Would like some advice on a upgrade to my PC

[bassnninja]

here is what I have.

Processor: AMD FX-4300 Processor (3.8GHz)
Chipset: North Bridge AMD 970 & South AMD SB950
Memory: 4GB DDR3-1600 DIMM Memory, Max Capacity of 32GB
Graphics Module: NVIDIA GT620 w/ 1GB DDR3 Video Memory
Hard Drive: 1TB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
Optical Drive: Built-in 24X DVD±RW Drive
Slots: 1x PCI-Express x16 Slot, 1x PCI-Express x4 Slot, 1x PCI-Express x1 Slot
SATA: 4x SATA3 Ports
Audio: SonicMaster 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC
LAN: Integrated Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Interface: 4x USB 3.0 Ports (2 rear, 2 front), 6x USB 2.0 Ports (4 rear, 2 front), 1x RJ45 LAN Port, 1x Headphone, 1x Microphone, 1x 8 Channel Audio
Card Reader: 8-in-1 Card Reader, Supports SD/ SDHC/ SDXC/ MS/ MS Pro/ xD/ MMC/ MMC Plus
Power Supply: 300W
Dimensions (WxDxH): 176.0 x 408.5 x 380.0 inch
Weight: 8.29 kg
Operating System: Windows 8.1

Everythiing is stock, I have not OCed anything.

We(GF and myself) bought this computer 2 months ago on the cheap from frys, with the expectation of upgrading it later(we needed one now for school stuff)


Iv been out of the computer building game(10+ years) for a long time now and I need some help on upgrading it for at least middle of the road gaming. Im not looking for skyrim on ultra settings from anything on this rig. I understand that the mobo is very limited, but we got what we could afford at the time, and it kept her busy : )

But its time for a small to medium upgrade. For the moment Im going to stay with the current mobo.

Should I first replace the CPU or should I first replace the GPU.
Im leaning towards the GPU first, because after reading some reviews stating that upgrading to a fx 6300 or 8320, 8350 really isnt all that much of a speed difference..but Im not sure thats why I came to you guys(gaming experts).

Im also wondering if this CPU is bottlenecking the GPU, but I do not know how to determine this.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

Your worst problem is that horrible office PC graphics card.
And you need better power supply for better card.
Also 4 Gb RAM is really getting too low so 2x4 Gb RAM kit wont hurt too, you probably have some cheap micro-ATX motherboard in there with only two RAM slots so best to just get new 2x4 Gb kit for dual-channel effect and remove the old RAM.

Graphics card, power supply and RAM kit:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/bfRqMp

Measure if you have 10.12" of free room in your case for this graphic card lenght at motherboard graphics card slot. If not then there are shorter GTX 960 versions with only one fan.
Also make sure your motherboard has 20+4 pin or 24-pin socket for main power supply cable, some extra cheap motherboards have only 8-pin socket for cheap small power supplies.
In that case your best hope would be the GTX 750 Ti graphics card with your current power supply.

[Rove]

I can say that your CPU is fine but your graphics card is really bad. Your graphics (GPU) is bottlenecking your CPU, not the other way around.

I noticed you have a 970 chipset motherboard which almost for sure means 4 RAM slots. As has been said, 4GB of RAM is pretty tiny these days and really needs a upgrade.

Well to give accurate advice I'd really need to know your budget.

Without that all I can say is this would be good for as cheap as I'd ideally like to go:

Mushkin Stealth 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
XFX Radeon R9 280 3GB Double Dissipation Video Card
EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/dxCM7P
Base Total: $339.97
Promo Discounts: -$10.00
Mail-in Rebates: -$40.00
Total: $289.97

EDIT: make sure you have room in the case for this long GPU lengthwise!

Yes you should really get this 750W PSU, it is a better idea to have too much rather than too litle and if you ever overclock your CPU and GPU at the same time plus add in a few more drives and case fans you might find yourself somewhere up in at least the high 600W range. It's better to have spare and be prepared than to have to constantly replace PSUs.

[initiaLiSeD]

For Skyrim upgrading to a 6000 series will give you a good bump:

http://www.techspot.com/review/467-skyrim-performance/page7.html

But you need to stick to a 95W CPU max with that board which kind of rules out picking up a second hand 1055T (~£60) and clocking it towards 4GHz unless it turns out you have a good 970 motherboard...

