Thinking of upgrading PC. Advice on what to upgrade?

[Latrobe]

Thinking about upgrading my PC a bit but I was wondering what I should upgrade. Here's my current specs:

Win 7 Pro 64-bit
1TB Hard Drive
Nvidia GeForce GTX 760
Intel i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz
600 Watt PSU
24GB RAM (x2 8GB and x2 4GB I believe)
MSI MS-7673 P67A-C43 (B3) Motherboard


I know a little about computers and I think the weakest part of my PC at this point is my Processor, though I don't know a thing about motherboards so I don't know how good my motherboard is. Should I look into a new processor? And if I do should I look for an i7? or are i5's still pretty good? Or should I look into a new motherboard? And if I do what should I know about getting a new motherboard?

[Bizman]

The need of upgrade depends much on what you're using it for. For AH I'd wait. There's been speculations that the next version may rely more on the video card than the current version, although no one can exactly tell. Not even HiTech himself, nor Skuzzy, for that matter.

For other uses, well, that's a very good computer for almost any use. There's been studies made, giving the result that a regular user wouldn't notice less than a 20% rise in processor effectivity. Someone once told me that roughly doubling the power would be the only viable solution. I believe such an upgrade would be either impossible or above your budget. Or both. You're on the line where the prices of single frames per second rise exponentially.

If you really want to give yourself a christmas present inside your computer, a better video card might give you the best bang for the buck. There's been talk about the highest end nVidia cards soon being available for a lowered price. Something like the GTX970 would keep your gaming experience on a high level for a long time in the price range of $350.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Thinking about upgrading my PC a bit but I was wondering what I should upgrade. Here's my current specs:

Win 7 Pro 64-bit
1TB Hard Drive
Nvidia GeForce GTX 760
Intel i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz
600 Watt PSU
24GB RAM (x2 8GB and x2 4GB I believe)
MSI MS-7673 P67A-C43 (B3) Motherboard


I know a little about computers and I think the weakest part of my PC at this point is my Processor, though I don't know a thing about motherboards so I don't know how good my motherboard is. Should I look into a new processor? And if I do should I look for an i7? or are i5's still pretty good? Or should I look into a new motherboard? And if I do what should I know about getting a new motherboard?

You have a K processor so the best thing you can do is overclock the heck out of it. You can get marginal improvement by upgrading the cpu and motherboard but bad value for dollar. If I were you I would push the i5 as far as it goes and maybe invest to a quality CPU cooler before trying it. You won't get a cheaper upgrade than that. Your motherboard even came with 1 button push OC Genie overclocking - you're wasting your money on a K cpu if you don't overclock it!

Also your graphics card is on the weak side for current games (not AH).

[guncrasher]

I got the same processor but with a better video card.  big difference.


semp

[Rich46yo]

Thats about my system tho I have an i7 and 12 gigs Ram "big deal right". I honestly dont feel the need to upgrade nor do I think you should either. The cheapest and quickest thing you can do is buy a better vid card. Tho the 760 will easily handle anything on the market and I'd bet I wouldn't notice nothing different over my 780.

I cant help but wonder why you spent so much $$ on RAM? 24 gigs of RAM is an awful lot of Ram.

Keep it another year unless your a well heeled oil Sheik with your own Gulf Stream and Harem of naked co-eds.

[Pudgie]

Hi Latrobe,

I looked up your mobo specs & outside of the small & really non-issue of the PCI-E lanes being PCI-E 2.x spec (since you're using a single vid card), you got a good setup.
As also mentioned you got a good CPU that can OC very well (if OC'ing is something you would consider) & get some extra performance there w/o a CPU upgrade. Your socket is an 1156 socket which allows you to a wide range of CPU upgrade possibilities but when I checked the mobo BIOS's available for your mobo on MSI's website none gave any hints at any issues between a SB, IB or Haswell vers Intel socket 1156 I3, I5 or I7 CPU working so this may be a trial & see endeavor so you may want to weigh this out if your really considering a CPU upgrade (I'm assuming that your current CPU is a SB CPU). Currently I couldn't find any listed roadblocks that would limit your choices here so the sky looks to be the limit.................

The vid card is a place where you could gain some creditable performance & IMHO the GTX 970 vid card is the 1 to use on this platform (as already been mentioned & assuming from the current GTX 760 card you may prefer Nvidia). If this were my platform I would do this...................

The 1 other area that I see but not enough info is given that some more performance can be squeeked from is your mem modules.....not talking bout their capacity but their frequency or speed. Your mobo specs out to accept mem frequencies up to 2133Hz. You didn't give what the current mem frequency of your mem is just the capacity. If you were to check the white papers on the I5 2500K CPU the mem speed specs are listed at 1066/1333 but from my experience they can usually work with mem approx 267Hz faster than the max spec....over this I don't know. I haven't found anything that says that they won't work with much faster mem so the limit should be what your mobo/chipset can support which is 2133Hz.

Now the mobo specs will say that this speed is attainable w/ OC. That was the case at the time of manufacture as there were no DC sets of matched 2133Hz mem kits available so you had to OC the 1333/1600/1866Hz sets to get there. This is not the case anymore as the matched DC 2133Hz mem kits are available so the BIOS should read the mem SPD & use it at the rated speed as long as the mobo supports the speed range.

