Time to upgrade the PC, looking for second opinions

[Gennah]

With my internet being in the sorry state that it is, I'd like my singleplayer gaming experience to be a bit sharper than what my hardware can currently bring to the table. As of now, I'm looking to at the very least outgrow my Radeon 6670 to something with a bit more kick, and I'm prepared to upgrade whatever would be required for the new GPU.

I'm looking at the 560ti because I've heard decent things about it and it's at a decent price right now. I'll post my main specs below, and would appreciate some advice on priority upgrades. My (ideal) price range is from $250 to a max of $400.

Motherboard : Asus M4N68T-M-V2

RAM : 4Gb

GPU : Radeon 6670

CPU : AMD Phenom II X4 965

Cheers for any advice, I'm hoping to see more than 15 frames in the Skyrim opening on max settings.

[Mooseman9]

Cheers for any advice, I'm hoping to see more than 15 frames in the Skyrim opening on max settings.

Holy hell, my computer can barely handle Skyrim on it's lowest settings.

[Gennah]

Holy hell, my computer can barely handle Skyrim on it's lowest settings.

Well now I feel like a spoiled child complaining his new toy isn't shiny enough. Although I feel that my god-forsaken connection may even the score between our setups.

Edit: On second thought, you win.

[Cota]

You could just upgrade the Video card and top your motherboard to 8GB since your CPU is fine, so unless you want USB 3.0, Sata 3.0 or some other upgrade apart or you just want more than 8GB of ram its still a very nice PC

[Gennah]

You could just upgrade the Video card and top your motherboard to 8GB since your CPU is fine, so unless you want USB 3.0, Sata 3.0 or some other upgrade apart or you just want more than 8GB of ram its still a very nice PC

That was the direction I was leaning, I certainly don't have any problems with the hardware other then the GPU, and I've been planning on grabbing 8Gb since purchase.

[Mooseman9]

Well now I feel like a spoiled child complaining his new toy isn't shiny enough.

Heh, I can imagine that, especially now when parents cater to their child's every whim.

"Mommy I want a new toy!"

"But why?"

"This one doesn't sparkle."

[Cota]

I use an i7 thats like 15% more powerful, and i see no point in chanching it, most of softwares and games dont actually "can" use all the juice.

[Gennah]

I'm certainly not a person who lives and breaths for maxed out graphical fidelity, but I'd be happy to be able to run most games in 1080 with "medium-ish" settings without the drops that I currently experience. It's not the looks that frustrate me, it's when the actual playing experience is being noticeably restricted.

[Xylord]

4 GB may be enough for most of the stuff, but if you like multi-tasking (Like I do) I'd go ahead and try to get to at least 8GB of that RAM.

[LogicChip10]

I have an AMD Phenom II X4 955 @3.20GHz, 8GB DDR3 ram, and a Nvidia GeForce GT430. It works great for Minecraft but the GPU is not that good at all... however MC (technic) runs well with the extra ram. I would say spring for more ram. Also just out of curiosity what FPS are you getting in MC?

[Gennah]

Brand new technic world w/ fast graphics w/ far render distance I'm looking at about 38FPS.

My main technic world with one quarry nearby and quite a long BD pipe system about 34FPS.

Both done standing still, in practice I've been experiencing some major frame drops at odd intervals, haven't bothered troubleshooting that yet.

[Sacrieur]

You can get a 560 ti off of newegg for 40% off today or tomorrow, link here, I would totally go for it, because that's the same price I bought my Radeon 6870 for, and it out performs it by quite a bit.

I think that handles your bottleneck quite well. Also, are you interested in getting a SSD and what is your power supply?

[secondopinions]

SecondOpinions.com

[Gennah]

You can get a 560 ti off of newegg for 40% off today or tomorrow, link here, I would totally go for it, because that's the same price I bought my Radeon 6870 for, and it out performs it by quite a bit.

I think that handles your bottleneck quite well. Also, are you interested in getting a SSD and what is your power supply?

I'm on the fence about an SSD, at this point I'm not considering it a priority upgrade. I missed the boat on your specific card, but there's another 560ti on sale for roughly the same price that I'm going to grab. The maximum on my power supply is 600 watt, so I should be fine for a 560.

[Cheap Shot]

There is no reason skyrim should run poorly on a half decent machine. Your desire for wanting to upgrade is valid. I'll be upgrading in the next month as well.

[Sacrieur]

Well from here on you should be cruising along just fine, a SSD would be your next big performance upgrade, though.

[LogicChip10]

Well from here on you should be cruising along just fine, a SSD would be your next big performance upgrade, though.

Sorry but I have to disagree. The SSD has got to be the biggest waste of money anyone coul get.

