26 replies to this topic

[AllYourF0rt]

Hey, I was wondering which upgrades would make a significant boost in gaming performance. I mainly play TF2 which I hear is a highly cpu instensive game. I was thinking of going with a Phenom II X4 975 for 130$. Or I was thinking about getting a Intell LGA 1155 mobo and a I5-2500k. My budget is around 400$ Should i get that or should I get a faster video card I was thinking Asus 6970 Direct CU 2. I am on a budget so which one would do the most good for the money I have. Thanks

Edited by AllYourF0rt, 09 April 2012 - 11:51 AM.

[IVIYTH0S]

Can you get a 955 or 965 any cheaper? They should all OC to about the same, TF2 is NOT worth getting a whole new platform for but a Phenom II would be a nice upgrade from what you have. (which you could keep as a back up or sell if it's worth it).

Is your 4870 overclocked?? I can't for the life me image that can't max TF2 out (unless it's indeed CPU starved as you mentioned)

[Fogel]

If you can get the 975 for $130 (it is $145 on promo at newegg) I would go that route. If you want to get the most of your $400 you can then purchase a HD 7850 for $268 (includes shipping).

Total would be $398

Edited by Fogel, 09 April 2012 - 01:32 PM.

[Rofltroll]

If you're into overclocking the 7850 is an amazing piece of work. As for gaming look for a cheap phenom II 900 series since either one of those should perform the same in games. The difference between an i5 2500k and a phenom 950 let's say is minimal really since the video card is the most important component in the computer for gaming. The 975 should work great with any game really.
This one is the most popular and is great for games(Phenom II x4 965) 125$ :
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819103727

And Video Card - this 560 Ti 448 that also includes Battlefield 3 for 270$:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814500231

Total 395$.

Is your mobo AM3, though?

Another video card choice would be this 7850 at 260$ that includes Dirt 3:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814131464

7850 review:
http://www.guru3d.co...nd-7870-review/

Total 385 $

You also have the 560 Ti 448 in those graphs; you can clearly see that the 560 Ti 448 has on average 15% better performance in most games while in other they are roughly the same.
The 6970 falls short of the 560 Ti 448 in every test while being even more expensive. Also nVidia has better drivers and as time goes on it's performance will be even better than the radeon cards.
My 470 now clearly beats a 5850 and almost always ties or gets better performance than the 5870 which was the equal of the 480 in the day.

My advice: stick with the 560 Ti 448 for those extra 10 bucks.

[AllYourF0rt]

Well i'm not just going to be playing TF2 I also want to play BF3 with my brother. I get pretty good performance in TF2 my fps is around 100 in some spots but when I get into other areas with many players on the screen( i play 32 person maps) it can drop down to 20-30 fps. I also play at 1080p since thats what my monitor is. I will probably go with the x4 970 or should I go with a x6? I am limited by my motherboard which only supports DDR2 1066. Is DDR3 really alot faster then 2? I will end going with the 560ti 448 more than likely cause it supports Physx as well. Heres a link to cpu support page for my mobo which one do yall think is best for price vs. performance? http://www.asrock.co...p?Model=A770DE+

Edited by AllYourF0rt, 10 April 2012 - 05:07 AM.

[Rofltroll]

You don't need 6 cores for gaming really, but if you want it then it can't really hurt. It is indeed the better chip and the more cores you have the better if you plan on multitasking, but you said to stick under 400 so i stayed under 400 in order to give you the best card for the money; and DDR 2 isn't really slower than DDR 3. It has less frequency but that means it has tighter timings(if you plan on seriously overclocking the RAM only then will you see the difference between DDR3 and DDR2 but the memories that will actually make the difference are just too expensive and are just not worth it since it won't matter for gaming almost at all). It's just more expensive but the 4 GB DDR2 you have now will tear through any game easy.

You won't get a bottleneck on your 560Ti 448 from either the 6 core or the 4 core CPU (since most games use 2 - 4 cores) at 1080p.

Edit: forgot some punctuation.

Edited by Rofltroll, 10 April 2012 - 05:57 AM.

