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Looking to upgrade

Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2013 1:56 pm
by MrBerg
I'm thinking about upgrading my computer, lately I've been noticing I am having to lower graphics settings more and more with newer games for them to run smoothly. I still run a lot of games fairly decent, but I'm starting to notice some frame rate drops at times. (Total War: Rome 2 is quite laggy, although CA really dropped the ball and that game is still not optimized well in the slightest, it's getting better, and I know even if it was optimized perfectly, I could still use some better hardware to get the most out of the graphics options) so, I would like to upgrade soon, or at least within the next few months if anything is being released soon.

Also, with games like the ones of the total war series, I think they probably use a lot more CPU than many other games I play, which are mostly FPS'

I'm not sure if i should upgrade my GPU, or both my GPU and CPU, I'm thinking I may need both if I want to not bottle neck my GPU, right now I have:

CPU: i7-860 2.8ghz
GPU: Radeon 5850
RAM: 8gb DDR3
Motherboard: It's been a while since I bought it but I think it was a Asus P7P55D Pro, almost positive it was the P7P55D, not sure which variation though.

I think that's all the info that's really relevant, I'm running Windows 7, I was thinking of maybe getting a 7970, but that might be a little overkill, and a waste of money.
Power supply should be able to handle any upgrades, It's a 750 or something around there.

Thanks

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2013 2:30 pm
by JustAnEngineer
MrBerg wrote:
CPU: Lynnfield Core i7-860 2.8 GHz 4-cores/8-threads
GPU: Radeon HD5850
RAM: 8 GiB DDR3

I was thinking of maybe getting a Radeon HD7970.
That seems like a reasonable upgrade to me. Radeon HD7950 3GB is slightly slower than Radeon HD7970/R9-280X but it is noticeably less expensive.
http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=88961& ... omoid=1382
http://techreport.com/news/25536/deal-o ... ve-for-170
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... agesize=50

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2013 3:27 pm
by MrBerg
Can you explain why this: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6814150590 is more expensive than this: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6814150671

When the specs of the Double D seem better, Same thing on the NCIX website, although this one: http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=67748& ... acture=XFX is 100 dollars more than the other two. When the specs seems the same.

Have something to do with the cooling, is it using some other kind of cooling as well as the fan (two of them have two fans and one has a single) that accounts for such a price difference.Having a hard time understanding this, excuse my ignorance. :)

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2013 10:30 pm
by Chrispy_
What you're seeing is just bad pricing. The Double-D Black Edition is the superior card and the superior cooler.

For what it's worth though, The older XFX cards aren't particularly good in my opinion. They are well-engineered (sturdy construction and high-quality for the usually-low price) but they don't run as cool as you'd expect and they have monstrously aggressive fan profiles so they are doubly LOUD. Even the Double-D cooler. I have to assume that the expensive-looking heatsink and build quality don't come cheap, so maybe they take lesser-binned (higher-vcore) silicon from AMD at a lower price. I'm only speculating but I've seen enough XFX cards to recognise the trend.

Likewise, I've decided to steer clear of Powercolor who have a habit of releasing long cards with no PCB support bar/plate whatsoever and a large, cheap cooler anchored only in the four holes around the GPU itself. I have four of those timebombs in workstations at the moment :\

These are slower-clocked but with much better noise levels.
This is one I have used in the past and been pleased with.
I have never bought one of these but user and professional reviews seem to say it's quiet and well-made.

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2013 11:55 am
by NovusBogus
7950 is an excellent GPU for the price. AMD is in the process of rolling out some rebadged cards which may drive prices down some, it would be worth waiting several weeks to see what happens.

Your CPU should be adequate, games and such still only ask for a Core2Quad at most. A Haswell i7 would be a worthy upgrade but not a high priority unless you're aching to part with some cash money. It will be another year before Intel has new silicon and AMD is unlikely to present a worthy adversary anytime soon so get comfortable if you're not quite ready to upgrade. I've been struggling with that decision myself, as I have an aging but otherwise perfectly good 2500k but do need to get a smaller motherboard.

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2013 2:42 pm
by MrBerg
Thanks for the replies, considering the 7950 is on sale for $100 off atm, I think I will pick one of those up. Good to know my CPU will be fine for a while longer. Maybe I'll look to upgrade that in 1-1.5 years. Also AMD is giving three free games with purchase of their card. I've always wanted to try Deus ex and free is always a good price.

Thanks again

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2013 4:07 pm
by JustAnEngineer
If you don't already have Tomb Raider, it's an excellent game available in AMD's Never Settle bundle (or for $15 from the link).

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2013 11:08 pm
by MrBerg
I haven't played a tomb raider since the original on computer, but I was looking at the trailers for those games and it looks pretty good. With your +1 I'll give it a try.

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 12:29 pm
by Chrispy_
Deus Ex, Saints Row IV and Bioshock Infinite are the three best games in the gold bundle, assuming that's what comes with the 7900-series.
That is of course just my Opinion ;)

Your i7 is definitely fine, I'm running a 7850 on a core2 quad on the HTPC and even Crysis 3 runs well still
I think the main requirement for modern gaming is four true cores; more clockspeed definitely helps but the important thing is four cores.

edit - I see that Bioshock is no longer in the gold bundle. I guess Tomb Raider or Far Cry 3 are the next best things depending on whether you want linear gaming or open-world respectively.

