Looking for upgrade ideas

Chrisbox

I'm looking to see what needs upgrading most in my rig, since the holiday deals and what not are coming I figure it's a pretty good time to buy some parts.  I mainly play FFXIV:ARR, mostly high/medium settings right now I float between 50-60 fps with vsync on and I want to be able to turn up everything max and still maintain 60.   

Current build:

Video card- GeForce® GTX 660 Ti Sonic (1024MB GDDR5)

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)

RAM- 8GB DDR3/ 1600MHZ 

Motherboard- GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD3-B3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Windows 64 Bit operating system

Case- In-Win Dragon Rider Full Tower Case w/ 1x120mm Front Fan, 1x220mm LED Side Fan, Front USB 3.0

Optical Drive- 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive

HD on board 7.1 audio 

Monitor- Acer - 24" Widescreen Flat-Panel LED HD Monitor - Black --->   Model: S242HL BID

PSU-Corsair CMPSU-650TXV2 Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 Power Supply - 650 Watts, ATX, 140mm Fan, 80 Plus Bronze, SLI Ready, Active PFC

 

miguksaram

The only real part in that system which is limiting you from reaching your desired FPS/settings is your GPU.  With that said your GPU is actually quite good and any real upgrade that would be worth considering is going to start at about $400 (minus any crazy good sales this week).

Nitth

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Originally posted by miguksaram
The only real part in that system which is limiting you from reaching your desired FPS/settings is your GPU.  With that said your GPU is actually quite good and any real upgrade that would be worth considering is going to start at about $400 (minus any crazy good sales this week).

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^

SSD or GPU upgrade imo.

miguksaram

Originally posted by Nitth

 

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Originally posted by miguksaram
The only real part in that system which is limiting you from reaching your desired FPS/settings is your GPU.  With that said your GPU is actually quite good and any real upgrade that would be worth considering is going to start at about $400 (minus any crazy good sales this week).

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^

SSD or GPU upgrade imo.

While I TOTALLY agree on the SSD suggestion I left it out of mine simply because it's more a QoL upgrade rather than one which would increase his FPS at the desired settings.  Though with the deals and current prices of SSD's OP really should consider one without a doubt.

Vrika

Most likely the bottleneck is your GPU, but your GPU is already so good that replacing it for more speed won't be cost effective.

If price is not an issue, buy a top-end GPU.

If price is an issue, maybe you could get some speed increase by getting another 600 Ti and running them SLI, if your power supply is good enough. It's not really a good solution, but I don't think there is any really good solution for upgrading from 660 Ti right now.

The only upgrade I could recommend for that computer is getting an SSD, but it just helps with loading times, it wouldn't increase FPS.

skyline385

Well your CPU is not bottle-necking that's for sure.

And you don't need to get a $400 GPU. Just put another 660Ti in SLI and you are good to go. When the next DX comes out, you can upgrade to a single high-end GPU.

jdnewell

Personally I would look at an SSD and a single high end GPU. I would avoid SLI as it only works for some games.

Get a 770, 780 or one of the new R9 280 or 290s. You will have much less trouble out of one single higher end gpu than two 660s in SLI. THats what I would do at least, even if it meant ebaying the current 660 and getting one really good gpu.

skyline385

Most new Intel mobos support SLI officially so what problems are you talking about? Almost all games are supported and only the newly released ones have problems which are fixed in the next driver update.

Quizzical

If the goal is higher frame rates with vertical sync on, then a 120 Hz monitor could help you there.  More seriously, I'd try turning off vertical sync and seeing what sort of frame rates you can get now on your current hardware before trying to upgrade it.

And as others have said, an SSD is a worthwhile upgrade, but it probably won't help your frame rates.

Kabaal

I'd struggle to justify upgrading a 660ti for that game tbh. The only thing wrong with that card was it was priced in the wrong bracket compared to AMD at the time, you aren't going to get much of an increase upgrading unless you go higher end with a 780 or a 290/290x which seems silly to me.

 

I would give the CPU a slight bump to around 4.4 though.

miguksaram

The problem with suggesting to add a second GTX 660Ti is two fold.  One, and this was already discussed, some games are not optimized to take advantage of SLI/Xfire and thus the addition of a second card in those cases is a complete waste because the software will not utilize it at all.  However in this case the more important issue is his current PSU would most likely have to be replaced to add a second card.  That combined with the cost of a GTX660Ti and the potential issues of SLI in the first place makes a single GPU upgrade a much better prospect.