Hi guys, im looking to upgrade my system to keep in touch with some of the newer games on the market and a general speed up. Current system specs: PSU: Corsair HX850W Motherboard: Gigabyte EX58-UD3R CPU: Intel Core i7 920 @ 4Ghz CPU Cooler: Thermalright Ultra-120 Memory: G.Skill Trident 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 (Running @ 2000Mhz) Graphics: EVGA GeForce GTX 295 Co-Op Superclocked 1792MB GDDR3 Chassis: Antec 902 HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g105/DrewBear11/pcspecs_zpsd265c762.png I don't believe i need to build a completely new system, although i appreciate that is some old hardware in there. I was thinking of fitting an SSD: http://www.ebuyer.com/410474-samsung-256gb-840-pro-series-ssd-mz-7pd256bw To have my OS & games on, and keep my existing 1TB storage drive - should give me a good general speed up. Also a new gfx card, pretty keen to keeping with nvidia, to help me with some of the newer games on the market: http://www.ebuyer.com/407876-evga-g...ual-dvi-hdmi-displayport-pci-e-02g-p4-3662-kr Any ideas or suggestions guys I must admit i haven't done a lot of research into parts yet, but any suggestions or recommendations will be much appreciated **Disclaimer - i am very out of the loop with the latest hardware - so bear with me Thanks Drew
What budget have you got for a graphic's card, because you would be better going for a 4Gb card if possible. The ssd will be fine as well.
Since when can you buy a 4gb 660ti? The 3gb is a waste of money as the card does not have enough grunt to run games at max any higher than 1920 x 1080 anyway. Ill assume you actually have £235 to spend a 7950 can be had for this money. ( http://www.ebuyer.com/434549-xfx-hd...-dvi-hdmi-mini-displayport-pci-e-fx-795a-tdjc £225) Its alot faster than a 660ti in most games at 1920x1080 and comes with 3gb of memory which is nice as its actually fast enough to make use of it. The cheapest 660ti 3gb is £260 and its not £35 better than a 7950 its worse in most games. ( BF3 excluded) 7950 is pretty much around 670 performance with driver updates been what they are now. if your budget is bigger a 7970 is £300 ish the cheapest 670 with 4gb of ram is £360 the ghz edition of the 7970 is £330 ish. ( 7970 ghz is faster than a 680 in most games.) Nvidia are kinda uncompetitive if you can tolerate AMD drivers ( I personally cant but thats just me)
I was going to add the drivers thing. I have a 670 and a 7970 but something just feels nicer the way the 670 runs, sounds wishy washy but there's something there that I can pick up on as soon as I swap machines.
I've been doing some reading and the Gigabyte 660Ti seems to be the best performer whilst not making too much noise. http://www.ebuyer.com/407084-gigaby...dmi-displayport-pci-e-graphics-gv-n660toc-2gd Does this seem to be a good option to you gents ? Not overly interested in moving to AMD, call me a fanboy, but there we are.
I've been doing some reading and my mother board (gigabyte EX58-UD3R) Supports both SLI & Crossfire. I guess the 660TI v 7950 debate rages on, as in future if i feel the need i could slip another card in. The extra gb of graphics memory is appealing on the 7950, but the 660TI has higher clocker speeds. I must admit im still leaning towards the 7950.
This sounds like very bad advice to me. Do we even know the res of his monitor? Why do you think 4GB would be better, especially when most games no don't even use 2GB at 1080p.
660ti clocks are not relivent in its speed. The 7950 beats a 670 in most tests now a days with AMDs updated drivers. I'm not AMD fanboy one of the biggest people against them according to many but the 7950 is easily the best value card on the market at this moment. 660ti for me is £30-£40 to much for what it offers especially the 3gb version.
I must admit im pretty much sold on the 7950 cards now, i will cry if i have driver problems though. I've been reading into my board details and its a SATAII board, will this hold me back on performance with the SSD ? Even if it does, i appreciate that i can bring the SSD into a future build. Didn't realise that the Gigabyte EX58-UD3R can run up to 16gb of RAM, i've currently got G.Skill Trident 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 (Running @ 2000Mhz). Would it be worth me batching some new ram in there to get to 16GB ? I dont think ive ever managed to use all 6GB when gaming though !
So i had the resource manager up on my second monitor while playing CODII & CSS & CS:GO today..... Didn't use over 3Gb of RAM, so i'll knock that on the head ! About to hit the button on the order of the 7950 & the SSD - just debating whether or not to get a smaller SSD, all my games and windows files come to ~150GB, not sure i need another 100GB spare..