[vandreadstriker]

You won't need 6 cores for gaming. Better get the Phenom II X4 965BE instead and OC it to 970/higher speeds. Or get the OEM version of the 975BE if you have an aftermarket cooler and don't mind very short warranty (you're voiding your warranty with Overclocking it anyway)

I always say that the 560Ti-448 isn't worth the price difference over the 570. With $15 more then the 560Ti-448 you'll get a 570 even after MIR. People say that their performance are really close to each other but if you look closely, the 560Ti-448 is nowhere near the 570 when comparing clock per clock. Plus the 570 is a hell of an overclocker so even an overclocked 560Ti-448 won't come close to an overclocked 570.
I'll agree to the 560Ti-448 if you can't afford the extra $15 but really, you're getting a comparably lower performance for that $15 difference.
Other then the price difference, the only logical reason in choosing the 560Ti-448 that I can think of is that some of them has free BF3 coupons like this Gigabyte one or the one Rofltroll mentioned. This really saves money (considering that the BF3 is ~$40 alone) and could really make the 560Ti-448 worth the money considering how much you'd save.
Both the 560Ti-448 and 570 would run BF3 on High-Ultra just fine. The only reason I'm against the 560Ti-448 is really because of that $15 difference.

If you plan on getting the 570, I'd recommend the Gigabyte GTX570OC I used as the examples above. It's a good card with great cooler and at a very attractive price ($289.99 after $20 MIR )
If you want to stick with the 560Ti-448, I'd recommend the Gigabyte GTX560Ti-448OC. It's essentially the same as the 570 counterpart (same PCB, design, Cooler, etc.) but with the 560Ti-448 chip. Again, good card, great cooler and a very very price since you get a free BF3 coupon.

Or you could get a 7850 for a cheaper price then both of them + a free (sadly not BF3) Dirt3 coupon with them. It performs in between the 560Ti-448 and 570 but supposedly runs cooler and more efficient then the other cards.
Sapphire HD7850 - $249.99

[AllYourF0rt]

Ok guys thanks for the input it's been helpfull yeah i'll go with the x4 965 BE I have a Hyper 212+ cooler so I should be able to oc pretty well. More than likely i'll get the 570 i'm leaning towards EVGA cause of their lifetime warranty. So I really don't need to get 4 more gb of ram. I have 64 bit Windows 7 and it recognizes 8 gb im pretty sure but will it make a difference in games?

[El_Capitan]

If you're intent to upgrade your CPU + Motherboard, then definitely go for SB or IB with at least an i3 2100 (with the option to upgrade to a faster and overclocking CPU in the future). The i5 2500K is a solid pick in price, stock gaming performance, and overclockability.

I had one occurrence where my fiance's 1090T had a weird issue where it was only using 2 cores and was at 1800MHz. I was running benchmarks with a GTX 560 Ti and it was horrible. Once I fixed the issue and it was using 6 cores at 4.0GHz, difference was night and day.

At any rate, always choose a gaming card first for a gaming upgrade. Everyone's suggestions so far have been pretty good. You get no benefits with RAM in games. Stick with 4GB.

[AllYourF0rt]

Cool yeah i'll get a new card first probably this http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814127582 it already has a very nice stock oc and i've heard is one of the faster 570's. One more question should I pay a little more for a 570 with 2gb of vram or does it really even matter? I am only running one monitor 60hz at 1920x1080.

[El_Capitan]

Stick with 1.2GB VRAM for your gaming resolution. More doesn't help except in some minor cases with certain games with the highest game settings and certain high resolution texture packs. Definitely not worth it.

[vandreadstriker]

Cool yeah i'll get a new card first probably this http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814127582 it already has a very nice stock oc and i've heard is one of the faster 570's. One more question should I pay a little more for a 570 with 2gb of vram or does it really even matter? I am only running one monitor 60hz at 1920x1080.

Couldn't have chosen a better card
The TFIII cooler is one if the best cooler I've known to date. It has the same cooling ability and low noise as the ASUS 2.5 slot DCII. Hell of an overclocker too.
As long as there's 1GB of VRAM, you'll be fine on 1920x1080. More VRAM wouldn't make much difference unless you go for a bigger resolution.