Upgrade Advice for 2nd Gen System for 4K Gaming

[SOOMRO]

Hello guys. I need ur advice for my rig. I currently owns 2nd Gen i5 2400 with r9 265. My system is 3 year old & working fine till now. Now i got some decent amount to upgrade my rig & plz don't compare product price wise as i am from pakistan so price tag are different here.

I am willing to buy a 4k monitor in next couple of months so i am willing to play games at 4k with medium settings. Now i have some questions for u guys?

1)Should i upgrade my rig or my card?
2)If u say rig then should i wait for intel 6th Gen skylake( Z170 Chip, 14nm Pro & DDR4) or go for 4th Gen Haswell Refresh Z97?
2)If u say card then which is better R9 390 or Gtx 970 for future medium setting 4k gaming .

[Meladath]

1. Depends how much you have to spend... I would say just the card, see if you can get a second hand 2500k and a CPU cooler, put that in and overclock it.
2. Obviously wait, if you are going to upgrade, its coming out in a couple of weeks, even if its not faster it will most likely be a better buy anyway
3. 390 without a doubt (like really, its a REAL no brainer), it performs almost as well as a 980 at 4K. Although I wouldn't recommend playing at 4k with that computer. I would go 1440p instead, you could have much higher settings and overall it would most likely look nicer than 4k medium settings.

[SOOMRO]

1)I got to enough budget to upgrade any one from both either card or rig.
2)I own DH611WW & it doesn't support overclocking if i am not wrong, that means i have to change the whole rig which i guess not a better option then upgrading to skylake/Z97.
3)Thats actually my future concern as i currently owns a 1080p monitor & willing to buy a 4k one after this upgrade.

Now what u advise?

[KeyboardDemon]

I can't answer the question in terms of Z97 vs Z170 simply because there are no reliable sources of information available on the new Skylake CPUs, what I would say though is that it makes sense to go for an i5 over an i7.

Given that you are asking about a GTX970 vs R9 390 suggests that you are looking for a tier 2 gaming GPU and if you are planning to buy for 4k gaming then I would suggest that you look at the 8GB R9 390 and not the 3.5GB/4GB GTX970 as the bigger frame buffer should perform better at higher resolutions, however I would check on Anandtech before splashing out to get that confirmed independently.

[SOOMRO]

I can't answer the question in terms of Z97 vs Z170 simply because there are no reliable sources of information available on the new Skylake CPUs, what I would say though is that it makes sense to go for an i5 over an i7.

Given that you are asking about a GTX970 vs R9 390 suggests that you are looking for a tier 2 gaming GPU and if you are planning to buy for 4k gaming then I would suggest that you look at the 8GB R9 390 and not the 3.5GB/4GB GTX970 as the bigger frame buffer should perform better at higher resolutions, however I would check on Anandtech before splashing out to get that confirmed independently.

So what u advise? Should I upgrade the RIG first or the CARD

[Mr.Pie]

So what u advise? Should I upgrade the RIG first or the CARD

If you were going the rig route I would say just go for Z97......new platform launches can often start with buggy bios's and other small niggling stability issues.

Well to put it simply which would you rather desire?

If you wait a tad bit longer 390 prices might drop a bit as tech trickles down. If you intend to go 4k def go for AMD rather than the 970 because of the 3.5Gb VRAM. Although DX12 may help with the VRAM usage we don't know when the first games implementing it will launch and how well it'll work. Or at least not that I've read of yet.

[Chugz]

I really wouldn't suggest 4K in Pakistan. The prices are higher than a lot of places. 4K technology is really early and will only get cheaper over time.

Your best upgrade is to stay at 1080p or 1440p and to buy a GTX 970; which should be around 42000 PKR. The R9 390 will produce a lot of heat, and is equal performance at 1080p and 1440p. This will also give you money to upgrade your rig too. I don't understand the economy of Pakistan fully, so I can't recommend a motherboard, but I will suggest getting an i5-4690K, 2x4GB of DDR3 RAM and a GTX 970. Also a 1080p or 1440p monitor. You will have to reply and tell me what motherboards you think fit into your budget. You should also buy a bigger hard drive I think.

[SOOMRO]

I really wouldn't suggest 4K in Pakistan. The prices are higher than a lot of places. 4K technology is really early and will only get cheaper over time.

Your best upgrade is to stay at 1080p or 1440p and to buy a GTX 970; which should be around 42000 PKR. The R9 390 will produce a lot of heat, and is equal performance at 1080p and 1440p. This will also give you money to upgrade your rig too. I don't understand the economy of Pakistan fully, so I can't recommend a motherboard, but I will suggest getting an i5-4690K, 2x4GB of DDR3 RAM and a GTX 970. Also a 1080p or 1440p monitor. You will have to reply and tell me what motherboards you think fit into your budget. You should also buy a bigger hard drive I think.

Right Now I got enough budget to buy one, either Card or Update Rig. Yes ur right about heat issues of team red & that is why i am now considering to stick with my r9 265 & update the my rig to intel skylake when it release here(Probably Oct/Nov). I can go with Z97 but i think its better to wait for latest Tech as intel Z170 supports both DDR3 & DDR4 and it will be little more future proof too.
What u say?

[Chugz]

I suggest, if you can, to get a 1440p monitor and a GTX 970, along with a Z97 setup. DDR4 is not much quicker, and Skylake is only a little bit quicker. You will be able to overclock the i5-4690K which will last you at least 5 years. The 970 will be perfect for 1440p for years to come.

[Obie]

If you are definitely going 4K then you could get by with the i5 2400 and a new GPU but definitely not a new processor and your current GPU. I honestly think you should get the R9 390 as the extra VRAM will really pay off (look how VRAM usage has gone up in the last year alone, 8gb vs 3.5gb). As for heat, the new 300 series is a lot cooler than the 200 series?
One more thing to add.. The 290x tops the 970 at 4K, the 390 tops the 290x at 4K.. so I would not recommend the 970 at all for your needs.
I say GPU now, wait and decide after skylake if you want/need a processor.

[SOOMRO]

Now one thing is clear to me that 4K requires a lot of horse power & jumping to 1440p from FHD is a better option right now.
1)Now which card is overall better at 1440p resolution?
2)Which is better Gsyn/Freesyn?