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Hey Guys ,
I am at a road block , i cant play games at the quality i want (which was never the Ultra , but high and above) I need to decide if i upgrade (and what parts) or build from scratch 
Current Spec :
I7-2600k 3.4Ghz.
8GB RAM DDR3.(standard speeds).
GPU - AMD  5870
Samsung HD103SJ 
Intel SSDSA2M080G2GC 
PSU - Seasonic X-750 Gold
MB - Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3
Case - CM Sniper.

I am wondering if a massive GPU upgrade is enough (will it play nicely with my MB ?)  like getting a 1070GTX , which such a purchase will solve all of my issues with my rig ?
Rig is for games only (no work / video editing and the likes).

Thanks in advance!!!!!

1070GTX and another 8GB of DDR3 is plenty.

yogibbear wrote:

1070GTX and another 8GB of DDR3 is plenty.

Do you feel i should considered aging of any sort to the PSU ? or MB ? also i have 2 sticks of 4 and no room to put another 2 sticks only 1 , i can get 1 stick of 8 ? So it will be 4+4/8 setup.

Honestly your 8gb is more than enough for single tasking. 16gb is great if you like to stream twitch, torrent, browse the web all on other monitors while also gaming; but most modern day games will have no issues with 8gb of RAM if they aren't contending with other apps. A GPU upgrade will be just fine and a z68 motherboard is pci-e 3.0, the same spec current gen MBs are using. a 750w psu is also plenty of power to run this rig with a GTX 1060, 1070, or RX 980. I can't tell you which of these you should buy since you haven't specified your monitor resolution/refresh rates and the games you want to play.

If you plan to play Fallout 4, it might be a good idea to outright replace your RAM with some faster stuff: http://www.techspot.com/review/1089-fal ... page6.html

I don't think many other games display this performance gulf(Maybe some RTS games and the upcoming Civ 6 might have issues), but given FO4's popularity, I figured I'd mention it.

I.S.T. wrote:

If you plan to play Fallout 4, it might be a good idea to outright replace your RAM with some faster stuff: http://www.techspot.com/review/1089-fal ... page6.html

I don't think many other games display this performance gulf(Maybe some RTS games and the upcoming Civ 6 might have issues), but given FO4's popularity, I figured I'd mention it.

Actually FO4 IS THE GAME which runs on LOW and barely playable for me , its the trigger for this move as Dota 2 runs fine , will dig into the link youve sent.
I am happy to hear that a GPU upgrade will be enough (maybe with a touch of RAM for FO4) , the wife will be happy as well , thanks for all the replies , made my decision EASY and not having any regrets.

Honestly though, you should run some performance monitoring tools and find out EXACTLY what your bottlenecks are, rather than just throwing money at new components you may not actually need. If you can set the games you want to play at a graphic level you want to play them at without the CPU or RAM peaking, then you don't need to upgrade those components. Even then, I would still upgrade just the GPU first and see if that is enough performance boost for what you need. Your gpu is probably 80% of the problem with your current rig. And while upgrading to 16gb of ram or faster clocked ram will increase your performance "some", you would only be looking at single digit percentage point gains compared to the 2x-3x performance gains from a new GPU.

http://techreport.com/review/20377/expl ... formance/3

The impact of faster ram varies quite a lot between different Intel CPU generations as well as between different games/tasks so don't necessarily expect any gains simply by upgrading to faster RAM.

I would tend to go for a big GPU upgrade.

Yeah, Faster RAM is kind of pointless for Sandy Bridge. Haswell was the first architecture where gaming performance benefitted faster DDR3, and even then the gains were small in most cases. I think Witcher3 and Ryse were the only two games that benefitted more than 10%, whilst changing your GPU will benefit you 800%.

Double to 16GB and slap in an RX 480/GTX1060 if you have a 1080p monitor, and a GTX1070 for a 1440p monitor. There is absolutely no point spending on a GTX1070 for a 1080p screen unles it's a 144Hz gaming screen; The RX480/GTX1060 are already overkill for a 1080p60Hz monitor

Leave your system as-is but upgrade your GPU.

If you find you are actually hitting 8gb RAM usage and swapping to disk often, upgrade to 16gb.

Sandy Bridge still has a couple of good years left before you need to upgrade. Overclock to 4-4.5 GHz if you're unable to hit high GPU usage in gaming due to CPU bottleneck.

Anovoca wrote:

a z68 motherboard is pci-e 3.0, the same spec current gen MBs are using.

