Additional Custom Build Upgrades Help

[MrMii Win 7]

I had built my first custom PC back in July, and I admit I was excited. Got all the parts (plus my old HDD and peripherals), put it together, and after a total of 18 hours, that includes troubleshooting boot problems, it was finished and ran fine. I reinstalled my copy of Skyrim and Dust: An Elysian Tail to do some performance tests. They were... a lot worse than I expected. Only ten more frames in Skyrim (still had play low settings), and I think worse FPS in Dust than with my old 256MB GPU. This new one is 2GB. Should've done more research before purchasing the parts, as I got a DDR3 GPU and the CPU cost more than it. My initial budget was only $400, but I'm looking into upgrading the GPU, but not spend more $250-300 on a replacement. Preferably one with GDDR5 memory and 4GB or more. I'd also be willing to upgrade the PSU, which is currently 500W. Can anyone give me a few pointers? :huh: (Only one PCIe x16) Here's the list of parts, I can list the individual links if needed. (This machine was meant to be for modern games, I had in mind a GeForce GTX 750 Ti, but I'm open to suggestions)

MrMii-CustomPC - Saved Part Lists - PCPartPicker

 

[N00berG00ber]

if u can afford a 970, thats the sweet spot for a GPU on a budget

 

[AddRAM]

Ya, you really got to step up to a 970, 980 or 980 Ti

EVGA - Products - Graphics

You should also have windows on a solid state drive.

SSD 850 EVO 2.5" SATA III 250GB | Samsung Solid State Drives

and I`d say more memory too, double it.

Dominator® Platinum Series — 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3 DRAM 1866MHz C9 Memory Kit (CMD16GX3M4A1866C9)

Start saving today

 

[MrMii Win 7]

If not a 750 Ti, I did plan on a 970 or higher, as my mom said (she basically controls what big ticket items I can purchase, sadly. I'm not a spend thrift, buuuuuut...yeah) I could spend it how I like because it's my money. Now I did do some research regarding those 970+ cards and found they lack a native VGA. (My current monitor is VGA only) I'd have to get a new monitor, but that isn't too big of a deal because I'm sick of a max res of 1680x1050... But regarding the power requirements of the cards, some require a 400 or even 500 watt power supply minimum, so would you say I should get like maybe a 750-800w PSU to replace it? And I didn't install Windows to an SSD because (although fast) they're way expensive per GB, and combining all the space taken up from my five partitions, it's way over 250GB, and I've already moved some partitions back and forth between internal and external. (Not that I can't do it again) Also regarding the RAM, isn't 8GB enough? I guess I could try souping it up to at least 12, but I'm mainly focused on the GPU. I'm certain that's where I'm bottle-necking.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
DVI to VGA adapters usually come with the card if not they are pretty cheap.

 

[AddRAM]

Then concentrate on the card.

EVGA - Products - Graphics - GeForce 900 Series Family - GTX 970

A 650 to 750 watt PSU will be more then plenty for a single 970.

EVGA - Products - EVGA SuperNOVA 650 P2 Power Supply - 220-P2-0650-X1

EVGA - Products - EVGA SuperNOVA 750 P2 Power Supply - 220-P2-0750-X1

I recommend the 750 P2

 

[MrMii Win 7]

I think I may have a DVI to VGA adapter, but I'm still considering an HDMI monitor. And the PSU I'll look into upgrading as well. Still thinking over all of this, nothing is set in stone yet. (And even though two 970s+ would be lovely, especially in SLI, I'm not willing to get a whole new board right now only for an extra PCIe x16. Getting everything to work this time was frustrating enough, but then again, I didn't know about sysprep then. Off topic but I thought I'd mention that)

 

[ThrashZone]

Not many games if any use more than 3gb so just a single 980ti would have a lot of room to grow

 

[AddRAM]

I don`t see him spending that kind of money for a card.

Especially with that board and cpu.

Any card you buy will come with a VGA adapter, as long as the card has a DVI port, and most have at least 1

My 980 Ti IO plate

 

[ThrashZone]

Yep never say never
I'm putting a EVGA GTX980 Hybrid on a 6 y.o. Acer WG43M
1-4gb card is better than 2-2gb sli as far as I know.

 

[AddRAM]

Oh ya, definitley

 

[MrMii Win 7]

If it doesn't come with an adapter I'd have to get one, the only one that I have is used with my mom's computer. I would maybe spend the money on two 970s or 980s, but I don't have two slots. But I'd probably spend enough to grab a single 980. I wouldn't necessarily do this next thing as I'd be pissed if I ended up damaging it, but would you recommend overclocking my CPU with standard fan cooling, even just up 1/10 of a GHz? (3.5 > 3.6) That wouldn't help much in my games as far as my tests go, as I've tried Skyrim in Low and Ultra and the CPU usage was barely different w/o an overclock. (This was on a Core 2 Duo with a 256MB V-Card, if that can be compared to this new machine) Or would performance differ?

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
OC'ing a cpu using a GT 610 is insane
OC the card but ultimately the little card has to go to get anything relevant as far as improvements
The cpu is not the real problem besides being a AMD that is

 

[MrMii Win 7]

I realize that Intel CPUs have better performance (right?) but I saw that the AMDs were significantly cheaper (PCPartPicker anyway) so I picked one of those up. I wasn't doing much research when I picked the card (totally forgot about memory types like GDDR5 at the time) so when I tested it, I was disappointed but wasn't kicking myself for it. I realize I made a mistake on the card... But it got me started, soooooo yeah... But tbh I haven't had any issues of high CPU usage, even while playing games. icnic:

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Yep gpu's are a mystery
All state the fastest blah.......

CPU is personal preference but yes Intel rules and so does NVidia but they will set you back a tad bit

 

[MrMii Win 7]

I prefer NVIDIA to any of the Radeons, or whatever the other company calls them now, but I had always been told that if you want a powerful CPU, you don't get an Intel. I didn't choose my CPU based on that, as I was just looking for at least a hex core with 3+GHz that was preferably less than 100. (And this one was it at 95 xD) I personally have no problems with either. Is the GTX 980 Ti still on the table? Because even though OCing my current card would probably provide some benefit, it probably wouldn't matter much since it's a DDR3 memory type.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Yea 980ti is on the table if you want it there
Your psu though is boarder line actually 100w lower than the minimum which is 600w
EVGA - Product Specs - EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+

This one a 500w should be okay
EVGA - Product Specs - EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Classified ACX 2.0

 

[MrMii Win 7]

I'd probably just upgrade to at least a 750w, did find a 850w for like ten more, so I'll be browsing through them yet. If 980 prices don't drop, I'm going with a 970.

 

[AddRAM]

Who`s brand ?

Post a link.

 

[ThrashZone]

EVGA's site rarely drops prices first I've noticed
Newegg/ Amazon drop prices first so just sign up for email alerts for sells events and you should get something as a based reduction purchases

You can also get alerts on specific products and add them to your wish list
I usually just bookmark a product and check on it everyday
I waited quite a while for my ASUS 980 20th anniversary gold to drop from 750.us to 618.us and snatched it up

Also got a EVGA 980 hybrid for 599.99 2-3 months before EVGA finally dropped the prices
Both I bought from Newegg