In all you got a good set up that should run most apps/games very well but if you want to upgrade it then I say go for it as you can do some things w/ the mobo/CPU combo you have already.

Hope this helps.................

 

[MrRiplEy[H]]

The price/performance return for upgrading ram speed is horrible. You'll pay 200-300 bucks to get 0.5 -1% increase in speed if even that. Not advisable.

Overclock + new graphics card is your most sensible upgrade path.

[Denniss]

If you want to upgrade your graphics card first have a look at your PSU - not every PSU with a 600W label is really able to deliver these 600W. Especially super-cheap "600W" PSU have often delivered just 50% of this before shutting down or quitting with a bang.

[Masherbrum]

Overclock the CPU and get a 970.   

[Latrobe]

Thanks for the advice guys! Looks like a new video card is what I'll start looking at and I'll have to read up on how to overclock. I've always heard about overclocking but I never put in any time to figure out how to do it.

I cant help but wonder why you spent so much $$ on RAM? 24 gigs of RAM is an awful lot of Ram.

I just had some extra cash on hand and wanted to get something new for my PC. I thought "Why the heck not?" and just bought 2 8 GB sticks.

As for what my memory frequency is at it's set to 665.1 MHz. Is this an ok speed? Or should I look to increase that if I want to squeak a little more performance out of them?

I was also checking out the core speed for my CPU while I was at it and it appears to be running around 3500 MHz.


Also, since my PC is apparently good enough for now (just need to overclock and get new vid card) maybe I should look into a 120 Hz monitor? I've always wanted to play games in 120 FPS Who makes good 120 Hz Monitors?


And 1 more thing. I keep hearing about liquid cooling. How easy is that? Do you have to monitor anything or is it just set it up and let it go?

[Bizman]

Your memory frequence is ok for DDR3-1333. As has been said, your motherboard supports faster memory. Check your memory modules and only use the fastest because the motherboard will automatically use settings suitable for the slowest memory installed. Here's a chart for DDR3 speeds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3_SDRAM#JEDEC_standard_modules.

As a rule of thumb, if your system is short of memory, quantity will outperform speed. If your memory amount is sufficient, speed rating will affect performance. 8 GB is sufficient for Windows 7 for most tasks, 16 GB is good for most memory intensive tasks like video editing. If you really needed more, you'd be a professional using dedicated programs whose requirements you'd be familiar with.

Your CPU core speed is apparently automatically a little overclocked. Intel turbo boost most likely: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/turbo-boost/turbo-boost-technology.html.

Can't recommend any monitors, but as for frequency I've read people here say that 144 Hz is the thing to look for.

There's pros and cons for liquid cooling. If you think about noise, both air and liquid cooling require some fans, the design of which determines the noise level. Also bear in mind your case can't be liquid cooled, only certain components. Your motherboard settings allow you to either get a warning or shutdown your computer in case of a fan failure, whereas a liquid cooler doesn't have any safety system for leaks. I suppose in very hot surroundings you might be able to cool your CPU and video card better with an external liquid cooler system. As you can figure, those can be a pain to transport to lan parties. Not to mention the cleaning lady might pull the connecting hose off with her mop...

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Most non-home made liquid coolers are really not any quieter than the quality air coolers are. Some don't even cool that well for the price.

I would recommend getting a Noctua NH14 for example and then use the built in automatic overclocking tool supplied with your motherboard. Usually they give pretty good results. Sometimes they raise the voltage of your CPU unnecessarily high though so this is something you may want to look at. At the MINIMUM get a good cooler before overclocking.

[Latrobe]

I was wondering about liquid cooling and how it matches up to fan cooling, if it cools better than a fan or not. I don't care about noise so long as my PC performs like a beast and stays cool doing it . My room is in the basement and it never gets over 68 degrees (Fahrenheit). I think I do need a good fan as I only have 1 in my PC at the moment.

[Bizman]

68 fahrenheit is 20 celsius which is a cool atmosphere for a home computer. I'd say you wouldn't benefit from liquid cooling. A couple of large (120 mm) slow rotating (sub 1000 rpm) fans placed cleverly should keep your case temperature below 100 fahrenheit or 38 celsius. Slowly rotating large fans don't even add any noise although they move huge amounts of air.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I was wondering about liquid cooling and how it matches up to fan cooling, if it cools better than a fan or not. I don't care about noise so long as my PC performs like a beast and stays cool doing it . My room is in the basement and it never gets over 68 degrees (Fahrenheit). I think I do need a good fan as I only have 1 in my PC at the moment.

One case fan? In normal room temperature you don't need a huge amount of fans. The most important thing is that the air can move inside and around your case freely. Hot air will naturally escape up and out of the box even if you have no case fans at all. But if you keep your computer in a corner or in a closet that may severely hinder the cooling.

Trust me when I say that noise matters. You really don't want to listen to a hoover running at full blast next to your ears when you're playing or surfing. Some of the computer coolers give an ear breaking whirring noise. As a general rule the bigger fan and slower rpm you get the easier it tends to be on your ears. I once had a computer case with a 15" fan on the side. The fan moved very slowly and silently but pushed big CFM through the case.

Keep in mind that if you choose liquid cooling you'll have to rethink your case cooling also. With a liquid cooler you no longer have a CPU fan moving air to ram sticks, motherboard power regulators etc. stuff which are designed around the CPU.