Only when paired with an Ivy Bridge CPU, which isn't the case here.
In terms of memory I don't know if anyone has tested older platforms to see how they take advantage of higher memory speeds with newer games. The results of Xbox 360/PS3-era games aren't necessarily going to reflect the behaviour of those games designed to take advantage of the higher bandwidths of the PS4 and Xbox One.

Chrispy_ wrote:

Double to 16GB and slap in an RX 480/GTX1060 if you have a 1080p monitor, and a GTX1070 for a 1440p monitor.

This.

Chrispy_ wrote:

Double to 16GB and slap in an RX 480/GTX1060 if you have a 1080p monitor, and a GTX1070 for a 1440p monitor. There is absolutely no point spending on a GTX1070 for a 1080p screen unles it's a 144Hz gaming screen; The RX480/GTX1060 are already overkill for a 1080p60Hz monitor

I'm gonna throw another vote for this. I have a GPU comparable to yours and a 1440p monitor, and I'm getting a GTX 1070--hopefully before the weekend. If I hadn't upgraded my monitor, I would have saved myself the extra $150 and gotten the RX480.

Likewise, if you're considering a 1440p in the near future then it's probably worth spending the extra money now so you'll have solid performance when you get it.

I already have 16 GB, otherwise I'd be doing that too. Windows caches file data if there is unused memory, so you can see an improvement even if the application is only using a few GB directly. Your memory type isn't getting any younger, and prices start to increase when production wanes. If it's still affordable now, it is a good time to buy.

TheRazorsEdge wrote:

I already have 16 GB, otherwise I'd be doing that too. Windows caches file data if there is unused memory, so you can see an improvement even if the application is only using a few GB directly. Your memory type isn't getting any younger, and prices start to increase when production wanes. If it's still affordable now, it is a good time to buy.

Yes, we are close to price parity between DDR3 and DDR4 now. Anyone planning on one last RAM upgrade on a DDR3 platform should consider buying soon, as prices for DDR3 will increase as the majority of production shifts to DDR4 and DDR3 becomes a legacy product.

OK, gotcha , one thing I'm still on the fence is the GPU my current monitor is a Dell Ultra Sharp U2410 , i like the monitor but i might upgrade..... once you get back to reading HW sites you get that itch again :S....

For me , if i get to upgrade the GPU + Ram only for 300$ only and play the current games this is beyond amazing , as it means that my first "future proof" was indeed that aside from the GPU (which i knew wasn't the best back then) as the rest of the build was tier 1 mostly.
So I'm left between 1060 to 1070 GTX (going green after a lot of red which i had tons of issues with , mainly with build quality of the gigabyte cards , i have a bottle supporting the card as its starting to gradually "fall" from the board causing black screen in the middle of using the computer and a restart is needed).

So let me see if i get it right :
1060 GTX will play all games on high and expected to do the same in a year or so if i keep my current monitor.
1070 GTX will play all games on ultra and expected to do the same in a year/two even if i upgrade my monitor to 1440p.

A 1070 would definitely future proof your computer where the GPU is concerned but I am not sure at which point the CPU becomes the bottle neck for future proofing. I cannot give you a solid answer without being able to bench both cards on a similar system as yours but my oldest board is a z87. My guess though is that a GTX 1060 6gb might cap out at the same performance on newer games on a high graphics setting as a gtx 1070 on 1440p or 120hz gaming in your current system before the CPU becomes the choking point. But again, that is pure speculation on my part.

You should also play it safe and verify your MB BIOS will play nice with a newer card. I think your z68 is right at the edge of the safe zone. I know Pascal will work with z87 but z68 might be one generation too old.

512GB SSD, GTX 1070, and 16GB of faster RAM. 

"Do you feel i should considered aging of any sort to the PSU ?"

Since you bought a quality PSU, there shouldn't be any reason at this point to worry about the components in it starting to fail. I would imagine that it should be good for a few more years.

Yeah, your 750W PSU is massively overpowered for a system that will draw less than 250W under load.  The fact that it's an 80+ Gold unit is good also.  Higher quality components inside.

In the link I provided, TR's bench system uses an i7-5960X which is a 140W CPU as opposed to the i7-2600K @ 95W so assume even if you OC your 2600K you're well within that range.

In all fairness, GPU sag wasn't really being considered in the era of your current GPU.  Nowadays, I'd guestimate that >50% of dual fan GPUs come with a backplate or some sort of brace to prevent card sag.  Certainly buying Nvidia isn't going to protect you against card sag or an aftermarket manufacturer's shoddy build quality.