[Rove]

Oh by the way you will need to check that the GPU I recommended will fit inside your case. It is fairly long so you really need to check that you have room for it.

[upcoast]

http://cpuid.com/

Download CPU-Z and find out what motherboard you've got other than 970/sb950 there's no way of knowing if its' got 2 dimms or 4, if it has 4 dimms you could match up another 2x2GB ram set.

GTX960 and 600w sounds good.

[bassnninja]

OK first off thank you all for the very quick replies.

After running CPUZ here is what I got.
The main board - AsusTek computer INC,
Model M52BC Rev 1 .xx
Chipset AMD, RD9x0 , REV 02
South Bridge AMD, SB910/950 Rev 40
LPCIO - ITE, IT 8721
Brand American Megatrends INc
Version 0203
Graphic Interface PCI-Express
Link width x16, max supported x16

Memory - DDR3 , channel# Single, 4gig, NB frequency 2006.3MHz
Dram Freq 802.7 mhz
FSB DRAM 1:4

According to the SPD section of CPUz it looks like
MAx bandwidth PC3 12800 (800mhz)
Samsung

DO yall want the timings tables?

Im thinking of just going with the nvida 750 TI and a ram pack from frys to get up to 8gigs.
Would this selection...for now...give me a pretty good boost. 750Ti simply because I do not want to replace the PSU at the moment, but that may change between now and friday.

Also I attempted to overclock my card with asus tuner, and although I am able, it really does not speed up much of anything on heaven benchmark.

[Andrius227]

Yeah gtx750ti is a great choice. Cheap and efficient. It's like 10 times more powerfull than the gt 620, so it's a good upgrade. Anything better would probably be bottlenecked by the cpu anyway.

[bassnninja]

Ok so, i tried finding the specs for the motherboard on the net but I coudnt find the brand so that I can see if it would take a 750ti PCIe 3.0.
I was also trying to find out what kind of ram I can add to it, I know from past experiane it has to be the same ...as in the same amount of gigs. Can i just get another 4gig chip of the same brand or should I get just one 8 gig chip or what?

[Andrius227]

引用自 bassnninja：

Ok so, i tried finding the specs for the motherboard on the net but I coudnt find the brand so that I can see if it would take a 750ti PCIe 3.0.
I was also trying to find out what kind of ram I can add to it, I know from past experiane it has to be the same ...as in the same amount of gigs. Can i just get another 4gig chip of the same brand or should I get just one 8 gig chip or what?

If your pc has a gt620, it can also have a gtx750ti no problems there. Ram sticks should idealy be identical, but a different brand with the same speed and memory amount should work too. But they are cheap so i would just buy a new set 2x4gb.

[Rove]

I think the GTX 750 ti would be a huge upgrade to what you have.

On the other hand getting that might mean you are going to want to upgrade your GPU yet again later. The GTX 750 ti has 1306~ GFLOPS, the Xbox One has 1310 GFLOPS, the Play Station 4 has 1840 GFLOPS and the R9 280 3GB that I recommended to you has 3344~ GFLOPS. So a GTX 750 ti is less than 1/2 as powerful as a R9 280. There's a reason you need a new PSU for a R9 280. The GTX 750 ti might barely match the Xbox One and even exceed it with a good overclock which the XB1 can not do. It is just not even close to PS4 power though.

If you want a lower budget option that is still a lot better than the GTX 750 ti and might be a better match up with your relatively good CPU then I suggest a R9 270 and a 500W PSU.

Here's the idea:

A-Data XPG V1.0 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
PowerColor Radeon R9 270 2GB TurboDuo Video Card
EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/jhHrQ7
Base Total: $219.97
Mail-in Rebates: -$40.00
Shipping: $2.99
Total: $182.96

The R9 270 does 2368~ GFLOPS which is getting near twice as much as the GTX 750 ti.

[Andrius227]

引用自 Rove：

I think the GTX 750 ti would be a huge upgrade to what you have.

On the other hand getting that might mean you are going to want to upgrade your GPU yet again later. The GTX 750 ti has 1306~ GFLOPS, the Xbox One has 1310 GFLOPS, the Play Station 4 has 1840 GFLOPS and the R9 280 3GB that I recommended to you has 3344~ GFLOPS. So a GTX 750 ti is less than 1/2 as powerful as a R9 280. There's a reason you need a new PSU for a R9 280. The GTX 750 ti might barely match the Xbox One and even exceed it with a good overclock which the XB1 can not do. It is just not even close to PS4 power though.