Pros of an SSD:

• Faster (one of its main selling points)
  
• Eco Friendly (maybe)
  
• Compact
  

Cons of an SSD:

• Life Span is terrible (1 to 2 years max)
  
• Expensive (for the amount you pay for the space)
  

Pros of an [Fat] HD:

• More space for the money (I think 1.5TB to 2TB costs maybe $100 to $110)
  
• Life Span is good (my 1TB (primary) and 2TB (secondary) are going 3 years strong) - most of my fat HD's last 6 years plus as long as you buy a decent brand and take care of it.
  

Cons of a [Fat] HD:

• More damage prone (if you drop it there is a good chance you have just murdered it)
  
• Fat they are big and take up space.
  
• Slower (on the flip side: my computer boots into Windows in 7 seconds and is ready)
  

Final thoughts: granted they both have there PROS and CONS but at the end of the day the [Fat] HD is more cost effective and overall better in my opinion.

[Xylord]

Sorry but I have to disagree. The SSD has got to be the biggest waste of money anyone coul get.

Pros of an SSD:

• Faster (one of its main selling points)
  
• Eco Friendly (maybe)
  
• Compact
  

Cons of an SSD:

• Life Span is terrible (1 to 2 years max)
  
• Expensive (for the amount you pay for the space)
  

Pros of an [Fat] HD:

• More space for the money (I think 1.5TB to 2TB costs maybe $100 to $110)
  
• Life Span is good (my 1TB (primary) and 2TB (secondary) are going 3 years strong) - most of my fat HD's last 6 years plus as long as you buy a decent brand and take care of it.
  

Cons of a [Fat] HD:

• More damage prone (if you drop it there is a good chance you have just murdered it)
  
• Fat they are big and take up space.
  
• Slower (on the flip side: my computer boots into Windows in 7 seconds and is ready)
  

Final thoughts: granted they both have there PROS and CONS but at the end of the day the [Fat] HD is more cost effective and overall better in my opinion.

In usual, people get a big HD for storing all their data, and a small SSD with it, only for the start up operations and the software, so your computer starts fast but you still have a lot of space for not too much cash. I'd say that's a good compromise.

[Sacrieur]

SSDs are actually quite reliable, they had a rocky start with fail rates due to bad controllers, but getting a solid intel one will probably last you longer than a HDD, or comparatively.

The only con is that they're more expensive, but the speed increase is well worth it.

[LogicChip10]

Really you can't wait 7 damn seconds? (that is starting up from a Fat HD)

[Sacrieur]

I don't know of a SATA HDD that can boot in less than fourteen seconds.

In any case, you'd be hard pressed to find a HDD that can transfer more than 150 MB/s, comparing to the 6 Gb/s offered by modern SSDs. HDDs are completely out of their league. And with the prices dropping, it won't be long until HDDs are phased out completely.

[Xylord]

Really you can't wait 7 damn seconds? (that is starting up from a Fat HD)

Nice try, but nope. I bought a computer four months ago, and even when it was clear, it never boot up in less than a solid 15 seconds, and now that I use it, it's even more. I don't like macs at all, for various reasons, but my mom's macbook SSD is filled with stuff at 75%, and it boots up in about 4 seconds, ready to go.

[LogicChip10]

What do you mean nice try? I have no reason to lie. My computer boots up in 7 seconds flat. I guess you guys are just loading you computers with bloatware and Sacrieur Fat's are not going away anytime time soon. We still have CD's which have been around since 1982. It is kind of sad seeing people will throw money at anything just because it is faster (and the life span is absolute sh*t compared to the old). Just a bunch of impatient pricks.

[Sacrieur]

Who still uses CDs?

How about we test your claim with Soluto.

It takes me 14 seconds to boot up essentials (13 seconds without Soluto), and 20 seconds with various "bloatware" like my video card driver and dropbox. A HDD isn't coming anywhere near these speeds. Even a 15k RPM cheetah SCSI drive won't touch them.

Right now you can get an Intel 240 GB SSD, Sata III for $250, that's $1.04 per GB. Compare this to January when they were twice that much. They're dropping in price, fast.

[Xylord]

What do you mean nice try? I have no reason to lie. My computer boots up in 7 seconds flat. I guess you guys are just loading you computers with bloatware and Sacrieur Fat's are not going away anytime time soon. We still have CD's which have been around since 1982. It is kind of sad seeing people will throw money at anything just because it is faster (and the life span is absolute sh*t compared to the old). Just a bunch of impatient pricks.

Damn, no need to start throwing words at each other, we're talking about computer components. XD

I'm going to try Sacrieur's soft, might be I can get a better boot.