With my limited knowledge of computer builds, I'd say you want to make sure your CPU isn't going to bottleneck that graphic's card, if it does, the extra power won't mean jack.
I recently built my first in total after doing a similar piecemeal build of my old desktop - my recommendation:
https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/
and
https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc
are your best friend. sales for finding cheap parts (I picked up a 500+ 980 card for 400, CPU discounted by 70, and a motherboard for 100 off!)
and the buildapc sub for questions. The people in the buildapc sub are incredibly knowledgeable, and will steer you right.
Good luck!
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Thanks :) Appreciate the links! Although I'd like to point out that I'll only be buying locally so the help I'll be needing geared towards more on the specifications of the build :( The problem is I can't really upgrade my cpu since it'll be negligible at most since my current mobo is pretty old.
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Upvote for those links and i'll add the price compare and compatability checker at
https://pcpartpicker.com
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If you can hold out, wait until after summer.
Both nVidia and AMD are expected to be releasing new cards based on new chip designs, which should be able to provide same performance at much lower power consumption / much better performance at same power consumption.
Can't find official announcements on what cards are coming out first, although the rumours say nVidia will be officially announcing the high-end GTX1080 soon.
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I've heard the announcement of the GTX1080 actually but my goal for my rig isn't really top of the line since I just want to play games like Fallout 4, Witcher 3, etc (Not at ultra. Decent fps at med-high settings is already good :) )
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I have MSI GeForce GTX 960 2G / 1080 , I tested Witcher 3 at release, and it wasnt ok (for me), it's playable. but videocard can't handle stable 60 fps with decent shadows and range of visibility so it little bit slow at visually heavy scenes which I hate (maybe they optimized, but I have doubts), if you going to play GTA5, 4G vram is needed, 960 can handle it with high set but there are tiny freezes when you drive because of 2G, it runs well loot shooter 4
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Hmm. I've heard how graphics-intensive Witcher 3 is so I'm not surprised but any news on it now?
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not tested it since . decided that I play it on new videocard (even after some years) on high with no compromises, not heard any big news about performance improvements, theoreticaly it may be directx 12 version (rumored), but practically some games (new Hitman) run worse on dx12
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you won't want to buy anything until the 1080 has been out for at least a few weeks.
unless you don't mind wasting $100+. all the 980's and such will then go on sale, and that's the tier you should buy at
it's what i'm waiting for, before i upgrade this 780 gtx
oh, you also need to upgrade your PSU. I have like half a dozen 750 watt gold cert seasonics laying around from when I used to bitcoin mine 3 or 4 years ago. dont suppose you want to buy one from me used? hah
oh, i also have a radeon 7970, and some r270's, and some 5970s, 5870s, 5830s, r260x, 7790s, 7770, 7850, and other such junk laying around.
i saw you mentioned the r280, the 7970 is essentially equiv to an r280x. if i was looking for a new vid card, i'd be shooting for much higher than that, though.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-R9-280-vs-AMD-HD-7970/2241vs2163
right now the gtx 970 is at the "high end but somewhat affordable" level, after the 1080 comes out, the gtx 980 will be. so that's when you should decide whether you should buy the 970 or 980. wouldn't get anything else
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Already have a build in mind but I'm thinking of changing this:
COOLER MASTER B600 V2 600W 80+ POWER SUPPLY 3.2K
http://pcx.com.ph/product/cooler-master-b600
to maybe a 700W+ psu if I opt to go for the 970/980. I'd love to buy from you though lol but my only option for now is to buy local :/ If the price difference of the 970/980 wil lbe that big then I'll most likely go for it but as of now I'll stay with the 960 :3
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Well I suggest you to wait until summer for the next gen GPU's. But if you must buy now, 960 is an okay-ish card. I had an opportunity to choose between R9 280 and GTX 960, I picked R9 280. It's cheaper, has 3 GB ram and 384 bit. Also has slightly better FPS in most games.
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I've heard about the R9 280 but it's a bit more expensive compared to the GTX 960 if I remember. Currently have a budget of $200 for a card and the one I mentioned fits perfectly
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Go for it then, Nvidia is %30 more expensive in my country so it was cheaper for me. There isn't much difference between them in terms of FPS, 960 is a good card.
But keep in mind that your CPU will bottleneck that card. You can't use it's full potential until you upgraded your CPU, you'll use %70 of your GPU at best.