If you want a lower budget option that is still a lot better than the GTX 750 ti and might be a better match up with your relatively good CPU then I suggest a R9 270 and a 500W PSU.

Here's the idea:

A-Data XPG V1.0 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
PowerColor Radeon R9 270 2GB TurboDuo Video Card
EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/jhHrQ7
Base Total: $219.97
Mail-in Rebates: -$40.00
Shipping: $2.99
Total: $182.96

The R9 270 does 2368~ GFLOPS which is getting near twice as much as the GTX 750 ti.

Don't think it's worth paying 85$ extra for a very minor gpu preformance increase (~30%). Specially with such a poor cpu. It would also increase electricity bills.

[Rove]

引用自 Andrius227：

Don't think it's worth paying 85$ extra for a very minor gpu preformance increase (~30%). Specially with such a poor cpu.

1) I dispute that the R9 270 is only 30% more powerful. I think it's more like +80% more.

2) Who is talking about $85 extra here? That total price I quoted includes RAM and a PSU. Even if you want to include the cost of the PSU cause it is required for the R9 270 to run you still don't need to include the cost of the RAM. The PSU and GPU together are only $50~ more expensive than the cheapest GTX 750 ti. It's $160~ for the R9 270 & 500W PSU or it's $110~ for the cheapest GTX 750 ti I can find. Having a better PSU is also worth something on it's own.

[Andrius227]

引用自 Rove：

引用自 Andrius227：

Don't think it's worth paying 85$ extra for a very minor gpu preformance increase (~30%). Specially with such a poor cpu.

1) I dispute that the R9 270 is only 30% more powerful. I think it's more like +80% more.

2) Who is talking about $85 extra here? That total price I quoted includes RAM and a PSU. Even if you want to include the cost of the PSU cause it is required for the R9 270 to run you still don't need to include the cost of the RAM. The PSU and GPU together are only $50~ more expensive than the cheapest GTX 750 ti. It's $160~ for the R9 270 & 500W PSU or it's $110~ for the cheapest GTX 750 ti I can find.

1. http://www.game-debate.com/gpu/index.php?gid=1864&gid2=883&compare=radeon-r9-270-vs-geforce-gtx-750-ti
30% better performance at the cost of 2.5x higher power consumption (150w vs 60w)

2. My bad, looked at the base price without rebates. Still paying 50$ extra is unnecessary.

Considering that they are currently using a gt 620, the 750ti will be a massive improvement.

[Rove]

I compare on Wikipedia. here is links:

Rx 200 series
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units#Radeon_Rx_200_Series

GeForce 700 series
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units#GeForce_700_Series

As you can see the R9 270 packs in twice as much core hardware (1280:80:32 versus 640:40:16 core configurations) and over twice as much memory bandwidth as the GTX 750 ti. The core runs a little bit slower but it can also be overclocked. At stocks speeds the R9 270 has roughly 180% of the performance of the GTX 750 ti or GTX 750 ti performance +80%.

That's according to the technical stats released by both manufacturers. If you do not believe Wikipedia you can go and find it on their websites instead. It is there just not as convenient.

[Andrius227]

引用自 Rove：

I compare on Wikipedia. here is links:

Rx 200 series
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units#Radeon_Rx_200_Series

GeForce 700 series
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units#GeForce_700_Series

As you can see the R9 270 packs in twice as much core hardware (1280:80:32 versus 640:40:16 core configurations) and over twice as much memory bandwidth as the GTX 750 ti. The core runs a little bit slower but it can also be overclocked. At stocks speeds the R9 270 has roughly 180% of the performance of the GTX 750 ti or GTX 750 ti performance +80%.

That's according to the technical stats released by both manufacturers. If you do not believe Wikipedia you can go and find it on their websites instead. It is there just not as convenient.

You can't really compare CUDA cores to the standard amd stream processors. They are different. r9 270 has 2x stream processors than the 750ti has cuda cores, it does not mean it is 2x more powerfull.

For example look at the FuryX (4096 stream processors) and gtx980ti (2816 cuda cores). 980ti is still more powerfull than the fury x, even with much less cuda cores.

Amd vs nvidia can only be compared with benchmarks.