade his GPU (currently GTX570) and plug in a GTX670 or something and get another nice boost. (Granted the CPU is getting long in the tooth). The point I am trying to make, when that CPU of Geth became available originally, the big argument was "ooh, no, don't go quad core, rather get dual core with higher clock speeds". How many dual cores do you know are still able to play games today? Ps, I should add, I still have a QX6700 (older CPU than Geth's) which Ursula uses for her gaming. Bottom line, get yourself the best CPU you can.
Ok, that's my 2cents on the topic. Now, I am curious to hear the counter arguments, because I know a lot of people will defend their own purchases (being predominately i5's), but I would really like to hear their arguments in a logical fashion as I've put down my logic behind my reasoning.
Ps, and this my dear friends is how you open up a can of worms... ;-)
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Scientific fact, dried testicles of rhino poachers can cure aids.
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Scientific fact, dried testicles of rhino poachers can cure aids.