Gaming PC Bottleneck?

[STRBramley]

Hi All,

I'm after a little advise regarding my current 'Gaming' set up. I built my rig in September 2010 so obviously it's in need of some sort of upgrade. I'm just wondering where the biggest performance increase will come from or if it's worth dedicating this machine to be my HTPC and build a new gaming PC.
I tried playing Project Cars but to get decent FPS with good visuals is proving difficult.

Below are the specs. Any advise would be great, thanks :blush:

GFX - Gainward GeForce® GTX 570 1280MB "Golden Sample" Goes Like Hell
Processor - Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail
Mobo - Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard
HDD - OCZ Vertex 2E 60GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G)
RAM - Patriot Viper 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Low Latency Triple Channel (PVT36G1600LLK)

 

[Addicted]

GPU for sure, you still have an i7 so at least have 4 cores (though it's a little on the slow side now), though you might want to think about overclocking it if it isn't already - easily squeeze a lot more power out of it if you have the appropriate cooling to do so.

 

[STRBramley]

GPU for sure, you still have an i7 so at least have 4 cores (though it's a little on the slow side now), though you might want to think about overclocking it if it isn't already - easily squeeze a lot more power out of it if you have the appropriate cooling to do so.

Thanks for the reply. The CPU isn't overclocked so I'll look into that (although I'll also need to look into better cooler as I had to get rid of my H50 cooler due to the size of the new case.)
I was thinking of upgrading to a GTX 780. Would this handle Project Cars or should I go for something a little more powerful?

 

[SharkyUK]

Personally I'd consider a whole system refresh, or building a new gaming PC (but it's easy spending other people's money)... hahaha!

I'd be looking at a faster i7 (people will say i7 is overkill for gaming but, with forthcoming changes to the likes of DX12 and Windows 10, I would recommend an i7). I'd also look to increase RAM to 16GB and something a little faster. As for GPU... it's probably better to jump straight in and get a Maxwell based card so I'd be looking at the 970 or 980 if you can stretch to that.

 

[Goodj]

I'd probably replace it with a PS4.

 

[Ex-User (19928)]

As above really.

I'd just upgrade the GPU and maybe get another 6GB of RAM to bump you up to 12. Depending how much you want to spend, maybe a GTX980 if you're feeling flush, or an AMD 290 if you want to be frugal (still a massive step up from a 570).

I'm trying to hold out and see what Skylake brings, although I've put the Haswell-E six core chip in my Amazon shopping basket quite a few times recently to see how it all adds up...

 

[GiT]

I have 2 questions.

Budget?

Expectations?

 

[Wilkeh]

Just get a GTX 970. That'll do you for a while

 

[GiT]

Slap one of these in... lol

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/12gb...-1000mhz-boost-1075mhz-cores-3072-3x-dp-12-hd

 

[Darren S]

It's certainly worth checking out some of the second-hand LGA1366 i7 CPUs out there. While going for some of the high end six-core versions would not only be overkill, but prices are still in dreamland - the slightly lesser ones (quad-core) are sensible money. That said, I did see a 980 on there for about £85 with several bids, the other day.
I ran the same CPU as you (930) since 2010 on an Asus Rampage III Extreme motherboard. I still have that mobo, but nabbed a 965 Extreme Edition CPU about 18 months ago for £120 inc. delivery. At 3.2Ghz stock - it's a definite step-up from the 930 - and the mobo comes with pre-built settings to switch to 3.6Ghz and 4.0Ghz respectively. I don't think those are particularly optimised however, as I've gained higher benchmarks running the default clocks....

CPU dependency for games has certainly 'eased off' in momentum the last couple of years. I now have two nVidia GTX690's in my case and they easily cope with the current crop of what's out there. Warframe, BF4, Project Cars, etc - all default to Ultra on the settings without any involvement from me.

It might be time for a total rehash in your case. But it can be significantly improved, if the PC still has a decent ground-base to build upon.

 

[Keydogg]

My nephew has that same CPU and went from a 5750 to a GTX 770 and the improvement was massive. Yes it doesn't quite perform the same as it would with a newer CPU but the different for just buying one component was massive.

My advice would be, smack a decent graphics card in there (£150-200) and you'll see a good upgrade, if you want to squeeze a little more out of your system after than then look at CPU/RAM but I'd bet you'd be happy enough with the GPU. Beauty is you don't have to do all 3 at once, unlike if you were coming from a Core 2 Duo system.

 

[STRBramley]

Sorry for not replying in so long. Things have been very busy with moving house last month.
Thanks for all the advice everyone.
From what I've read in this thread it seems it'd be worth upgrading my graphics card and CPU.
@Darren S - You mentioned the 965. Would this be a direct replacement for my CPU?

 

[Darren S]

Sorry for not replying in so long. Things have been very busy with moving house last month.
Thanks for all the advice everyone.
From what I've read in this thread it seems it'd be worth upgrading my graphics card and CPU.
@Darren S - You mentioned the 965. Would this be a direct replacement for my CPU?

Yes m8 - that would be the replacement for yours. Obviously that's just the CPU itself, you'll need a cooler to go on top - unless you have a decent cooler on the 930 already, that you could swap over to?

I was going to confirm that your mobo could take one of the Extreme CPUs. But as the overview of the mobo itself supports a QPI rate of 4.8GT/s and 6.4GT/s - that will definitely work. The 6.4GT/s is the default value of the Extreme Edition CPUs.

Or you could have a slight upgrade in stock clocks in a 975 CPU from the USA? You might get stung with delivery and import taxes though?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intel-Cor...611?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item280158056b

 

[Addicted]

The thing is though, will he actually gain that much? That version of the i7 has long been outranked in the newer ones by quite a large amount (I still have a i7 920 in my spare pc) - if anything he may as well just overclock the one he has (if not already) for free, and put all the money towards a new chipset upgrade later on (imo of course).

 

[Darren S]

The thing is though, will he actually gain that much? That version of the i7 has long been outranked in the newer ones by quite a large amount (I still have a i7 920 in my spare pc) - if anything he may as well just overclock the one he has (if not already) for free, and put all the money towards a new chipset upgrade later on (imo of course).

You're right. On it's own - switching to a 965 would lead to little in the way of a performance hike. Compared like-for-like against the Haswell-E's (especially the 5960X - 8 core & 20MB cache! :tongueout - the 1st gen i7s are quite some distance behind. But chuck one of those 965's in with a decent-ish GFX card and it will still perform well enough.

The first i7's were of 2008 vintage and my Rampage III Extreme is circa 2010. I'm going to see just how long it will hold out - lol.