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 12:35 pm
by superjawes
I just got a 7950, and it has been excellent.

Saints Row IV is awesome, though. The 7950 is a Gold-level Never Settle title, and that is my recommendation for game choices.

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 4:21 pm
by MrBerg
I'll definitely get Deus Ex and Tomb Raider. I feel like I would enjoy Saints Row a lot more if I had played the first 3. Not sure if Jumping in at IV would be much fun, but maybe.

Recommended to play the first Deus Ex before this one, just read the storyline or don't need to bother with either?

EDIT: A friend highly recommended Farcry 3 last year or so. Not sure if I feel like getting into the deep world of a huge sandbox atm though. Something like Skyrim... I still haven't done everything I wanted to finish in that game lol

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 4:56 pm
by superjawes
I jumped in at 3 without any issue, and IV plays very different. I think you'll be fine.

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 5:01 pm
by vargis14
You should be able to overclock that lynnfeild CPU also for some extra performance, it has plenty of headroom for improvement. After you install the 7970 and get it running smoothly. Then you will see if your overclock is helping you and how high you might want to go 3.8ghz+

here is a link for you.... http://www.overclockers.com/forums/show ... p?t=651604

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 8:40 pm
by NovusBogus
Free games are always good but do bear in mind that DX:HR can be had for almost nothing (believe it was even in a humble bundle) and Tomb Raider has already dipped below 10 bucks a couple times, so the only meaningful subsidy is on SR4 (which given the post-THQ landscape will probably make its way to the bargain bin in short order).

As far as the games themselves, you shouldn't need to play SR3 or original DX to enjoy the new ones, though both are exceptional games and worth playing on their own merits. Saints Row started out somewhat serious and took a turn toward the lulzy with SR3 and many series fans have disowned number four for being too slapstick, so you probably wouldn't gain much by playing through the whole series anyway. DX:HR is a prequel of sorts which follows a different character as the world stumbles toward the first game's shadowy dystopia. DX 2 wasn't very good and can be safely ignored.

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 9:42 pm
by superjawes
Not to get too off topic, but Saints Row IV is a great case for Volition to give the series a complete break and reboot or restart it later when it's a little more down to earth. In the meantime, they can make an open world superhero game or two with plenty of silliness.

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 6:08 am
by Chrispy_
Deus Ex: HR works fine if you never played the first two.

I played half of the first one several times but never really got into it for some reason.
I played the second one and it was bearably bad.
The third one (DE:HR) was great all-round.

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 9:36 am
by southrncomfortjm
No one is mentioning Sleeping Dogs and that game was great. It's a very well done game that is basically a living, breathing Hong Kong crime drama with Arkham Asylum/City like melee combat. Highly recommended as part of the bundle or not - I got my copy for $6, no reason you can't find that price again.

Other than that, I'd second (third?) the recommendation for Tomb Raider and throw in a +1 for Far Cry 3. I loved releasing tigers and starting fires to send an outpost into mayhem while calmly sniping all the pirates. Blood Dragon is also fun, but its really just a smaller version of FC3 with everything glowing neon.

On the actual graphics card side, I always go for value, so the 7950 for about $210 seems great. Put the $50-90 saved into the bank to upgrade your CPU and MoBo.

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 9:37 am
by MrBerg
vargis14 wrote:
You should be able to overclock that lynnfeild CPU also for some extra performance, it has plenty of headroom for improvement. After you install the 7970 and get it running smoothly. Then you will see if your overclock is helping you and how high you might want to go 3.8ghz+

here is a link for you.... http://www.overclockers.com/forums/show ... p?t=651604


Thanks for that. I've never really got around to messing with overclock anything. Maybe I'll give it a shot. I know my brother has many times.

NovusBogus wrote:
Free games are always good but do bear in mind that DX:HR can be had for almost nothing (believe it was even in a humble bundle) and Tomb Raider has already dipped below 10 bucks a couple times, so the only meaningful subsidy is on SR4 (which given the post-THQ landscape will probably make its way to the bargain bin in short order).


Yeah, I was kind of thinking that with the tomb raider and DX. Apparently you can use the free game codes anytime up until December 31st. Maybe I'll just use one or two now and wait to see if anything new gets added. I'm sure I could pick up tomb raider and DX for next to nothing during the team Christmas sale, or even a black Friday sale, Or cyber Monday, whatever they're doing.

Re: Looking to upgrade

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 1:03 pm
by Warsam71
southrncomfortjm wrote:
No one is mentioning Sleeping Dogs and that game was great. It's a very well done game that is basically a living, breathing Hong Kong crime drama with Arkham Asylum/City like melee combat. Highly recommended as part of the bundle or not - I got my copy for $6, no reason you can't find that price again.

Other than that, I'd second (third?) the recommendation for Tomb Raider and throw in a +1 for Far Cry 3. I loved releasing tigers and starting fires to send an outpost into mayhem while calmly sniping all the pirates. Blood Dragon is also fun, but its really just a smaller version of FC3 with everything glowing neon.

On the actual graphics card side, I always go for value, so the 7950 for about $210 seems great. Put the $50-90 saved into the bank to upgrade your CPU and MoBo.


I did the same thing in Far Cry 3 :D . And sometimes I'd shoot at the explosives in the camp and throw some grenades to cause even more mayhem, gosh I spent lots of time playing it. Haven't played Blood Dragon yet...