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Your CPU will likely bottleneck your system.
Recommended PSUs: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html
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If you go with the gtx960 its a must to get the 4gig version
I have the gtx960 and most games I play use well over 2gig of Vram
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Not if you like eye candy
Plus it kinda future proofs for other games that will use more and more vram in the newer games
Gtx960 can handle most games at 1080p at ultra and some may have to use high settings
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You should def. wait with a new videocard and at first try to upgrade your cpu/mobo.
If you buy a newer card the cpu will bottleneck the gpu pretty sure.
If you don't want to wait:
You should def. take a gpu with 4gb
The shop you linked has the r9 380 4gb "only 10%" more then your linked card. The r9 380 has way more power and 4gb.
But just again: with this cpu you will not be able to use the full power from either r9 380 or gtx 960
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So for now it's if I really just buy everything in one go? I was thinking of waiting until they release the gtx1080 so that gpu prices would drop. (Correct me if I'm wrong)
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You should save up and wait until you are able to buy mobo, cpu, gpu, psu all together. Your current rig is out of date enough to make upgrading any one piece kind of a waste. Even your RAM will be no good if you end up with the new 1151 socket boards that support DDR4.
On the other hand, given what you have, there are plenty of prebuilt or even all-in-one computers that will be a huge improvement for you.
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Thanks for the input :) While saving up I can at least canvass for better parts in the meantime.
As for pre-builts, I think I'd rather just a build a rig of my own given that those tend to be not worth it here :/
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I've built a rig with a MSI A88XM-E45 motherboard with an A10-7700K APU. They are fairly cheap parts that would allow you to use that DDR3 memory, and would outperform that GT220 even without a dedicated GPU. The APU can be coupled with a cheaper R7 240 or 250 for extra graphics performance (dual graphics) or with a more expensive R7 260x/R7 360 or GTX 750Ti, for instance, which would be a better use of your money than to sink it all on an R9 or GTX9xx while keeping that A4-3300, which is going to be a serious bottleneck.
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I considered that before but at the rate that games are coming out nowadays, I'm better off building a rig from the ground up. So I'll take the advice of Gothematicator.
One thing I noticed though in benchmarks is that that 760 is still at par if not a bit lower than the 960 which kinda confuses me..
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Considering that the 960 is the next generation of the 760, shouldn't it be significantly better than the 760? :o
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960 is the same size die as 760 AFAIK. Without the ease of being able to shoehorn more performance per cycle into a product via a nice shrink, a newer product should just net you better support for existing features, some new features, as well as a design that improves a little to be more efficient. That is, if the previous generation was already good. Which is was in your example.
Every so often design/feature implementation/optimization offers a vast improvement, but this isn't the old days where each new iteration offers a real increase in clock speed; or in the case of the most recent old days, increases in performance due to core increases.
Especially with mid- and high-end desktop CPUs, there's just no need to squeeze that hard to put out that much more performance at the expense of margins, especially since the desktop market is slowly contracting since everyone who doesn't game can get more than enough zip out of mobile products (including laptops). Anyway, GPUs are the bottleneck. If they weren't, AMD FX processors wouldn't be valid choices for a mid/high-end gaming rig.
On the GPU side, regardless of fanboyism, the competition is much more even and both AMD and Nvidia do pretty well (getting almost as much as they can out of their hardware without lagging too far behind their competitor). When one of them trounces the other in a game benchmark featuring peer products it usually has more to do with how the game is coded/optimized than real differences between their hardware.
The upcoming die shrinks for everything but Intel CPUs should net some nice gains--though neither Nvidia nor AMD (GPU) need big leaps. AMD (CPU) does, though.
I've done four major builds/upgrades since my first build in 2004.
- AMD Athlon XP 2500+
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+
- AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition
- Intel Core i5-6500
I couldn't wait for Zen. Sorry, AMD. Get your shit together.
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My first thought was, "that CPU!"
My advice is the same as Gothemasticator. Save up.
You don't have to have the money for everything all at once, but you should do CPU/Mobo/RAM all together, then GPU. Unless you're waiting on (AMD) Zen, that means do a Skylake build, i3 or i5 probably, then get the next gen of GPU.
