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Upgrade time! best bang for buck?
Current sys:
Intel Core i5 3470
Memory Type DDR3
Memory Size 8 GBytes
Channels Dual
Memory Frequency 800.7 MHz (1:6)
CAS# latency (CL) 9.0
Motherboard: GA-Z77X-D3H
Video: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 OC
Memory size 4 GB
Memory type GDDR5
Where should I spend my Money?
Thanks!
Intel Core i5 3470
Memory Type DDR3
Memory Size 8 GBytes
Channels Dual
Memory Frequency 800.7 MHz (1:6)
CAS# latency (CL) 9.0
Motherboard: GA-Z77X-D3H
Video: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 OC
Memory size 4 GB
Memory type GDDR5
Where should I spend my Money?
Thanks!
Comments
The hardware you list could still be the base of a capable gaming rig. I don't see any need to upgrade your CPU, GPU, or memory unless you've run into situations where what you have just isn't good enough anymore. And in that case, what to do depends tremendously on your budget.
I do have a 500gig SSD main drive I run my OS and current games I play. I have a 2t back up drive I install all BS programs on and use for storage.
Budget is 600ish CAD funds.
Just feel like my RAM is slow.
CPU I could OC
Video card? 980?
Was it your system where would you spend the cash?
If you do want a new CPU, you should wait for AMD Ryzen, which is coming in early March. I'm not saying that you should definitely get Ryzen, as you'd obviously want to see just how good it is before making a decision, but it should make the market more competitive than it has been in years.
That being said, the new CPUs aren't all that much faster, so not really any bang for the buck upgrading the CPU.
SSD, like Quiz said.
You can get faster GPUs, but if your gaming at 1080p already, it won't be a huge jump.
Going up to 16G of RAM won't hurt, but I doubt you'd notice the difference terribly much.
Honestly, SSD is easily the best bang for the buck for any system that doesn't already have one. Past that your rig is in a good spot - it may be a good time to look at monitor or audio upgrades. A monitor upgrade may want a new video card if you up the monitor to 2k or 144Hz or better, but if your at 1080p, the 960 you have now is capable. It won't max max every title, but you'd be really hard pressed to find something it can't play well.
So should I hold on to my cash, what should be my next upgrade best bang for buck?
And thanks for all the info.
Don't upgrade until you have some reason to upgrade. If you're getting as high of frame rates as your monitor can display at the settings you like in the games you play, there's nothing to gain from an upgrade. Only if your current computer isn't fast enough is there a point to upgrading, and if that happens, the particular problem should guide the upgrade path.
1070 roughly equals a 980Ti
Pascal (10xx series) does better in DX12 than Maxwell (900 series) did, if you are looking for a tiebreaker.
1060 (6GB) costs 240+ $ so its really no brainer that RX480 is miles ahead of GTX1060. Performance/price is something NVidia just cant compete in.
Current NVidia cards dont have proper hardware DX12/Vulkan support ("Pascal" is basically just shrunken down Maxwell with higher clocks, if you could clock your 960 to ~1,9 GHz you would have 1060) and lose performance in every single DX12/Vulkan title, thats something to consder when buying GPU today as pretty much every new AAA title in 2016. already had DX12//Vulkan (and even some older titles)
For instance, The Division got DX12 treatment and RX480 is far ahead of GTX1060 when they were on par in DX11. Now GTX1070 is only 10% faster than RX1480 in The Division. And thats what youll get going forward with DX12/Vulkan (RX480 is almost on par with GTX1070 in Doom with Vulkan)
If you ask yourself "why do i want DX12/Vulkan"...main reason is that they make much better use of your CPU AND you get quite substantial performance improvements on GPUs that actually support DX12/Vulkan.
And caveat is that GTX1070 (which is a bit slower that GTX980ti) is just 30% faster than RX480 but costs ~400$, more than double price for 30% performance and lack of proper DX12/Vulkan support.
You have tests done in 2017. here
For your CPU, youre fine as far as you dont want more cores on your CPU, and for that you should definitely wait to see what AMD Ryzen has to offer as its just around the corner. The way all the leaks/rumors are shaping up....it will blow away Intel in bang for buck.
980 GTX
RX 480 isnt a bad choice either but it will use as much power as the 1070.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1322812/overclocking-i5-3470-to-4ghz
A mechanical keyboard is also a good upgrade if you don't already own one.
#2 - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1748?vs=1771 Not saying it proves anything, everyone can draw their own conclusions there.
#3 - Have a nice Valentine's Day.
I'll admit. I didn't watch them the first time you posted. Because videos of benchmarks suck. And I still haven't watched them. If they can take the time to lay out graphs in a nice, easy to read format, I'd love to take a look at them and compare them to the research I've done.
But they haven't. And you haven't.
Happy
I found a better deal on the 1060, and the performance increase of the 480 was negligible enough for the cost savings. If you're only saving like.. 10 dollars or so, no big deal.. but I was able to get a 50 dollar drop on the 1060 in comparison to the 480.