Should I upgrade soon? Suggestions?

Comments

• Quizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,521

  January 2017 edited January 2017

  If you don't already have an SSD, getting one is a worthy upgrade.  If you built what most of the regulars here would have told you to build on a budget suited to the parts you list, you've presumably already got a good SSD.
  
  Other than that, you're pretty much set until you run into some particular situation where what you have isn't good enough.  I generally don't stream games, so I haven't had a good look at what hardware gets stressed by that, but if it's Internet bandwidth, upgrading your computer won't help.
  
  You might someday need to upgrade the memory from 8 GB to 16 GB, but probably not yet unless you like to multi-box.  There's little sense in a CPU upgrade unless you're doing something where four cores just isn't enough.  There are faster video cards out now than there were when you bought the computer, but a Radeon R9 290X offers performance in the ballpark of a modern Radeon RX 480 or GeForce GTX 1060, and I'd advise against upgrading from there to anything less than a GeForce GTX 1080, as small upgrades are a waste of money.  And, of course, any component can break and need to be replaced, but it sounds like that hasn't happened.
• Ridelynn Member EpicPosts: 7,383

  January 2017

  I agree with Quiz.
  
  SSD for sure if you don't already have one.
  
  Apart from that, I'd probably think monitors and peripherals before anything else, and then maybe GPU past that if you are looking to spend a good deal of money.
• TheDarkrayne Member EpicPosts: 5,297

  January 2017

  I agree with Quiz. Getting a GTX 1080 is the only thing I'd consider upgrading to. Unless you are thinking about changing to latest motherboard, cpu and memory.. but that would basically be a brand new system and you probably don't need it yet. 1080 is a solid upgrade and easily carries over if you do change to quad channel in the future.

  I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
• TheDarkrayne Member EpicPosts: 5,297

  January 2017 edited January 2017

  If you are having streaming problems then you might want to consider getting a capture card to take most of the strain off the CPU. You'd have to do your research on what would work for you though, some capture cards can makes things worse, some can do almost all the encoding on their own.
  
  Elgato HD60 Pro seems to be a popular choice though.
  

  I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
• laxie Member RarePosts: 1,123

  January 2017

  Agree with all of the above.
  Unless you find a game that's not performing, you should be all set. My friend recently bought a configuration similar to yours, as a brand new computer. It's still very relevant.
  
  If you have excess money and want to make yourself happy, perhaps a new keyboard or mouse? Those always last a good amount of time, regardless of how technology progresses.
• GrubbsGrady Member UncommonPosts: 371

  January 2017

  Thanks for the input everyone! I do already have an SSD and it makes life so much better. 
  
  I mostly started thinking about it when hearing some folks in my Archeage guild talking about how they were getting 160fps on ultra settings and I'm stuck around the 90 park just on very high. Everyone said its a CPU intensive game so I didn't know if what I had was dated maybe.
  
  I appreciate the feedback from everyone- your time means a lot to me :pleased:
• Octagon7711 Member LegendaryPosts: 9,004

  January 2017

  I usually know it's time to upgrade when I get a game I really like that my system can't handle.  Lately if running out of harddrive space get an SSD.  Problem with graphics then upgrade the card.  If everything is running ok then it usually pays to wait because you can get something nice for a better price the longer you wait.  

  "We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa      "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."  SR Covey
• Quizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,521

  January 2017

  GrubbsGrady said:

  Thanks for the input everyone! I do already have an SSD and it makes life so much better. 
  
  I mostly started thinking about it when hearing some folks in my Archeage guild talking about how they were getting 160fps on ultra settings and I'm stuck around the 90 park just on very high. Everyone said its a CPU intensive game so I didn't know if what I had was dated maybe.
  
  I appreciate the feedback from everyone- your time means a lot to me :pleased:

  If they're playing at a lower monitor resolution than you, that could be the difference in frame rates right there.
  
  Regardless, a steady 90 frames per second is a good thing, not a bad thing.