You'll have to decide what your plans are for the monitor.  If going to a 27" 1440p monitor (G-Sync or FreeSync recommended) for $400 is a realistic near-term upgrade, then by all means go with a GTX1070.  If you're more likely to stick with 1080p for a few more years, go with a GTX1060 or RX480.  They're no slouch.  Keep in mind they're replacing (beating) the venerable GTX970 which was the go-to card for 1440p gaming just a few short months ago.  TR bencmarked the RX480 predominantly in 1440p resolution where it was producing 60+fps.  Save for Tomb Raider and Hitman which were benched at 1080p.

bluzi wrote:

So let me see if i get it right :
1060 GTX will play all games on high and expected to do the same in a year or so if i keep my current monitor.
1070 GTX will play all games on ultra and expected to do the same in a year/two even if i upgrade my monitor to 1440p.

That's how it looks right now.

And the GTX 1060 can play some games maxed at 1080p, e.g., Fallout 4 runs around 100 FPS. Mid-60s in CoD and 90s in BF4. Even with the next gen engines, it will probably have the headroom to run maxed on some games.

Still, that extra 50% compute (for only 30-40% more money) makes the GTX 1070 look mighty appealing. If you volunteer for Folding@home or any other distributed computing project, that might be enough to justify it right there.

DPete27 wrote:

In all fairness, GPU sag wasn't really being considered in the era of your current GPU.  Nowadays, I'd guestimate that >50% of dual fan GPUs come with a backplate or some sort of brace to prevent card sag.  Certainly buying Nvidia isn't going to protect you against card sag or an aftermarket manufacturer's shoddy build quality.

Agreed. If anything, this might be a reason to avoid Gigabyte (although even that is a stretch since all the big AIB makers are building cards better than they used to), but as far as AMD vs NV goes, they make the GPU chips not the cards. 
There are good reasons to buy an NVidia card over AMD, but the fact that a many year old card had card sag isn't one of them.

I'm going to go along with everyone else here.  Get the Radeon RX 480 or GeForce GTX1060, add some memory, and enjoy your Sandy Bridge system for another year or two.

Going with the 1060 GTX staying with my Dell monitor , one question about the memory , will getting the same speeds/latency on 1 8Gb stick will be the ideal way to go ?
I currently have 2 4Gb , so the plan is to put 2x4Gb in one channel (dual rank) and one 8Gb single rank on the other channel ?
Or you guys think the CPU will go crazy and be inefficient that way? i can scrap the 2 4Gb and just get a dual kit 8Gb i guess.

THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP GUYS! 

PC3L-12800 memory is still the sweet spot for DDR3.  Here's some with low latency and low voltage.  These DIMMs will run at 800 MHz (DDR3-1600) right out of the box.
$74 2x8 GiB PC3L-12800 Crucial Ballistix Tactical BLT8G3D1608ET3LX0 (DDR3L-1600, 8-8-8-24, 1.35 V)

You've got 4 RAM slots on your mobo.  Currently running 2x4GB?  Just get another 2x4GB kit for $34.  

Keep in mind, all 4 sticks will run at the lowest common specs of the kits installed.  So if your existing RAM is say, DDR3-1333, then the new sticks will also be run at DDR3-1333.  If CAS 11, then all will run at CAS 11.  If 1.5V, all will run at 1.5V.... you get the idea.

DPete27 wrote:

You've got 4 RAM slots on your mobo.  Currently running 2x4GB?  Just get another 2x4GB kit for $34.  

Keep in mind, all 4 sticks will run at the lowest common specs of the kits installed.  So if your existing RAM is say, DDR3-1333, then the new sticks will also be run at DDR3-1333.  If CAS 11, then all will run at CAS 11.  If 1.5V, all will run at 1.5V.... you get the idea.

I can't put 4 sticks due to big ass cooler on the CPU , it blocks 1 of the slots .......

bluzi wrote:

I can't put 4 sticks due to big ass cooler on the CPU , it blocks 1 of the slots .......

Even if you use low profile DIMMs?

JBI is referring to low-profile DIMMs like these which barely (if at all) stick above the RAM mounting backets.

DPete27 wrote:

JBI is referring to low-profile DIMMs like these which barely (if at all) stick above the RAM mounting backets.

Not sure , will need to take a closer look ..... probably if its not sticking out at all i should be fine to go with another 2x4 low profile dimms.

DPete27 wrote:

JBI is referring to low-profile DIMMs like these which barely (if at all) stick above the RAM mounting backets.

Yes, thanks, I should've provided a link in the previous post.

The standard DIMM height dates back to before the days of BGA chips, when DRAM chips had about double the footprint they do now. There's really no reason they still need to be that tall, and I'm a little surprised that low profile DIMMs haven't become more widespread, given that the smaller PCB size also reduces manufacturing costs.