Personal computing discussed

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paulWTAMU
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Upgrade or build?

Sat Dec 09, 2017 10:17 am

Current specs:
a Haswell i5 4460 @ 3.2 Ghz

Ram: 8 gigs of DDR3 @ 798 mghz

Sapphire Radeon 260x

I upgraded my monitor a while ago and can't play at native resolutions (1440p woohoo) so the easy answer is GPU, but I'm not sure if it's worth upgrading that or just holding off till I can upgrade the whole rig in a year or two...thoughts? Would something like a 1060 or similar be bottlenecked by anything else here?
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whm1974
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Re: Upgrade or build?

Sat Dec 09, 2017 11:03 am

paulWTAMU wrote:
Current specs:
a Haswell i5 4460 @ 3.2 Ghz

Ram: 8 gigs of DDR3 @ 798 mghz

Sapphire Radeon 260x

I upgraded my monitor a while ago and can't play at native resolutions (1440p woohoo) so the easy answer is GPU, but I'm not sure if it's worth upgrading that or just holding off till I can upgrade the whole rig in a year or two...thoughts? Would something like a 1060 or similar be bottlenecked by anything else here?

Upgrade your memory to 16 and buy a 1060 6GB card, you will be fine. Do you have an SSD?
 
paulWTAMU
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Re: Upgrade or build?

Sat Dec 09, 2017 12:15 pm

yeah, I've got my steam folder and boot drive on an SSD.

Problem is my motherboard only has 2 DIMM slots so I'd have to buy a 2x8 for RAM rather than just picking up a set of 2x4 to add to my current RAM :/ I should have mentioned that. Otherwise I'd have upgraded the RAM already
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DPete27
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Re: Upgrade or build?

Sat Dec 09, 2017 1:23 pm

paulWTAMU wrote:
Problem is my motherboard only has 2 DIMM slots

Lesson learned at least. I don't recommend buying mobos with 2 DIMM slots simply because there always seems to come a point in a PCs life where whatever RAM you had in there to start with isn't enough anymore. Much easier to be able to add 2 more sticks than to try to find somewhere to move/sell the 2 existing sticks.

Even still, a GPU upgrade will mostly fix your problem. RX580/GTX 1060 6GB can do 1440p decently. Vega56 or GTX1070/1070Ti lets you stretch your legs a bit. Nice thing is, the GPU can be carried over if/when you do upgrade CPU and/or RAM.
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whm1974
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Re: Upgrade or build?

Sat Dec 09, 2017 1:59 pm

DPete27 wrote:
paulWTAMU wrote:
Problem is my motherboard only has 2 DIMM slots

Lesson learned at least. I don't recommend buying mobos with 2 DIMM slots simply because there always seems to come a point in a PCs life where whatever RAM you had in there to start with isn't enough anymore. Much easier to be able to add 2 more sticks than to try to find somewhere to move/sell the 2 existing sticks.

Even still, a GPU upgrade will mostly fix your problem. RX580/GTX 1060 6GB can do 1440p decently. Vega56 or GTX1070/1070Ti lets you stretch your legs a bit. Nice thing is, the GPU can be carried over if/when you do upgrade CPU and/or RAM.

That is why I will refuse to buy motherboards with less then 4 DIMM slots unless it is a mITX board.
 
just brew it!
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Re: Upgrade or build?

Sat Dec 09, 2017 2:15 pm

I think the only times I have bought a motherboard with 2 DIMM slots in the past 15 years has been by accident, or for the diskless Folding@home farm back when I was still doing that.
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whm1974
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Re: Upgrade or build?

Sat Dec 09, 2017 2:23 pm

just brew it! wrote:
I think the only times I have bought a motherboard with 2 DIMM slots in the past 15 years has been by accident, or for the diskless Folding@home farm back when I was still doing that.

I don't think I ever did. And due to not knowing how long I will end up keeping a system, I'm not going to.
 
JustAnEngineer
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Re: Upgrade or build?

Sat Dec 09, 2017 2:28 pm

My current mini-ITX gaming PC has just two DIMM slots. I bought 32 GiB of DDR4 for it back when memory prices weren't as inflated as they are today.

For the OP:
Upgrade your graphics card to Radeon RX Vega 56 (when it arrives back in stock at MSRP or less) or GeForce GTX1070Ti. If that provides satisfactory performance, great! If you still want more, you can re-use the graphics card in a new PC.
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paulWTAMU
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Re: Upgrade or build?

Sat Dec 09, 2017 3:27 pm

yeah, I tore the motherboard out of a Dell to save cash back when; oh well :(

JAE, I would *love* to be able to justify 400+ on a gpu but I don't think I can. maybe upper 200s-350ish
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Chrispy_
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Re: Upgrade or build?

Sat Dec 09, 2017 3:52 pm

Don't bother upgrading the RAM, if it's gaming performance you're after, 8GB is fine, just as long as you don't have a zillion browser tabs open in the background. Upgrading to 16GB will not actually improve your framerates, it'll simply let you multitask better and it'll speed up alt-tabbing in and out of the game, if you do a lot of that.

Just pop a GPU in there. The 260X is a rebranded 7790, so it's about five years old now and was already cut down in terms of ROP units so it really struggles compared to the HD 7850 when it comes to higher resolutions, antialiasing and postprocessing - something games use far more than they ever used to.

Grab yourself a GTX 1060 6GB. That ought to manage 1440p just fine on your budget. I'd say stretch higher to a 1070 if you want high framerates at ultra settings in the latest games, but realistically a 1060 will do right now, and you can always overclock it a bit if you don't buy the cheapest model on offer.
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MOSFET
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Re: Upgrade or build?

Sat Dec 09, 2017 6:33 pm

I have to agree with the general sentiment here, especially whm1974 and Chrispy_. I have an Evga 1060 6GB SC with single fan - the 1060 can be a bit underrated at times, as it does 1440p surprisingly well in many cases. Mine almost always clocks itself right about 2GHz while working.
Not extremely high refresh at 1440p, but usually at least 30-60fps. With close system monitoring, it appears that more often than not, my 1060 is being slightly starved by my Kaby Lake i5-7600K at 4.6GHz, and that's with 32GB DDR4-2400. So you could save yourself about $100 and just get a nice 4GB 1050Ti for $160. It may not like 1440p much, but you'll be using it to its full potential and more closely matches the CPU, imho.

I would absolutely recommend doubling 8GB of RAM to anyone who isn't on a shoestring budget. DDR3 is /gag/ somewhat better than DDR4 right this minute.
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JustAnEngineer
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Re: Upgrade or build?

Sun Dec 10, 2017 1:37 am

paulWTAMU wrote:
I would *love* a $400+ GPU but...
Sub-$400 graphics cards may require some compromises for 2560x1440 gaming. I suppose that the $285 Zotac GeForce GTX1060 6GB "AMP! edition" or the $280 -10MIR Asus Radeon RX580 8GB "Dual" would be reasonable choices for under $300.
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