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yeah, probably should wait for the 1080 to come out, have the 970 drop in price $100 or something, and grab a CPU with the savings.
not familiar with AMD CPUs though, so not sure if that motherboard could even handle a 'good' cpu. may have to upgrade both
oh. wait. I have a 990FXA-GD80 motherboard that's been gathering dust for 2 years. surely that can't handle a good cpu, eh?
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Well, claudekenny234 could get a better A-series--and you could get a better FX--but how much real ultimate power you want is the key consideration. But, in the case of the FX, lots of gamers out there have a GTX 960 or 970, or an R9 280 or 380, and pair it with an FX 6300/8320/8350.
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I've already checked the best upgrade I can do for my cpu and I think it's better if I should upgrade my mobo instead. So initially here's my current goal for my build since I'm planning to buy this before the year ends at least. This is subject to change of course since the release of the new 1080 might affect the prices of the 900 series.
Any suggestions? Currently on a budget of $600 at most since that's my projected savings during June at least.
ASUS GTX960 STRIX OC 4GB DDR5 128BIT VIDEOCARD
http://pcx.com.ph/product/asus-gtx960-strix-oc-4gb-ddr5-128bit-videocard
Ram:
8GB Ram Hyperx DDR4 2
COOLER MASTER B600 V2 600W 80+ POWER SUPPLY 3
http://pcx.com.ph/product/cooler-master-b600
MOBO
MSI Z170A PCMATE LGA1151 MOTHERBOARD
http://pcx.com.ph/product/msi-z170a-pcmate-lga1151-motherboard
cpu
INTEL CORE I5-6500 (3.2GHZ) PROCESSOR
http://pcx.com.ph/product/intel-core-i5-6500-3-2ghz-processor
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I was just being thorough in my response to darkhosis. I wasn't recommending you invest in the chipset you have.
I don't know about that PSU. I got my PSU off the PSU tier list. https://community.newegg.com/eggxpert/computer_hardware/f/135081/t/45344.aspx
I have an i5-6500, I have a Z170 motherboard.
If it's already gonna be June or July I'd see what is going on with the next generation of GPUs before I throw down for a 960.
And that RAM... 8GB is fine. But RAM is inexpensive.
I used to have 6GB of DDR2 in my last build (Phenom II X2 that was no longer stable at X4) I made sure to exit my browser for any game that wanted to creep toward a gig and a half of RAM as modern browsers eat up RAM even if you have them set up to unload idle tabs. I had 8GB in this current build briefly, before going to 16GB...
16GB means I never ever need to close anything* to ensure that my computer doesn't start hammering the page file at all if I launch a game. So I recommend getting 16GB.
- Not quite 100% true. It's difficult for me to run 5+ virtual machines of Windows 7 because I will run out of RAM.
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That's a solid gaming build imho, but like HBH said, I'd go with 16GB RAM - it's cheap as dirt, and you can never have too much.
I'm not terribly fond of Cooler Master PSU's either, but others I know have had success with them. I prefer Corsair or Seasonic myself (though my current PSU is EVGA - but it was a sponsored build, so I had to use it ...)
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I've seem how upgrading ram goes a long way so I'm more than willing to go for 16gb of ram.
Isn't Cooler Master a good brand or is the particular model I mentioned not in the tier list?
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It's not a bad brand ... I just prefer others is all.
I always check the OEM of any power supply I purchase to be sure it was originally made by a reputable company. Google is your friend there,.
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Good morning/evening to the wonderful peeps of Steamgifts! :)
Trying to learn more about building a rig so I've been trying to upgrade my 5 year old desktop piece-by-piece. Currently I was able top swap out my old ram card with a new 8gb ram card. Here's my current specs:
Motherboard:
F1A55-M LK R2.0
RAM
8GB DDR3 1600 Kingston HyperX
CPU:
AMD A4-3300 APU
GPU:
NVIDIA GT220
PSU:
Oriion ATX-600 V1.2
I've been meaning to get this video card and psu:
ASUS GTX960 TURBO 2GB DDR5 128BIT OC WHT VIDEOCARD
http://pcx.com.ph/product/asus-gtx960-turbo-2gb-ddr5-128bit-oc-wht-videocard
COOLER MASTER B600 V2 600W 80+ POWER SUPPLY
http://pcx.com.ph/product/cooler-master-b600
So my questions are:
Would the upgrade be feasible?
I know I also need to upgrade my mobo and cpu but as of the moment would it be better to just upgrade my gpu and psu?
Would I also need any additional peripherals like another heatsink?
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