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Thread: Upgrade CPU or gpu?

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    Upgrade CPU or gpu?

    Hi I'm looking to treat my system to a boost. Currently running amd fx6200 oc'd to 4.5ghz 16gb ram on a sabertooth 990 fx board. And zotac 580gtx standard model.

    Not sure what CPU I would go for but it would be amd as i want to keep the motherboard and ram.

    Gpu I would be looking at GeForce 770 gtx.

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    Moosing about! CAT-THE-FIFTH's Avatar
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    Re: Upgrade CPU or gpu?

    What games do you intend to run?? What PSU do you have??

    TBH,I would wait until the AMD R9 is launched in two weeks time,as it could lead to price cuts on the current Nvidia GPUs.

    If you want to upgrade now,the HD7970 is what I would get:

    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-m...mhz-2048-cores
    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-a...dp-dvi-d-dvi-i
    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-a...2xdl-dvi-plusf

    These all run at 1GHZ to 1.05GHZ which means they are around HD7970GE level performance.

    What CPU cooler do you have??

    An overclocked FX8320 or an FX8350 would be a good upgrade in games like BF4:

    http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/http...-bf_4_proz.jpg

    You could probably get an FX8320 and an HD7970 for around £350.

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    Re: Upgrade CPU or gpu?

    Those components are not weak by all means but I would say GPU over CPU.
    A HD7970 would be a hefty upgrade, specially if you choose a model with good cooling.
    Wonder if the new AMD GPU release will drive down the prices of AMD cards as well...the two weeks would be beneficial either way then.
    Or I heard that some of the new AMD cards will have BF4 as bundle.

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    Re: Upgrade CPU or gpu?

    Quote Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH View Post
    What games do you intend to run?? What PSU do you have??

    TBH,I would wait until the AMD R9 is launched in two weeks time,as it could lead to price cuts on the current Nvidia GPUs.

    If you want to upgrade now,the HD7970 is what I would get:

    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-m...mhz-2048-cores
    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-a...dp-dvi-d-dvi-i
    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-a...2xdl-dvi-plusf

    These all run at 1GHZ to 1.05GHZ which means they are around HD7970GE level performance.

    What CPU cooler do you have??

    An overclocked FX8320 or an FX8350 would be a good upgrade in games like BF4:

    http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/http...-bf_4_proz.jpg

    You could probably get an FX8320 and an HD7970 for around £350.
    I have 800w psu can't remember which but it decent. Also I have a be quiet dark rock CPU cooler.
    I'm playing coh 2 bf4 when it's out. Arma 3 etc. and hopefully dayz standalone when it is eventually released.

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    Re: Upgrade CPU or gpu?

    gpu and an ssd

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    Re: Upgrade CPU or gpu?

    The 580GTX is on the same level of 6970 (maybe a bit better). I still use one and it runs most of the games on high settings.

    I would wait with the 7970 a bit because AMD will release the new series (in a few days) which will inevitably push the older gen prices down (even further).

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    Re: Upgrade CPU or gpu?

    Your current setup is by no means a slouch, I'd be tempted to look at spending money on other things (SSD, monitor, keyboard, mouse, headphones, speakers etc).

    But if you're set on upgrading your CPU or GPU, I'd go with GPU, although as others have said, may be worth waiting for a short while as AMD have some new stuff coming very soon which may affect prices

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    Re: Upgrade CPU or gpu?

    Quote Originally Posted by ehhhhhhh View Post
    ... I would wait with the 7970 a bit because AMD will release the new series (in a few days) which will inevitably push the older gen prices down (even further).
    While I generally agree with the sentiment in this post, if you read round this forum the general consensus is that the new card with the closest performance to the 7970 will come in at about the same price as a 7970 currently is. So I can't see the 7970 price dropping much more, otherwise it will cannibalise sales of the new second rank card (that'll be the R9 280X when it lands)

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    Re: Upgrade CPU or gpu?

    Quote Originally Posted by scaryjim View Post
    While I generally agree with the sentiment in this post, if you read round this forum the general consensus is that the new card with the closest performance to the 7970 will come in at about the same price as a 7970 currently is. So I can't see the 7970 price dropping much more, otherwise it will cannibalise sales of the new second rank card (that'll be the R9 280X when it lands)
    True, but you might be able to get the snazzy whizz bang editions for the same price as reference new ones (look at 670/760 pricing for example).

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    Re: Upgrade CPU or gpu?

    Quote Originally Posted by scaryjim View Post
    While I generally agree with the sentiment in this post, if you read round this forum the general consensus is that the new card with the closest performance to the 7970 will come in at about the same price as a 7970 currently is. So I can't see the 7970 price dropping much more, otherwise it will cannibalise sales of the new second rank card (that'll be the R9 280X when it lands)
    Because the 7xxx series will be end of life (with limited availability when the new ones appear), in my experience no matter what, the price of the old gen drops without exception. This not applies for some old/stuck stock, but those are barely get sold (even scan has some older HW with such high price that no one in their right mind willing to purchase).

    For example I got some very nice deals on 5870/5850s (around 100ish) when 6xxx came to the market. It's not a huge amount to save, but it could be worthwhile for some.

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    Re: Upgrade CPU or gpu?

    Thanks for all the replies i will wait for these new cards to come out and see what happens. Im in no rush to get anything. As far as spending the money else where goes i have decent monitor, mouse keyboard etc. Not too fussy about ssd's as i run veliciraptors and find these to be speedy enough for my needs.

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    Re: Upgrade CPU or gpu?

    An average SSD will wipe the floor with the raptors.

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    Re: Upgrade CPU or gpu?

    Depending on how much you want to spend you could jump the CPU to th FX8350 and the graphics card up. That's up to you. What you are running should handle most of the newer games that are coming out.

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    Re: Upgrade CPU or gpu?

    Just for gaming I would recommend upgrading the GPU as most current games don't utilise the maximum computing power of CPUs.

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    Re: Upgrade CPU or gpu?

    If you want to upgrade from that go 7970, prices are nice if you can find some cheap ones. Or jump all the way to a GTX 780

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