* Budget: I'm really not sure. Probably £1000. Can be flexible if it's worth it. * What that budget needs to include. Base system only. Monitor details below. * What the main uses of the PC will be. I use it for everything. Gaming, video/photo editing, media playback, file servers, web browsing and word processing. I'd like to play the latest games, can't play anything older than Skyrim. Everything is on low these days! * The spec of your current PC and whether you are re-using any parts from it. See sig. Probably not * The native resolution of your monitor. Monitor is an LG204WT https://www.amazon.co.uk/LG-L204WT-Widescreen-Monitor-Tilt/dp/B000IY0F9O which is also on the old side. The LG L204WT is a conventional 20.1-inch TFT screen with a resolution of 1680 x 1050 pixels. Would be looking to upgrade this too but it would be a separate purchase. Open to recommendations. * Whether you will be overclocking or not. I've never tried overclocking so I'd have to say no. Traditional air cooled PC. * How much storage space you require. Higher capacity SSD required (running an 80gb SSD). I have a 1tb drive for storage, which is fine for my needs. * Do you have any special requirements? Low noise as PC is in corner of living room. I've seen on various posts on the forums that it might not be a good time to upgrade. So if it is worth while waiting then I can.
It probably is worth upgrading. Don't listen to the "wait for pascal/polaris" people. From what i've seen, the new cards will have only about a 10% increase in performance or so. Efficiency is greatly increased though. It's still worth getting an upgrade.
Im going to say wait for pascal which is due in a couple weeks now. Im aware there not going to be massively faster as there probably not using HBM2 yet (if they do end up using it you will be kicking your self) but because the 9xx gen is end of line, and running out of stock but still the retailers will not drop the price on them. So your still paying top dollar for something thats old before you install it. I normally say upgrade at whats best for your budget when you can, waiting around for stuff seems silly as there will always be something new round the corner, but with pascal been literally just a couple weeks away if it was my money id just hold off a little.
It's not the increase in performance that people are looking for it's the price reductions. Not that Nvidia give anything away cheap, but mid range Pascal should be cheaper than high end Maxwell.
I doubt that. I think it's going to end up being about the same as the 900 maxwell cards. Nvidia aren't going to release a new chip cheaper than the last generation. I do however think they may have more options, like AMD does.
The 670 and 680 were very reasonably priced cards when they launched. The 980 was expensive, but the 970 was quite affordable and offered great bang for buck. It was nearly level with the 780ti but cost a lot less. If the 1070 follows tradition (and I see no reason why it should not) then it will be the card to have for the masses. Let's say it costs, ooo, £370? and performs the same as a 980ti whilst using less leccy and generating less heat? Nvidia will be onto a winner. Even if the 1080 costs the same as the TI but is faster, more VRAM, less power etc they will still be onto a winner. With these mid range releases it's not the higher tiered card I look forward to it's the lower one that usually does everything its big brother can do for a great price. 1070 is the natural successor to the 970 which is what most (sensible) people bought. And they will buy it if the price is right.
Are you open to self build? I didn't see it mentioned in the post. If that were the case, I would go for: CPU: i5 6600K RAM: 16GB (4*4GB) Corsair Vengeance 2400 GPU: R9 390/ EVGA 970GTX SSD: 500GB Samsung EVO MB: ASUS Z170M-plus PSU: 620W Seasonic EVO plus a quiet CPU fan Case: Micro-Atx/mid tower, whatever looks best with quiet fans All within £900. As far as reusing parts: When I built my current rig 5 years ago I used the power supply from the previous one, however I'll definitely change it next time, even though it is still going strong, because it's now 7 years old and will probably be 8 years old by the time I upgrade. If you like the case and it's quiet keep it. As far as the choice of GPU goes I recommend upper mid range cards rather than 980s+ simply because I got a 570 and everything is still more than playable e.g. the witcher 3. I don't really see the point of spending £100+ extra when even 5 years later they still perform. The £100 you saved could get a larger SSD, more RAM for video and photo editing. As far as wait and see on Polaris/pascal they are only a few months away with the age of your PC I'd say get it immediately, it looks unlikely the performance increase is going to be large enough to warrant months of not being able to play the latest games you're probably itching to play, plus the performance boost in day to day programmes will be large from a Core 2 to a Skylake.
Just dropping by to say thanks for your responses. It's much appreciated. @everyone so pascal/polaris is to do with the GPU? I'm in no rush I guess. My current card can get me by I guess. Current PC is bottlenecking at the processor/RAM. I've put up with a 9 year old PC this long. @supermuchurios that's nice as a starting point, but I'd like to build from scratch. @Disequilibria yes building from scratch. It's the only way for me I'll have a good look later tonight.
So I've postponed my planned build. I'm managed to source a Q9650 processor for £55 which should squeeze some more life out of my current build. I realised that that and my 560ti should be adequate for my steam backlog and Blizzard catalogue, including Overwatch. I do have a question though. Should I reinstall windows when I install the processor? Also i have a stock 775 cooler currently. Should I find a replacement, or will it do?
Never played with a Q9xxx, but have heard good things about them. If your stock cooler is a copper cored one, it may do for starters. You should be able to pick up an inexpensive (<£20) aftermarket tower cooler that will be a much better bet. Save your £ in the meantime, ready for the next gen GPUs, when we know what they are...
Cracking processors, those Yorkfield quads. Get it to 3.8GHz+ (should be easy in your Deluxe with a half decent cooler) and it should see you through your backlog of games. There's no need to reinstall Windows after swapping out the processor.
Agreed, if you were doing a complete motherboard change from one chipset to another then I'd say yes, but not when it's just a chip change. No need at all. If you want to boost your RAM will be having a DDR2 clear out soon, got lots of 4 gig kits to sell off.
Thanks. Looking forward to getting it. It's coming from China but should be okay. Might try overclocking if I can get a good cooler. Will take a wee look later. Give us a shout re those 4gb kits Behemoth
Well a week in and my system has a new lease of life. Overwatch runs great on medium settings. Was choppy on low before. Heroes of the Storm, very low framerate on low, plays smooth on medium. Skyrim looks great with the HD mod installed. This will do me nicely for the forseable.
Just been looking through my RAM stack: 2x2 GB Kingston Hyper X DDR2 800 kit. 4x1 GB Corsair XMS2 - I think this is 800 MHz 4x1 GB Elpeda DDR2 800 If anyone wants any of it I'll create a forsale thread in the members market.